Skoll Foundation

Richard Fahey, Chief Operating Officer at the Skoll Foundation and Dipender Saluja, Managing Director of the Capricorn Investment Group and Skoll Board Member Peter Hero just returned from Australia, where they spoke on a panel on impact investment. Here’s a new interview in Pro Bono Australia News with Mr. Hero:

“The modern day philanthropists in 2013 are ‘impatient’ with self-made wealth who want to see the end of big issues in their lifetime and be able to measure their impact, a high impact philanthropy event in Melbourne has been told.

Photo: Daniel Mendelbaum

Peter Hero, founder and principal of the US-based Hero Group, told the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation 100-person delegation that giving tends to peak at around the 50 year mark, as opposed to 70 back in the 20th century.

‘They are giving their money away earlier,’ Hero said.

‘They want to give it away in their lifetime.’

Richard Fahey, Chief Operating Officer at the Skoll Foundation and Dipender Saluja, Managing Director of the Capricorn Investment Group also spoke at the event focussing on Social Investment & High Impact Philanthropy.

The wealth of 21st century philanthropists is predominantly self-made at 93% across the United States, according to Hero. This shift differs from 40 years ago when 50% of wealth was inherited and the mindset of giving was different.

In an interview with Pro Bono Australia News, Hero explained that modern day philanthropists in California’s Silicon Valley are more interested in giving money to solutions, not to problems.

‘They are compelled to action by plans and ideas to solve problems,’ he said.

Read the rest: http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2013/05/‘impatient’-21st-century-philanthropists#

The Financial Times just published a series of articles on social entrepreneurship. Here are excerpts from two of the pieces.

The first one focuses on the meaning of the word social entrepreneurship.

“What is social entrepreneurship? The past decade has seen a growing interest in the subject and MBA programmes that include an element of social entrepreneurship are on the rise. But what exactly constitutes a social entrepreneur? While some describe it as doing good while making a profit, others place it firmly in the not-for-profit sector.

‘Social entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship carried out for societal benefit. Social entrepreneurs are every bit as innovative, disciplined and driven as business entrepreneurs, but their ventures focus on solving entrenched social problems: poverty, environmental degradation, lack of access to healthcare, inadequate education and more. Just as entrepreneurship helps advance economic progress, so social entrepreneurship moves humanity in the direction of a more peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.’

Jeff Skoll, philanthropist, former president of eBay, social entrepreneur and founder and chairman of the Skoll Foundation”

Read how others define it: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/6feac7cc-b0bd-11e2-9f24-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2SXFOWkXq

The second one focuses on the fact that social entrepreneurship is on the rise:

Business schools are responding to a surge in demand for education that equips students to become social entrepreneurs. But the structure of those organisations that are ‘doing good‘ is changing rapidly and these changes have implications not only for schools’ positions in rankings tables but also for how students will fund their business education.

‘In the 1980s there was almost no talk at all in business schools about anything that we might now call social entrepreneurship,’ says Peter Tufano, dean of Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. read more

On May 3,  Skoll Foundation COO Richard Fahey and Managing Director of Capricorn Investment Group Dipender Saluja spoke on impact investments at the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network (AEGN)  lunch in Melbourne.

They shared the granting and social investment practices of the foundation.

More from the AEGN:

“The Skoll Foundation works across many sectors, but their work in supporting sustainable markets is particularly relevant to us.

The Skoll Foundation believes that today’s markets do not reflect the real costs of degraded natural resources and unjust labor practices or the hidden opportunities for long-term value creation. Governments and civil society cannot win this battle alone; markets need to mobilize resources to speed this transformation, with supply and demand geared toward sustainable products, services, and practices.  The Skoll Foundation advance innovations that harness the power of markets to drive change by considering all costs and opportunities with a long-term perspective.

Impact investing is primarily distinguished by its intention to address social and environmental challenges through deployment of capital. This event comes at a time of growing interest in impact investing in Australia with the Federal Government recently releasing a major paper on the issue.

Richard Fahey, Chief Operating Officer

Richard Fahey leads the Skoll Foundation’s financial and operations functions.  He has more than 20 years of experience in financial and operations management with Hewlett-Packard, most recently as Finance Director for HP Services, where he was responsible for global financial policies and compliance in areas such as revenue recognition and expenditure controls.

As a Research Analyst with the Federal Reserve Board, Richard modeled the relationship between interest rates and inflation expectations.

Richard earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and history from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago.

