Skoll Foundation

The Skoll Foundation is a private foundation based in Palo Alto, California. The foundation makes grants and investments (pursuing its "invest" strategy) in social entrepreneurs through its Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship, and through partnerships with and support of organizations and agencies important to social entrepreneurship networks and ecosystems. It provides opportunities for social entrepreneurs to meet with each other (its "connect" strategy) through support of events including the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University, convenings, and online content platforms. It also conducts media campaigns (the "celebrate" strategy) to publicize the work of social entrepreneurs through projects such as short films and partnerships with other media outlets, including The Sundance Institute, NPR, PBS, Public Radio International, and HarperCollins. Its founder is Jeffrey Skoll who was the first employee and first president of eBay.
The total assets of the foundation (including its affiliated funds) are $1,127,000,000 as of the end of 2018. The combined entities made grants totaling about $71 million in 2018 (and disbursements of $56 million), based on un-audited numbers reported by the Foundation. According to the most recent audited financial statements, the non-grant expenses for the Foundation totaled around $17 million in 2018.
History.
Jeff Skoll created the foundation in 1999 as a supporting organization (The Skoll Fund) at the Community Foundation of Silicon Valley (now Silicon Valley Community Foundation). In late 2003 Skoll established the private Skoll Foundation. The two entities, which have distinct governing bodies but share staff and offices, together operate the foundation's grantmaking and other programs. Sally Osberg, former president and CEO, joined the foundation in 2001 and is the co-author, with Roger Martin, of "Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works". She was named as one of the social sector's 50 most influential leaders in 2015 by "The Nonprofit Times". In 2018, Richard Fahey assumed the role of Interim President after 14 years of executive leadership at the foundation.
In February 2019, Donald Gips was appointed as the new CEO of the Skoll Foundation. He had formerly served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa.
The foundation, which moved to its Palo Alto headquarters in 2004, also collaborated closely with the Skoll Global Threats Fund, established in 2009, to address climate change, pandemics, water security, nuclear proliferation, and conflict in the Middle East. Some of the Global Threats Fund's initiatives supported by the Skoll Foundation have included an app, developed in partnership with the Brazilian Ministry of Health, that allowed monitoring of health conditions and potential infection by the Zika virus during the 2016 Olympics; supporting surveillance technologies that identify epidemics at their earliest outbreak; and development of an online tool that will help policymakers identify global water risk and food security hot spots. The Skoll Global Threats Fund spent down the $100 million of funding it received from Jeff Skoll and shut down in 2017, with some of its projects spinning off as independent nonprofits and another being folded back into the Skoll Foundation.
The Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship.
Each year, the Skoll Foundation presents the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship "to a select group of social entrepreneurs whose innovations have already had significant, proven impact on some of the world’s most pressing problems." More than 100 organizations have received Skoll Awards since the program was launched in 2005.
The Skoll Foundation accepts nominations from its network of partners but doesn't accept unsolicited nominations for its annual Skoll Awards. It seeks out disruptors whose models have potential to achieve impact at scale, who can collaborate within their ecosystem, and whose social mission is aligned with their vision. As of 2019, Awardees receive $1.5 million in funding, support for growing their enterprise for three years, and membership in the global community of Skoll Award recipients.
The following list of Skoll Awards organized by year reflects the leadership of the organization and its field of work as listed in the award citation by the Skoll Foundation at the time of the award. These may have changed since the date of the award.
Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
The annual Skoll World Forum convenes delegates from the social, finance, private and public sectors at the Said Business School at Oxford University for discussions focused on innovating, accelerating, and scaling solutions to social challenges. The first Forum was held in 2004. Attendance was roughly 1200 as of the 2019 Forum, and the delegates represented around 80 countries. Notable participants over the years have included Malala Yousafzai, Kofi Annan, Graca Machel, Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Sir Richard Branson, and Al Gore.
The event's mission is to "accelerate the impact of the world's leading social entrepreneurs by uniting them with essential partners in a collaborative pursuit of learning, leverage and large-scale social change."
Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University.
In November 2003, the Skoll Foundation donated $7.5m to the Saïd Business School of Oxford University for the creation of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. The center committed to establish a new master's of business curriculum degree to advance the field and knowledge of social entrepreneurship worldwide. The grant also funded an endowed lectureship, program director, student fellowships (five scholarships to MBA students per year who focused on studying how entrepreneurial strategies effect social change), visiting fellows, and the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. The Skoll Centre's activities concentrate on educating social change leaders, practical research and convening leaders in the social change field. One example of research conducted by the centre is the "Systems Change Observatory".