August 28, 2008

Skoll Foundation Extends Investments in Leading Social Entrepreneurs

• Follow-on investment in Skoll social entrepreneurs selected in 2005 will advance sustainable change in education, health, environment, economic development and human rights
• Foundation selects two new recipients for Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and makes additional ecosystem investments

PALO ALTO, Calif.—Aug. 26, 2008—The Skoll Foundation today announced additional investments in the inaugural 2005 recipients of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, named two new recipients of the Award, and deepened its commitment to building out a global ecosystem to support social entrepreneurs. These new grants total $19.18 million. The follow-on investment in the 2005 Skoll social entrepreneur class is designed to help these organizations further drive systemic change in the regions in and issues on which they work and achieve sustainability. The new award winners, Teach For All (Teach For America) and Apopo, will each receive three-year grants of $1,015,000 and join the growing global network of Skoll social entrepreneurs, now numbering 61, who have created innovative, effective solutions for combating social and economic challenges worldwide. The Foundation has also deepened its relationship with the Santa Clara University’s Global Social Benefit Incubator and with Duke University’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, reflecting the Foundation’s commitment to supporting the global ecosystem for social entrepreneurs.

“We have had the chance to work closely with our initial group of Skoll social entrepreneurs over the last three years, helping us better understand both what is most effective in driving systemic change and what these innovators need to be successful,” said Sally Osberg, CEO of the Skoll Foundation. “The additional investments we’re making now show our continued support for the power of the social entrepreneurial model and our commitment to helping build a global network to support social entrepreneurs.”

The Skoll Foundation’s flagship Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (SASE) program identifies and supports social entrepreneurs who are effectively addressing key challenges in six critical issues: tolerance & human rights, health, environmental sustainability, peace & security, institutional responsibility and economic & social equity. Climate change, pandemics, access to water, nuclear proliferation and Middle East conflict are areas of special urgency. The inaugural 2005 SASE awards were three-year grants for unrestricted core support to help the recipients scale their organizations and drive permanent social change. On June 10, the Foundation’s board approved a series of follow-on investments, totaling $15.18 million in aggregate, to these 2005 SASE organizations. The primary criteria for additional funding were the organization’s potential to drive equilibrium change and the sustainability of its business model. The Foundation also assessed the organization’s leadership teams, as well as their potential for leveraging Skoll funding, in its decision.

“What struck us in studying the progress of these organizations is how effectively they have used core operating support to strengthen their management and increase their capacity to seize the opportunities before them,” said Lance Henderson, vice president of program and impact at the Skoll Foundation. “Selecting innovative social entrepreneurial leaders, helping strengthen their organizations through core operating support, and celebrating their success is a highly leveraged use of philanthropic resources. The progress these organizations have made is our evidence of impact.” 
The 13 organizations receiving follow-on funding from the Skoll Foundation are: Barefoot College, Camfed, Citizen Schools, Committee for Democracy in Information Technology, Fundacion Paraguaya, IDE–India, the Institute for OneWorld Health, KickStart, Root Capital, Rugmark, Sonidos de la Tierra, TransFair, and Witness.

New SASE Awards

In addition to the follow-on investments in 2005 Skoll grantees, the Foundation also announced two new recipients of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2007, the Foundation instituted a new year-round grant-making process for its SASE program, resulting in a smaller number of grants awarded three to four times a year. These new recipient organizations will be celebrated at the 2009 Skoll World Forum next March.

Teach For All (Teach For America)
Wendy Kopp was struck by the inequities in the U.S. education system as a freshman at Princeton University where she saw smart, talented public school students struggle academically because of their weak preparation. At the same time, many of her peers were searching for jobs that would offer significance and meaning. In her senior thesis, she outlined a plan to build a national teachers corps by recruiting recent college graduates to teach in America’s neediest schools. Upon graduation, she began implementing her idea, raising $2.5 million and convincing schools to participate. In its first year, Teach For America placed 500 young teachers in low-income classrooms. Today, Teach For America fields 6,000 corps members, reaching 500,000 students; at the same time, its 14,000 alumni are serving as important leaders and advocates for education reform. Skoll funding will support Teach For All, a new organization created as a partnership between Teach For America and Teach First, the first adaptation of the program in the U.K., to help entrepreneurs in other countries who are pursuing the development of the Teach For America model locally.

