Skoll Foundation

Generation Capital Management just released a white paper called Sustainable Capitalism. The Skoll Foundation was the first foundation investor in Generation, and sustainable markets is one of our focus areas. An excerpt from the 26-page paper:

“The objective of this paper is twofold. First, we make the economic case for mainstreaming Sustainable Capitalism by highlighting the fact that it does not represent a trade-off with profit maximisation but instead actually fosters superior long-term value creation. Second, we recommend five key actions for immediate adoption that will accelerate the mainstreaming of Sustainable Capitalism by 2020:

1. Identify and incorporate risks from stranded assets; 2. Mandate integrated reporting; 3. End the default practice of issuing quarterly earnings guidance; 4. Align compensation structures with long-term sustainable performance; and 5. Encourage long-term investing with loyalty-driven securities.

Read the rest: http://www.generationim.com/media/pdf-generation-sustainable-capitalism-v1.pdf

It’s been 10 years since wear began in Afghanistan, and Good magazine interviewed Skoll Awardee Connie Duckworth of Arzu about her work with women. An excerpt:

“Duckworth ticks off ARZU’s other accomplishments like items on a grocery list. The group has created 1,000 jobs and avoided the security risks of putting foreign nationals on the ground by training an all-Afghan staff to carry out local operations. ARZU has figured out how to heat its workshops by burning briquettes made from shredded paper discarded by the U.S. Embassy instead of contributing to Afghanistan’s deforestation problem—they even sell leftover briquettes to local government offices. Digital collaborations between American and Afghan designers have produced carpet patterns that appeal to a wide variety of tastes while preserving traditional techniques.

This success hasn’t gone unnoticed. ARZU’s model won the 2008 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and was recognized by the Edison Awards last year for best new product in the lifestyle and social impact category. Now Duckworth is hoping to turn ARZU’s $10 to $15 “peace cord”—a wristband woven from military parachute fabric—into the next Livestrong bracelet.”

See more photos and read more: http://www.good.is/post/rebuilding-afghanistan-s-villages-rug-by-rug/

Sundance, so glitzy on top, is constantly and astonishingly substantive underneath. The best films are often documentaries and the best conversations, at least last week, were about social entrepreneurship not celebrities. Four Skoll awardees – Imazon, Mothers2Mothers, Tostan and Water.org – gathered at the festival in Park City, Utah from Monday to Friday for movies and merriment, but most of all for deep analysis of their own story-telling. The question: How can they more powerfully get the word out about their work?

The Stories of Change convening, led by the Sundance Institute and the Skoll Foundation, came to a really productive close on Friday, with all four awardees having significant breakthroughs. Each is at a crucial inflection point: Imazon has helped reduce Amazon deforestation from 60M acres a year ten years ago to 15M a year, and aims for less than 6M by 2020. Mothers2Mothers reaches 20% of HIV+ pregnant women and is poised to eliminate mother to child transmission of HIV in the next three years. Tostan has enabled 6000+ villages in West Africa come together to abandon practices such as female genital cutting (FGC), child marriage and domestic abuse and is set to rid Senegal of FGC. Water.org has pioneered the concept of water credit and now is in a position to lead a global movement to ensure that everyone in the world will have access to clean water and sanitation – in our lifetime. read more

SKOLL FOUNDATION AND SUNDANCE INSTITUTE PRESENT CELEBRATING “STORIES OF CHANGE” PANEL
AT 2012 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

Fifth Stories of Change Convening for Filmmakers and Social Entrepreneurs

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and the Skoll Foundation announced a special Celebrating “Stories of Change” panel to be held at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The panel celebrates the five-year partnership Stories of Change: Social Entrepreneurship in Focus Through Documentary initiative, dedicated to exploring film’s role in advancing knowledge about social entrepreneurship.

At this special event on Tuesday, January 24, 3 p.m. at the Egyptian Theatre, Skoll Foundation President and CEO Sally Osberg will moderate a thought-provoking dialogue between award-winning filmmakers (including clips from their work) and innovators who are impacting millions. Panelists include Joia Mukherjee (Partners in Health), Jehane Noujaim (Director, Control Room), Bunker Roy (Founder, Barefoot College) and Kief Davidson (Director, The Devil’s Miner). For tickets,  visit www.sundance.org/tickets. The above photo, taken at the 2010 Sundance Festival, from left to right:  Robert Redford with Skoll entrepreneurs Quratul ain Bahkteari (IDSP), Bunker Roy (Barefoot College), Munqeth Mehyar (EcoPeace) and Martin von Hildebrand (Gaia Amazonas). read more

Sunday’s New York Times featured two stories about philanthropy in Silicon Valley. Both mentioned the Skoll Foundation, and one included an interview with Jeff Skoll. Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, who we wrote about recently, was the focus of the print article. An excerpt from the New York Times:

“The newest generation of entrepreneurs is more philanthropic while they are young, thanks largely to Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen’s work, said Jeff Skoll, eBay’s first president and the founder of the Skoll Foundation. ‘The old thinking that you work, then you retire, then you start your foundation was still very much in effect,’ Mr. Skoll said of the last tech boom. ‘I think the concept of younger people giving while living has come a lot more to fruition in recent years.’”

Read the rest: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/could-silicon-valley-rethink-philanthropy/

Skoll Foundation CEO Sally Osberg recently gave a speech to a Stanford Graduate School of Business audience. Here’s an excerpt:

“Social entrepreneurs are first and foremost entrepreneurs. We believe entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs are agents of creative destruction…Social entrepreneurs don’t have it easy,” said Osberg, comparing them to Ginger Rogers, who skillfully and deftly mirrored Fred Astaire’s ballroom dance moves. “The social entrepreneur does all that the entrepreneur does: comes up with a game-changing idea, builds the venture, attracts the capital, builds the market, brings the beneficiaries into the fold. But he or she does it backwards and in high heels, because the networks and systems for financing, capitalizing, getting the talent into the venture — that doesn’t exist the way it does in the private sector,” she said.

Read more about her talk at http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/osberg_skoll_2011.html

November 29, 2011 – Palo Alto, CA – The Skoll Foundation today announced the 2012 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship.

“Looking at our winners, we are humbled,” said Sally Osberg, President and CEO of the foundation. “Our goal is impact – these are the people pulling it off. They’ve shown not just entrepreneurial vision, but the persistence needed to make lasting change. The four organizations we honor this year offer scalable, proven solutions to some of the world’s most daunting problems. Three of the four are from Asian countries. All are pioneering new grassroots mechanisms that unleash the power of citizen-driven change, a hallmark of true social entrepreneurship.” read more

Today at 2 p.m. GMT, Skoll Foundation CEO Sally Osberg answered questions in a live chat on the Bellagio Initiative web site. An excerpt:

Q: ‘Can bottom-up entrepreneurs help major international top-down corporations become more startup friendly?’
SO: Great question! Happily, social entrepreneurs are the answer…I want to underscore that social entrepreneurs partner with their stakeholders and communities; it’s their MO in fact…lots of folks think that social entrepreneurs are lone rangers, but they are anything but. Think of the “social” in social entrepreneur as not just describing the why and what–a status quo that leads to oppression, marginalization and victimization of human beings, communities and populations, the goal of social benefit and value, but also the “how,” a way of working with those served.

Read more from Osberg, who gives great examples in Skoll awardees Camfed, Tostan, IDE-India, Riders for Health, Partners in Health, Root Capital and Kiva, here: http://action.bellagioinitiative.org/pages/online-qa-sally-osberg