Land Tenure: A Cross-Cutting Solution for Poverty, Climate Change, and Women's Rights
Women farmers feed their communities and the world. From the paddy terraces of Asia to the maize fields of sub-Saharan Africa, the woman farmer tills, plants, waters, and harvests crops…
How Land Tenure Reform is a Critical Climate Solution
To address the climate crisis and reach sustainable development goals, Indigenous, community, and Afro-descendant land rights must be secure. While communities claim and manage roughly half of the world’s lands—including…
Making Sanitation Everyone’s Business
I remember walking into the offices of Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) along with my colleagues at Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) nearly eight years…
How EYElliance is Accelerating the Inclusive Optical Sector in Latin America
Scaling a solution is not the same as solving a problem at scale. Nearly 1 billion people around the world live with blindness or vision impairment that is correctable with…
United Nations General Assembly Resolution on Vision: Eye Care For All By 2030
For 20 years, VisionSpring (2009 Skoll Awardee) has worked towards its goal of reaching and providing affordable, quality glasses to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who need them. In…
The Skoll Foundation and Capricorn Investment Group Partner with Inclusive Funds Investors to Close Racial Wealth Gap and Spur Economic Mobility
When a Foundation invests its endowment in alignment with its core mission, it compounds its grantmaking impact, driving towards transformational social change. The Skoll Foundation in partnership with our investment…
Skoll Foundation and Capricorn Investment Group Partner With Apis & Heritage Capital Partners to Spur Economic Mobility
The Skoll Foundation and Capricorn Investment Group are proud to partner with Apis & Heritage Capital Partners in an innovative initiative aimed to spur economic mobility in historically marginalized communities…
Rethinking Possible Episode Two | Alessandra Orofino | Democracy—There’s No App for That
If there’s one thing Alessandra Orofino won’t accept, it’s the status quo. She believes democracies can’t be healthy and thrive unless citizens roll up their sleeves and do the hard…
Rethinking Possible Episode One | Rodney Foxworth | Community: The Driving Force Behind Economic Inclusion
Rodney Foxworth says the racial "wealth gap" is a misnomer because it implies something that’s achievable to close. "Wealth chasm" is more on the nose since we’re talking about disparities…
EYElliance Brings Systems Change into Focus in Liberia's Schools
Systems orchestrators are leaders and organizations who shape transformational social change behind the scenes by connecting people, providing resources and support, and mobilizing collective, unified efforts. At the Skoll Foundation, we…
Unpacking EYElliance’s Role as a Systems Orchestrator
Social change is a team sport. We hear that a lot these days. The scope and scale of a problem that impacts billions of people demands deep, systemic collaboration and coalition building. Never will a single organization—or…
When the Phone Rang, Harambee Answered – Over 1 Million Times: Partnering with Government in Complex and Uncertain Times
African governments have historically relied on face-to-face services as a key mechanism for supporting citizens. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with those services largely suspended, there was an…
Sustainable Textiles and Vulnerable Communities: Thinking of Tomorrow While Managing Today
Ever since the pandemic touched our shores, we've been concerned about two broad things at the Circular Apparel Innovation Factory (CAIF). One, what happens to the members of the textile…
Fragile Futures for Hidden Workers When Consumers Stop Buying
With demand for toilet paper and other household items in the headlines, the COVID-19 crisis has made supply chains news, highlighting what disruptions mean to consumers, companies, and workers. This…
Scaling Pearls of Wisdom
