Skoll Foundation Adds Eleven Pioneering Organizations to its Global Portfolio of Leading Social Entr
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
PALO ALTO, Calif.-March 11, 2008-The Skoll Foundation today announced Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship for 11 organizations working around the world in the areas of tolerance and human rights, health, environmental sustainability, peace and security, and economic and social equity. The recipients, who will each receive three-year grants of $1,000,000, join a growing global network of Skoll social entrepreneurs, now numbering 59, who have created innovative, proven solutions? for tackling the world’s most urgent social and economic challenges.
The Skoll Awards program is the foundation’s flagship investment initiative. It provides social entrepreneurs, whose models for sustainable change have already yielded significant impact, with unrestricted funding to scale their programs and amplify their reach across regions, countries and continents. This newest group of Skoll entrepreneurs has demonstrated measurable impact across a variety of issues and geographies, including:
- providing some of the world’s most destitute populations with access to modern, high quality health care;
- training indigenous tribes in the Amazon to use technology to protect millions of acres of rainforest;
- using the Internet to connect individual donors in the global North with entrepreneurs in the global South;
- empowering women in Africa with HIV/AIDS to mentor pregnant women and new mothers with the disease, to ensure a healthy and productive life.
“We know solutions exist around the world that have transformed millions of lives, in a sustainable way, across education, health, environmental and other social systems,” commented Sally Osberg, President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation. “We think the new Skoll social entrepreneurs represent some of the best, most innovative, of those solutions, and bring an exciting new level of energy and creativity to our portfolio.” Osberg added, “These remarkable individuals and their tireless teams are tackling issues that require our most immediate attention. And most importantly, the models they have developed have the potential for vastly increased impact.”
The 11 organizations receiving the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship are: Amazon Conservation Team, American Council on Renewable Energy, Arzu, Digital Divide Data, Half the Sky Foundation, KIVA, mothers2mothers, Partners in Health, PeaceWorks Foundation, Population and Community Development Association, and Visayan Forum Foundation.