Dipender Saluja, Managing Director, Capricorn Investment Group

Dipender Saluja oversees investments in energy technology, cleantech, IT and emerging markets. Dipender is also President and CEO of Automatiks, a Capricorn portfolio company developing energy management platforms. Previously, Dipender was Chief of Staff at Cadence, and prior to that worked at Data General (now EMC), Honeywell and ROLM (now IBM). Dipender serves on the boards of Sunpreme, AST, Embrace, Liquidity, Automatiks and CalStart.

This event has been made possible by the generous support of the Lord Mayors Charitable Fund.”

CEO Sally Osberg will receive the Scripps Distinguished Alumna of the Year tomorrow at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif.

First presented in 1978, the Scripps College Distinguished Alumna Award celebrates the notable achievements of Scripps alumnae and is presented each year during Reunion Weekend. Foremost consideration is sustained growth and distinctive achievement in the nominee’s chosen field.

Sally earned her M.A. in literature from the Claremont Graduate School and her B.A. in English from Scripps College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.  Besides tomorrow’s award, Sally has received the John Gardner Leadership Award from the American Leadership Forum, been inducted into the Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame, and been named by the San Jose Mercury News as one of the “Millennium 100″ for her role in shaping and leading Silicon Valley.

Congratulations, Sally!

CEO Sally Osberg just posted the opening video that played at the Skoll World Forum on her Huffington Post blog, where it’s featured on the front page of the Huffington Post.

She just added her own introduction to the video, saying:

“Anniversaries are always a time to reflect. But for the 10^th anniversary of the Skoll World Forum, we thought that the opportunity was really to look forward. So we asked friends, folks who’d been part of the Forum community for many years, to join us in imagining what the future might be.”

In the video, you’ll  hear the insights of Arianna Huffington, Skoll Awardee Premal Shah, new energy entrepreneur Elon Musk, Creative Commons chief executive Joi Ito, Skoll Awardee Afghan Institute of Learning Founder Sakena Yacoobi, collective intelligence strategist Shaifali Puri, neuroscientist Sarah Caddick, theoretical physicist Geoffrey West, and science prodigy Tanishq Abraham.

Watch: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-osberg/dare-to-imagine_b_3178886.html

CEO Sally Osberg mentions eight Skoll awardees as examples of how social entrepreneurs are delivering new solutions to global problems in her latest op-ed. An excerpt:

“Imagine that you are a mother living in a village in rural Gambia. At least one of your eight children will probably die before reaching the age of five. It doesn’t matter that there are vaccines or treatments for the disease that will take your child—measles, hepatitis, diarrhea, or perhaps HIV. What you know is that it’s a ten-kilometer walk to the health clinic. When you arrive, you’re likely to find a sign saying the nurse couldn’t get there that day.

Andrea and Barry Coleman, stars in the world of motorcycle racing, saw the problem when they went to Africa to support the work of children’s charities. It wasn’t lack of medicine or healthcare workers. Rather, what was missing were the parts, mechanics, and maintenance for vehicles taking workers and supplies to villages and clinics. The couple wept over wasted vehicles rusting behind health-ministry offices, then returned home and mortgaged their house to found Riders for Health, a reliable, scalable vehicle-maintenance system for healthcare delivery.

The story of Riders for Health is a story of social entrepreneurship.”

Read the rest: http://www.forbes.com/sites/skollworldforum/2013/04/08/how-social-entrepreneurs-deliver-new-solutions-to-global-problems/

Wednesday at the Skoll World Forum opening plenary, Harvard Business School Professor Michael E Porter gave a presentation about the new Social Progress Imperative and announced there would be big news: here it is, the official press release! (At 2 p.m. BST Thursday, learn more about it in a Skoll World Forum session that will be streamed online). 

Team led by Harvard Business School Professor Michael E Porter designed index to guide national policies and investments, and shows social progress is about much more than economic growth

(April 11 2013) Oxford, United Kingdom — Sweden is the most socially advanced country globally according to a new index released today at the Skoll World Forum, the premier international platform for accelerating entrepreneurial approaches and innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing social issues. Britain is ranked second, above Germany, which ranks fifth, the United States, sixth, and Japan, eighth.