One component of the Scaling Pathways series is Scaling Snapshots, which are glimpses into one organization’s scaling journey, including the strategies pursued, implications of those strategies and “Pearls of Scaling…
Evolving Your Talent
How do your talent needs evolve as you drive toward scale and how can you evolve with them? Health Leads on actively navigating talent through strategic shifts Alexandra Quinn, CEO…
Leveraging Government Partnerships
How can social enterprises prepare for and successfully partner with government to dramatically accelerate the scale of impact? Code for America on understanding the whole government ecosystem before engaging Jen…
Ai-jen Poo on Her Vision for Universal Family Care
Ai-jen Poo is a leading labor activist and the founder of National Domestic Workers Alliance. The Alliance works to bring dignity and fairness to the growing numbers of workers who…
Blue Carbon: A Pioneering Mangrove Conservation Project in Madagascar
In a remote corner of southwest Madagascar last month, local communities launched the world’s largest mangrove carbon conservation project, sequestering a huge amount of carbon and securing an ecosystem vital…
A Tech Bootcamp in Peru to Close the Gender Gap
When Mariana Costa Checa was bootstrapping a software development start-up with partners in Lima several years ago, finding the right talent for the team was a challenge. There simply weren’t…
Why Women Farmers Deserve the Right to Identity
On the 2019 International Day of Rural Women, Landesa’s Shipra Deo explores how land rights are an essential element for overturning misperceptions about the role of women in society and…
Why Financial Inclusion is Critical to Meet Sustainable Development Goals
Bob Annibale is the Global Director of Inclusive Finance for Citigroup and leads their partnerships with global, national, and local organizations to support inclusive finance and community development through economic…
2019 Social Progress Index: Measuring Real Things That Matter
We’re 43 years behind schedule in our progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. That’s the sobering takeaway from the recently released 2019 Social Progress Index (SPI). The report gauges social…
Will Artificial Intelligence End Global Poverty?
In short, no—at least when it comes to lower-income countries and populations, and not in time for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Even worse, it can be a major…
How Social Entrepreneurs Brought Hope to 2018
Much of the news from 2018 doesn't paint a pretty picture of the world. But we won't dwell on that. Instead, we'd like to wrap up the year by turning…
Access to Markets: The Elephant in the African Entrepreneurial Room
The abbreviation for "Access to Markets" (ATM) makes for a great parallel to the actual challenge for most small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs)—without clients there’s no cash to run…
Babban Gona Turns Potential Fighters into Productive Farmers
The quiet agricultural revolution that Kola Masha has sparked in north central Nigeria has its roots in the early 20th century fields of South Dakota where his grandfather banded together…
Food Security and Climate Resilience Require Land Rights Reform
For communities across the Global South, the impacts of climate change are not abstract projections but concrete realities that threaten their land and food security. In the wake of the…
How a Mapping Technology Helps the Poor Convert Wasteland to Thriving Commons in India
In India, some 50 million hectares of land, an area the size of Kenya, is classified as "wastelands and degraded lands"—a holdover from a colonial land management philosophy that fails…
Why Farmer-Centered Design Demands Deep Knowledge, Intentionality, and Trust
The big problem is clear. With a global population expected to reach more than 9.7 billion by 2050 and ambitious goals to end poverty, hunger, and food insecurity by 2030, agricultural production will need to nearly double. This increase in productivity must…
Emerging Technologies: Shifting the Path from Poverty to Prosperity?
