Skoll Foundation’s Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship

The Skoll Foundation’s Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship provides a core support grant given over a period of three years and a noncash award to the social entrepreneur presented at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

Qualifying organizations will be evaluated against the following criteria:

•        Impact potential: Organization’s innovation is positioned to directly affect policy, behavior and/or infrastructure/system(s) on a large scale and can show evidence of significant impact already achieved.

•        Inflection: Organization has an proven approach that has already been implemented with success and is now ready to apply the approach on a much larger scale.

•        Innovation: Organization has an approach that fundamentally disrupts the status quo to solve social and/or environmental problems.

•        Issue: Organization works on an issue that is identified by the Skoll Foundation as one of world’s most pressing problems.

•        Skoll leverage: Organization will benefit from engaging with Skoll Foundation beyond a purely funding relationship, such as collaboration with our network of entrepreneurs or access to media opportunities.

•        Social entrepreneur: Organization is led by a visionary social entrepreneur

•        Sustainability: Organization has a clear, compelling plan for expanding impact and achieving long-term financial and operational sustainability.

Skoll Award recipients typically exhibit many of the following characteristics:

•        Led by a visionary, effective social entrepreneur serving as a spokesperson for their issue

•        Strong leadership team and board

•        Clear mission and implementation model

•        Unwavering focus on mission

•        Well-established, strong partnerships

•        Commitment to systems, including those for measurement and learning

•        Diversified and mission-aligned funding sources

Focus Issue Areas:

•        Economic and Social Equity including: Access to Capital and Markets, Economic Opportunity/Job Creation, Education, Women and Girls, Youth Development

•        Environmental Sustainability including: Climate Change, Deforestation, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Capital Markets, Water Scarcity,

•        Health Including: Clean Water and Sanitation, Healthcare Access

•        Institutional Responsibility

•        Peace and Security

•        Tolerance, Justice and Human Rights

The deadline to submit applications is 27 April 2011. For more information, visit this link.