Apopo (HeroRATS)
As a child, Bart Weetjens kept rodents as pets and bred them as a schoolboy’s small business. In the early 1990s, Bart’s interest was drawn to the humanitarian issue of landmines. Bart’s analysis indicated that the main bottleneck in mine clearance was the high cost, extreme danger and time intensity of the detection process. Bart saw the limitations of using mine detection dogs in Africa, including their vulnerability to tropical diseases, climate and the need for expensive foreign trainers. Local rats, far cheaper than dogs and well-suited for the tropical environment, seemed a natural solution to Bart. The idea was greeted with laughter from mine removal experts. Thanks to Bart’s persistence, the Belgian government provided a research grant in 1997. Since then, Bart and his team have developed and transformed their HeroRAT technology into a leading method for mine detection in Africa. He has since extended this technology to other challenges, such as tuberculosis detection.

“Wendy Kopp and Bart Weetjens are powerful examples of effective social entrepreneurs, seizing on ideas others said wouldn’t work or couldn’t scale and bringing that determination to bear on difficult challenges in education and in post-conflict environments,” said Osberg. “It’s a privilege to add them as partners to the growing network of Skoll social entrepreneurs, and we look forward to helping them increase the impact of their organizations.”

Building the ecosystem

Complementing its support for leading social entrepreneurs, the Foundation is deepening its work to expand the global ecosystem that social entrepreneurs need to succeed.
“The field of social entrepreneurship will advance primarily as a result of individual social entrepreneurs succeeding in their endeavors, but they can’t do it alone,” said Henderson. “They need key resources from the ecosystem -- knowledge on business models that work, finance, networks, talent and skills, and policy support. The Skoll Foundation is committed to helping make those resources accessible for social entrepreneurs around the globe.”
In this vein, the Foundation’s board has approved deepening two important ecosystem initiatives:

Santa Clara University’s Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI®):
To build knowledge and skills, Santa Clara University’s GSBI initiative, a signature program of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society, provides intensive support to hone business models of high-potential social entrepreneurs via classroom work, distance learning and mentoring. In 2008, the program accepted 16 participants working in 10 developing countries. New three-year Skoll support of $1.08 million will allow the program to focus on a selected vertical sector each year, expand geographic coverage, and better disseminate the lessons learned from the program.

Duke University Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) at the Fuqua School of Business
Also focused on building knowledge, CASE faculty engage in practitioner-oriented research aimed at strengthening the field of social entrepreneurship. With three-year Skoll support of $883,000, CASE will undertake two new research projects that will help social entrepreneurs, funders and policy makers become more effective. One will create and disseminate knowledge about the various business models that can be used by social entrepreneurs. The other will provide a comprehensive, in-depth look at social entrepreneurship as a tool for social change, its power, limitations, and potential for the future. These projects should enhance the impact of social entrepreneurship in such crucial areas as global health and environment/climate change.

About the Skoll Foundation

The Skoll Foundation was created in 1999 by eBay's first president, Jeff Skoll, to promote his vision of a more peaceful and prosperous world. Today, the Skoll Foundation advances systemic change to benefit communities around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs - individuals dedicated to innovative, bottom-up solutions that transform unequal and unjust social, environmental and economic systems.
The Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship is the foundation's flagship program. There are currently 52 organizations represented by 61 remarkable social entrepreneurs in the program, working individually and together across regions, countries and continents to evolve the field of social entrepreneurship into a global movement for social change. The Skoll Foundation connects social entrepreneurs and other partners in the field via an online community at www.socialedge.org and through the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. The foundation also celebrates social entrepreneurs by telling their stories through partnerships with the PBS Foundation and the Sundance Institute, with the goal of promoting large-scale public awareness of social entrepreneurship.

For more information, visit www.skollfoundation.org.