The Social Progress Index, which ranked 50 countries by their social and environmental performance, was designed by Professor Porter and The Social Progress Imperative. They are working in collaboration with economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and leading international organisations in social entrepreneurship, business, philanthropy, and academia including Cisco, Compartamos Banco, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, Fundación AVINA, and Skoll Foundation.

read more

Skoll Foundation portfolio principal David Rothschild just published a piece on both the Skoll World Forum and Reuters Foundation Alertnet on deforestation. An excerpt:

“A few weeks ago the Skoll World Forum hosted an online debate on how increased global consumption can be balanced with sustainability. The debate asks how a rapidly growing world that is ever consuming can hope to feed everyone, and at the same time address the deforestation that is emitting massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and destroying the world’s greatest tropical forests.  Many contributors made very strong points—even contradicting one another in their approaches and ideas.

The question is daunting, and can seem both overwhelming and discouraging if one thinks about how rapidly the world population is increasing, destined to reach 9 billion by 2050. The question becomes even more challenging when one considers the massive numbers of people entering the lower middle classes, for example in China and India, and their ever increasing consumption patterns including more and more meat, a major driver of deforestation.  Imagine a doubling of the world’s population coupled with a doubling of the world’s consumption: two times two equals four.  Can we really consume four times more and still destroy less tropical forests?

I will start by saying I am not a pessimistic person.  I have been working on tropical forest issues for over 20 years, and I have never been as optimistic about the plight of the world’s tropical forests as I am today.  Just 10 years ago, deforestation seemed out of control.  Billions of dollars was being spent to save the world’s tropical forests, and yet their destruction increased every year. In 2003 and 2004, the years when Amazon deforestation rates peaked, I was living in the Bolivian Amazon along the border with Brazil.  There were entire weeks when the sun seemed to be struggling to burn through a constant haze of smoke from the seemingly endless forest burning.  Despite this, those of us working to save tropical forests made a few gains. But back then, even as gains were made, deforestation continued.  Indigenous peoples gained more rights to their lands. Deforestation continued. Protected areas and biodiversity hot spots were set aside for protection. Deforestation increased.

But something has changed since those times.”

Read the rest: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/blogs/climate-conversations/how-to-balance-forests-and-food

In today’s San Jose Mercury News, Skoll Foundation CEO Sally Osberg and Founder Jeff Skoll published an opinion piece called, “McDonald’s signals good news for sustainable fishing.”

An excerpt:
“The restaurant has teamed up with the nonprofit Marine Stewardship Council to certify that all its fish offerings, including its new Fish McBites, are sustainably sourced. It’s the first national chain to exclusively serve certified sustainable seafood.”Fans of McDonald’s iconic ‘Filet-o-Fish’ may notice a new blue label on their sandwich wrappers.

This is a huge victory in the fight to preserve the world’s fish resources. McDonald’s sells about 300 million Filet-O-Fish sandwiches annually. Credible certification programs like the council’s provide a tangible reward to companies that are conducting their business responsibly and simultaneously improving the environment.”

Read the rest: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_22775756/jeff-skoll-and-sally-osberg-mcdonalds-signals-good

and learn more about the partnership: http://www.skollfoundation.org/mcdonalds-usa-first-national-restaurant-chain-to-serve-msc-certified-sustainable-fish-at-all-u-s-locations/

I just returned from the Oscars, where a film we funded, “Open Heart,” was up for an Academy Award. The film did not win, but the impact has already been great: the nomination resulted in a screening for Rwanda’s Minister of Health, Agnes Binagwaho. As a result, and together with Partners In Health, she is committed to establishing a national program that will ensure that no child — from whatever background — dies from rheumatic heart disease in Rwanda, and she is already in the process of establishing a Center of Excellence in Cardiac Care at Rwinkwavu Hospital.

The film follows eight Rwandan children who leave their families behind and embark on a life-or-death journey to receive high-risk open-heart surgery in Africa’s only free-of-charge, state-of-the-art cardiac hospital, the Salam Center run by Emergency, an Italian NGO. Their heart valves, damaged and weakened by rheumatic heart disease, which develops from untreated childhood strep throat, leave them lethargic and weak. Some of the children have only months to live. read more

Sally Osberg was recently quoted in the Financial Times in a piece entitled, “Philanthropy: Collaboration is key to getting more from less.” An excerpt:

“‘We can’t make a big dent in the challenges without a far greater ability to join forces,’ says Sally Osberg, president and chief executive of the Skoll Foundation, which was founded by eBay billionaire Jeff Skoll to invest in social entrepreneurs. ‘That’s where I see all this heading.’

Here, the sector has made advances since the days when, too often, grant makers based measurement of non-profits purely on overhead levels – even though investing in IT, training or streamlined procurement systems increases operational efficiency, leaving more cash for programmes.

