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Highlights from the 2021 Skoll World Forum

May 24, 2021

By Jess Fleuti - Skoll Foundation

This year, in partnership with more than 40 organizations, the Skoll World Forum came together as a co-created, collaborative, thought-provoking event of a new kind.

This year, we enlisted a group of 18 people—each with large and engaged networks—from 13 different nations as a global advisory group and gave them the difficult task of the initial review of those 540 sessions so that they could elevate the topics and issues that they found most resonant. This is part of our efforts to shift power and influence outside of the headquarters of the Skoll Foundation to the broader network, to ensure that the Forum has the highest degree of relevancy.

Alongside 252 speakers on 51 panel discussions, workshops, and interviews, 4700 participants from 124 countries joined 1,572 networking meetings and made 8,116 comments. More than half of attendees had never before attended a Skoll World Forum, either in Oxford or virtually.

You can dive into the full breadth of discussions in the video archive, but in the meantime, we wanted to share a few themes that emerged across the program, and some of the most quotable moments.

Shifting Power

The social impact sector, like so many others over this past year, has been carefully inspecting its own power dynamics. This theme threaded itself through so much of the Forum this year, where nearly every conversation turned at some point to questions of power—how it’s shared, wielded, hoarded, shifted, and in some cases taken.

José Andrés, chef and Founder of World Central Kitchen, turned the mirror squarely on philanthropy in the opening plenary, distilling his perspective on the role of funders and how to quantify their impact.

Felicia Wong, CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, argued that “a new world” is not an impossibility; it’s a matter of will, and resources getting into the right hands.

If there’s anyone to teach a master class on shifting political power from the grassroots upward, it’s Stacey Abrams, Founder of Fair Fight Action and Fair Count. She called on social innovators to “investigate, experiment, and innovate” to “create ecosystems of good.” She honored the legacy of her parents, who she said, “not only took us with them to volunteer, they took us with them to vote.” She described that two-sided coin of collective service and civic engagement as the key to progress.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of Liberia and first woman elected as a head of state on the African continent, remarked on the tendency for women in power to take a more inclusive, empathetic approach to governance and leadership.

Pakou Hang, veteran community organizer and Chief Program Officer for Vote Run Lead, pointed out that it’s women of color who have always led movement building in the U.S. to improve democracy, and it’s women of color who we should be looking to for leadership now.

Holly Gordon, Participant’s Chief Impact Officer, spoke on the capacity for a widely distributed issue-based narrative film to galvanize and accelerate movements.

Building Intergenerational Racial Justice

Just systems can’t be built without recognizing and rectifying the systemic, intergenerational injustices that created today’s status quo. Voices from many sessions, focused on many different issues, showed how important that historical excavation is to designing solutions that center equity.

Holocaust survivor Jeanette Spiegel spoke of the importance of collective remembering and preserving those historical accounts in the work of transitional justice.

Rodney Foxworth, CEO of Common Future, talked of the potential for those most oppressed within systems of injustice to lead the way to build systems of equity and justice.

Michael McAfee, President and CEO of PolicyLink, presented a vision for building inclusive economies led by a younger generation “stepping into their power” to create new systems.

Collaborating to Transform Systems

Transformational social change is a team sport. No single organization can transform systems—it takes radical, enduring, cross-sector collaboration. We’ve heard this refrain for several years at the Forum, but the realities of COVID-19 put that into tighter focus, providing lessons for those working in social change across a range of issues.

“Be a team not a club,” says the organizations that comprise the Community Health Impact Coalition, among them Skoll Awardees Last Mile Health, VillageReach, Partners In Health, Medic, and Living Goods.

Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico and Member of The Elders, called for “extraordinary mechanisms of international cooperation” to confront pandemics and other global crises.

Gary Cohen, CEO of Health Care Without Harm, presented a roadmap for healthcare sector decarbonization that demands widespread international collaboration.

Magid Magid, Founder and Director of Union of Justice, reminded us that each and every one of us has a place in the climate story, and therefore a place in the solutions.

