Welcome to Skoll eNews, the Skoll Foundation’s bimonthly update on Skoll activities and news in the world of social entrepreneurship!



Amitabha Sadangi Empowers the Poor

Although Amitabha Sadangi has assisted hundreds of thousands of families in India, he doesn’t believe in charity.

“My entire life, I have listened to the poor and learned from them,” he explained.

As CEO of International Development Enterprises-India, he is offering low-cost irrigation tools that allow subsistence and cash farmers to vastly improve their crop yields and lift themselves out of poverty. But he doesn’t give away the tools or subsidize their cost.

“If we provide the right tool, they will find a way to pay for it,” he said.

Amitabha should know. Until the age of 25, he was never sure where his next meal would come from. He grew up in a tiny, remote village in the Indian state of Orissa, where 99 percent of the people were poor. He sold newspapers and later worked as an accountant to pay for his studies, ultimately completing a postgraduate degree in labor and social welfare, in addition to a law degree.

He has not forgotten that struggle. “I saw the poverty. I knew I had to do something,” he said, with compassion shining in his brown eyes.

In a previous job, he offered free housing to the poor, which he found “demoralizing” because “we were treating people like beggars.” Later a friend from the United States showed him a low-cost pump designed to help farmers irrigate their fields, and Amitabha set up a network to market the product through IDE-India. In the 1990s, this water-lifting device, which operates much like a stair-climber, helped more than 500,000 families double their income, primarily in the northern states where the water table is high.

After 10 years of working with IDE International in the United States, IDE-India registered as an Indian nonprofit and turned leadership over to a national board and Amitabha, who had been the local leader of a staff directed by expatriates. Two years later, Amitabha introduced a new product called the “KB drip” that helps families in semi-arid regions of India irrigate crops. (KB is short for “krishak bhandu,” or “farmer’s friend” in Hindi.)

At just $1 per unit, the drip system is affordable for even the poorest of the poor. It increases water use productivity from 70 to 100 percent, improves yields, helps reduce the need for fertilizers and pesticides, and grows more uniform crops. Instead of being at the mercy of monsoons and droughts, farmers can grow vegetables year-round and don’t have to migrate in search of work. “If they buy equipment for $1, they can turn it into $10,” said Amitabha.

Amitabha estimates that IDE-India’s technology has contributed to increased incomes for more than 800,000 families in India, most of whom formerly lived on about $350 per year—far less than the worldwide poverty level of $1 per person per day. With help from the Skoll Foundation, the organization plans to assist an additional 250,000 families by 2008, creating at least $184 million in new wealth.

To read an expanded version of this article, click here.

Skoll World Forum Begins Registration

Registration is now open for the third annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, and early-bird discounts are available if you book by January 31. This year’s event will be held March 29-31 at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University in England. It will focus on leveraging assets and growing social capital markets. Among the speakers will be:

• Jeff Skoll, founder and chairman of the Skoll Foundation and founder and CEO of Participant Productions
• Al Gore (pictured above), former vice president of the United States and now chairman of Generation Investment Management
• David Blood, former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and now managing partner of Generation Investment Management
• Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and pioneer of the microfinance movement
• Victoria Hale, CEO of Institute for OneWorld Health, which develops drugs to tackle diseases that disproportionately affect people in developing countries

We encourage you to book now, as spaces filled quickly last year and we were unable to accommodate 200 people who wanted to attend.

Click here to read more about the 2006 Skoll World Forum.
Click here to see the fee schedule.
Click here to register online.

Social Edge Debuts Giving Index

This month Social Edge introduced a weekly feature on its home page called The GlobalGiving Index. Updated once a week, The GlobalGiving Index highlights what’s hot (and what’s not) in charity giving. It lists:

• The top five funded projects, which are projects that have received the most donations in the previous week
• The average donation size for all GlobalGiving-supported projects
• The total volume of donations for the week
• The theme that received the most donations
• The geographic area that received the most donations

The GlobalGiving Index on Social Edge is a unique tool to help social entrepreneurs around the world monitor their progress, adapt their messaging and launch new social ventures. GlobalGiving connects individual and institutional donors directly to social and economic development projects, as well as environmental causes, around the world.

Queen Elizabeth awarded an OBE to Ann Cotton, founder of Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED), in the New Year Honors List in recognition of Ann’s services to girls’ education in rural Africa. The award was instituted in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the 20th century for merit, service or bravery. OBE is the abbreviation for Officer of the Excellence Order of the British Empire.

Fast Company magazine’s list of 2006 Social Capitalist Award winners, which it describes as the “top 25 groups that are changing the world,” includes six current recipients of Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship: Citizen Schools, College Summit, KickStart (formerly ApproTEC), Room to Read, TransFair USA and WITNESS.

Actress Angelina Jolie and singer Emmylou Harris joined activist-musician Peter Gabriel, founder of WITNESS, for a benefit gala in New York City that highlighted the organization’s work in Sierra Leone, where an 11-year civil war traumatized the nation. WITNESS was invited to raise public awareness of peace-building efforts within the country by producing a video called Witness to Truth that documented the causes and consequences of the conflict, which finally ended in 2002. WITNESS uses the power of film to call attention to human rights violations.

Pakistan was one of eight countries selected worldwide to celebrate the United Nations year of Microcredit 2005 by holding the the Global Entrepreneurship Awards on December 31 in Islamabad. At that event, Irshaad Baji, a client of the Kashf Foundation, won the award for securing the top position among clients of microfinance institutions. Roshaneh Zafar of Kashf reports that Irshaad persevered through hard times to build two successful businesses, one in bookbinding and one in birthday party supplies.

Lenders for Community Development (LCD) is one of two nonprofits selected to receive Bank of America’s Neighborhood Builders Award, in recognition of the organization’s outstanding track record in investing in the people and communities in and around San Jose, Calif. The award includes a $200,000 contribution and leadership development training for two members of the LCD management team. LCD helps the working poor become economically self-sufficient by promoting asset development at the household level.

During her tenure with the Skoll Foundation, Barbara made important contributions to our vitality as an organization, drawing upon her knowledge of philanthropy and commitment to effective practice. We will miss Barbara and wish her well.