Ms Osberg believes that many philanthropists have moved on from this approach. The sector is becoming more sophisticated and understands that accountability and legitimacy is dependent on measurement and results that add up,” she says.

Read the rest: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8a1cc2ec-5e76-11e2-a771-00144feab49a.html#axzz2IvUGlRMW

Skoll Foundation portfolio principal Kimberly Dasher Tripp shares her insights on how to scale impact in the Harvard Business Review. Here’s an excerpt:

“If you ask venture capitalists in Silicon Valley how they measure the success of business entrepreneurs, they would no doubt list off metrics having to do with fast growth: funding raised, people hired, customers acquired, revenue produced. The assumption is that company growth is good. But when it comes to social ventures, where the primary focus is impact (not profits), bigger isn’t necessarily better.

When organizations talk to my colleagues and me at the Skoll Foundation about growth in staff size, budget size, or client / beneficiary numbers, we often ask “So what?” In our view, those types of growth don’t necessarily translate to real and significant impact. Sure, size can often be correlated to maturity, but we want to know that the service, curriculum, or product the organization is offering has a significant impact on the problem it aims to solve. For us the question is not how do you grow organizations but how do you scale impact?”

Read the rest: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/01/its_not_all_about_growth_for_s.html

Girls Who Code, Jobs for the Future, and YouthBuild Among Groups Vying to Outraise the Field Starting Inauguration Day

*** full list of finalists at bottom ***

Palo Alto, CA – Jan 16, 2012 – On Inauguration Day, when politicians return to Washington to face the same jobs crisis, 74 organizations will begin a crowd funding competition to demonstrate who has the most promising, scalable employment solutions. They are finalists in the JobRaising Challenge, an innovative competition to help job-creating nonprofits raise money and publicity. The Skoll Foundation, The Huffington Post, and knowledge partner McKinsey & Company have selected the most innovative, feasible, and scalable candidates of the 210 applicants representing 31 states and 110 cities across America. Starting on Monday, January 21^st, the American people can choose to donate to one or more of these organizations.  Top fundraisers will be eligible for $250,000 in prizes by The Skoll Foundation.

read more

By David Rothschild and Joy Zhang

Our team bounced along the dirt road in Samistipur district in rural Bihar, India, who knows how far from the nearest paved road, until we finally arrived at the beautiful and peaceful village of Akha.  In rural Bihar you may be far from a paved road, but you are never far from people—the state is 2/3 the size of California, with three times the population.  Almost all of Bihar’s very few doctors live in cities, and the majority in the capital of Patna.  Over 70 million people live in Bihar’s villages, far from any city, and hence far from any doctor.  Villagers typically only make the long arduous trip to a city to see a doctor in extreme cases.  As expected, this lack of available doctors has led to unaccredited health practitioners filling the void, responding to the demand in almost every village. These rural health providers typically have some limited medical experience but no formal training.

We entered a small brick room with no embellishments, nestled among thatched roof and dirt walled houses and dung patties drying in the hot sun.  Inside we met Hardener Sharma, the village health provider, a young man who had recently joined the World Health Partners network.  Prior to joining the network his only training was having worked as an assistant to a doctor in a city a few hours away.  He was excited to share how the World Health Partner network had improved the quality of care he provides. The room was small and spartan but clean, with a bed, a tiny wooden table and a few chairs.  On the table was his “doctor” bag and a cell phone.  An older woman with hardened features and a crying baby on her lap sat next to him with a worried expression.  Hardener reassured her and called a number on his cellphone, and then hung up.  Two minutes later his phone rang and a World Health Partner counselor, similar to a physician’s assistant, took down details about the woman and her baby, and then put Hardener on hold.  A minute later Hardener greeted a doctor on the other end, explained a few details, and then passed the phone to the woman who conversed with the doctor.  Hardener then spoke briefly with the doctor again, and the woman seemed relieved, even gracing us with a heartfelt smile. A few minutes later a text arrived on Hardener’s phone—a prescription from the doctor for medicines for the baby. read more

“Social entrepreneurs see possibility where others see problems. They are unapologetically ambitious, setting their sights not just on incremental improvements but on systems-level transformation. And to achieve their audacious ends, social entrepreneurs enroll those most vested in that transformation — people oppressed, marginalised, or constrained by an existing reality.”

Those are Skoll Foundation CEO Sally Osberg’s words in This is Africa, a new publication from the Financial Times that “seeks to examine African business and politics in a global context and to make sense of the relationships that Africa is building with the rest of the world.” read more