Mindy Lubber, CEO of Ceres, spoke of their work in collaboration with business leaders and policy makers to address climate change and a structural level.

Marla Blow, our brand new President and COO, chimed in with a timely reflection that while “people overestimate what can be done in a short period of time,” a great deal is possible in time with sustained, inclusive collaboration.

Creating a More Just Social Impact Sector

The social impact sector—particularly those on the funding side—have been undergoing our own bit of reckoning over the last couple of years. By far, we received the most session proposals on topics related to how to improve the way philanthropy is done, and sessions focused on this question were the most widely attended at the Forum this year.

Cheryl Dorsey of Echoing Green pointed to the leadership and collaboration necessary address the inequities that show up in many ways in the sector.

Jennifer Ching, Executive Director of the North Star Fund, spoke of the necessity of embracing discomfort to do the work of transforming unjust systems.

Alfa Demmellash, CEO of Rising Tide Capital, raised the question of what “risk” means and to whom.

Gloria Walton, CEO of The Solutions Project, rejected the metaphors of a playing field leveled. When the game has always been rigged, you need a whole new playing field.

Bridging the Trust Gap

The growing trust crisis that undermines institutions and governments also presents a barrier to cross-sector social progress and solutions that bridge partisan divides. We have explored these themes for several years at the Forum, but this year that idea took an even larger spotlight.

Maria Ressa, CEO of Rappler and titan of free speech and press freedom, called for immediate action to fight what she called “the virus of lies.” Without facts, we have no shared reality, she said, and it becomes impossible to tackle today’s existential crises.

Audrey Tang, the Digital Minister of Taiwan, spoke of how the aspiration of government should be “listening at scale” with transparency to form systems that are “hackable by the people.”

Mark Ruffalo, Co-Founder of The Solutions Project, spoke of the power of storytelling to close distances and build trust and the need for those stories to center marginalized voices.

Youth climate activist Xiye Bastida spoke of the need to place trust in those on the frontlines, particularly indigenous peoples, to lead movements and elevate the most effective solutions.

Embracing Joy and Beauty

The Skoll World Forum has always been a venue for inspirational, transformative performances by artists who are engaged in social change work. For two years in a row, we’ve had no stages and no theater seats, but we’ve managed to keep that aspect of the Forum very much alive. The restorative nature of creative expression makes space for healing, reflection, and reconnection for the challenging work of social change.

The Wellbeing Project created an interactive workshop that included a rousing, participatory performance with a gospel choir learning to sing global songs of protest and inspiration.

Health Care Without Harm invited Tongan storyteller and musician, Mia Kami, to set the tone for their session on healthcare decarbonization, resilience, and equity.

Moni Vargas and Dr. Suzanne Herrera Li Puma of Skoll Awardee Breakthrough led an interactive workshop that underscored the critical need for “healing spaces” within activism and social change work that included doodling, “joy mapping,” and dancing.

Liana Malva, the Venezuelan artist, multi-instrumentalist, singer/ songwriter, and Founder of GOTAS, created an immersive multimedia performance and environmental rally cry that transported us to her homeland, La Gran Sabana.

These highlights represent a small fraction of the wisdom and calls to action shared by nearly 300 Skoll World Forum speakers—the majority of whom were new to the Skoll World Forum “stage” this year. Catch up on what you missed by reviewing session videos, which we’ve archived online.

If you’d like to take a deep dive into any of the Skoll Foundation’s five strategic priority areas, you can use this guide, which compiles sessions related to creating inclusive and sustainable economies, climate action, advancing racial justice, strengthening health systems and preventing pandemics, and promoting effective governance.

If you find yourself still craving connection, insightful moments, and deep dives into the complexity of social change, we recommend checking out the preview session to Solvers: our new podcast premiering April 22 that features radically honest and fresh conversations about how transformational change actually gets made and who makes it.

Want more stories of transformational change on the world’s most pressing problems? Sign up for Skoll Foundation’s monthly newsletter.

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Highlights from the 2021 Skoll World Forum

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