Neither technology determinists nor tech skeptics would have been wholly satisfied with the Skoll World Forum session, “Emerging Technologies: Shifting the Path from Poverty to Prosperity.” But it was a…
Sustainable Solutions at the Base of the Supply Chain: The Case for Cocoa
When you think of chocolate, you probably conjure up thoughts of hot chocolate after skiing or memories of a favorite person who offered you a box of Belgian truffles on…
How Kickstart is Mobilizing an Irrigation Movement in Sub-Saharan Africa
Irrigation: that’s the key to lifting sub-Saharan Africa out of poverty, according to Martin Fisher. He traveled to the region on a Fulbright scholarship in 1985, and shortly after he…
How Building Markets Brings Syrian Refugee Entrepreneurs Out of the Shadows in Turkey
Building Markets (2010 Awardee) started in 2004 with a deceptively simple mission: to reduce poverty in crisis-impacted countries by championing local entrepreneurs. Building markets connects small and medium sized enterprises…
From Forlorn Wastelands to Thriving Commons in India
Years ago, early in Jagdeesh Rao Puppala’s career, he ran into some trouble with the law in rural western India. He had just returned from a small event where some…
Why I Changed Course From Wall Street to Return Home and Launch B-Lab East Africa
In 2008 I sat in the offices of a big Wall Street firm for a job interview as an investment researcher. This was just as the financial crisis had begun.…
On World Refugee Day: A Historic Crisis Without a Historic Response
Every minute of the day, conflict and persecution forces 20 people from their homes. By the end of today’s World Refugee Day, nearly 30,000 people will find themselves displaced. 2016…
The Story of Gulafsa and Ruksar: Two Child Laborers Now Out of the Shadows
Millions of children are forced into labor each year. Consumers at the end of the supply chain often know nothing of the lives of those who made the product; it's…
Scaling Pathways: Three Case Studies on Impact Growth in Social Enterprise
What does it take to scale social impact? That’s one of the fundamental questions for social entrepreneurs anywhere. As they seek to create solutions to widespread, seemingly intractable problems, such…
Michael Franti and Bono Celebrate Our 2017 Skoll Awardees
Invest. Connect. Celebrate. This is the Skoll Foundation’s mission and deep commitment to the field of social entrepreneurship. The Skoll World Forum is one of our greatest opportunities for the 'celebrate'…
Skoll World Forum 2017 Reflection: Global Health, from Innovation to Implementation
"Global health is a marathon, not a sprint." -- Barbara Bush, Global Health Corps The race often starts with great excitement over big breakthroughs: new vaccines and treatments, new technologies…
The Skoll Foundation Approach to Visual Storytelling
Invest. Connect. Celebrate. That’s the Skoll Foundation mission in a nutshell, and the ‘celebrate’ part of that triad is where Skoll’s storytelling resources take center stage with the medium of…
Highlights from Skoll World Forum 2017
The annual Skoll World Forum was, as always, an inspiring, energizing, and at times dizzying week of conversations and celebrations in the hallowed halls and cobblestoned streets of Oxford. Stephan Chambers…
Anatomy Of A Tiger: With all Eyes on Myanmar, See How Land Reform Shaped Asia's Tiger Economies
Asia’s Tigers, the collection of booming economies that emerged in the East following World War II, are often hailed as economic miracles. There was, though, no “secret sauce” behind that sustained…
Skoll Awardee Kola Masha of Babban Gona on His One Regret
Kola Masha was unable to attend Oxford's New Theatre in person this evening, because he was waiting for the imminent arrival of his second child. Appolo Goma, Babban Gona Executive…
10 Signs of an Impending Global Land Rights Revolution
The development community has experienced various ‘revolutions’ over the years – from microfinance to women’s rights, from the green revolution to sustainable development. Each of these awakenings has improved our…
One More Look at Rio: The Necessity and Complexity of Systems Change
Over the course of the 2016 Olympics in Rio, we’ve delved into some of the challenges facing Brazil. We began with the Social Progress Index’s (SPI) assessment of Brazil’s performance…
The Growth of the WE Movement: From Our Living Room to Yours on August 28th
When a group of twelve twelve-year-olds gathered in my parents’ living room 20 years ago to draft a petition to end child labor, we felt strong together, but alone in…
“During The Olympics, There is Great Joy Among Us”: An Interview with Rio Social Entrepreneurs
At the Skoll Foundation, we have seen time and again the importance of the deep connection and inspiration social entrepreneurs get from working with and staying close to people and…
The Outsourcing Sector’s Shift to Impact Sourcing as the New Norm
In a recent Huffington Post blog Skoll Awardee Jeremy Hockenstein—co-founder and CEO of Digital Divide Data (DDD)—posits, “Nowadays, almost every major company and institution outsources business processes offshore. Imagine the…
