March 22, 2006

Skoll Foundation and Ashoka Enhance Partnership to Advance Social Entrepreneurship Around the World

Skoll Award of $3 Million to Ashoka to Focus on Field-Building Initiatives

PALO ALTO, Calif., and ARLINGTON, Va. — March 22, 2006 —The Skoll Foundation, dedicated to advancing the work of social entrepreneurs around the world, announced today a $3 million, three-year field-building partnership with Ashoka, a global organization with a 25-year history and network of more than 1,700 social entrepreneurs in 60 countries.

The grant builds on the relationship the two organizations started in 2003 and advances Skoll’s strategy of developing high-level, multiyear partnerships with experts who can move the field of social entrepreneurship forward. By partnering with an established and leading organization such as Ashoka, the Skoll Foundation is able to significantly enhance its commitment to social entrepreneurs who are addressing the world’s most urgent issues.

The grant supports Ashoka’s core operations and helps Ashoka achieve its overall goals, including a 30 percent increase in the number of Ashoka Fellows. Each year Ashoka elects around 100 of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs to its global Fellowship, providing critical support – both financially and professionally – that allows their programs to launch and scale up. Additionally, Skoll support will help Ashoka expand geographically into seven new countries, including some in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Together, the Skoll Foundation and Ashoka seek to raise awareness of the work and impact of individual social entrepreneurs, as well as the emerging field of social entrepreneurship. The expanded relationship also supports the development of two knowledge products in partnership with key stakeholders, such as leading academic or multilateral institutions. Ashoka and Skoll will disseminate these products through their respective channels.

“Ashoka is widely recognized as founding the social entrepreneurship movement 25 years ago,” said Sally Osberg, President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation. “Our aim in partnering with a select group of thought leaders, such as Ashoka, is to increase awareness of social entrepreneurship, and advance knowledge of and investment in the institutions that support the important work and dedication of social entrepreneurs.”

”Together, Ashoka and the Skoll Foundation will continue to give the world’s leading social entrepreneurs who drive the transformation of the citizen sector even greater means to create systemic change,” said Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka. “ We have the ability to take the most powerful new universal principles that cut across Fellows’ individual innovations and, by working together, use them to flip whole fields globally. And, over the next three years, Ashoka and the Skoll Foundation will further help the field see and spread these principles behind our leading social entrepreneurs’ large-scale impact.”

About Ashoka

Ashoka is the world’s community of leading social entrepreneurs—individuals with innovative and practical ideas for addressing social needs. Since its founding in 1980, Ashoka has launched more than 1,700 leading social entrepreneurs in at least 60 countries. Ashoka's modest investments consistently yield extraordinary returns in the form of both national and international advancement in education, health, human rights, the environment, economic development and other areas of social concern. Working with these social entrepreneurs, Ashoka builds communities of innovators who work collectively to transform society and design new ways for the social sector to become more productive, entrepreneurial and globally integrated. For more information, visit www.ashoka.org

About the Skoll Foundation

Headquartered in California’s Silicon Valley, the Skoll Foundation was created by eBay’s first president, Jeff Skoll, to promote his vision for a more peaceful and prosperous world. Today the Skoll Foundation advances systemic change to benefit communities around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs—individuals dedicated to pioneering new solutions that result in lasting improvements to complex social problems.

The Skoll Foundation invests in social entrepreneurs through the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. It connects them through Social Edge, an online community at www.socialedge.org, and via the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Said Business School, University of Oxford. It celebrates social entrepreneurs through projects such as The New Heroes, a public television documentary series that tells 12 dramatic stories of social entrepreneurs who bring innovative, empowering solutions to intractable social problems around the world. For more information, visit www.skollfoundation.org.