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Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship Guidelines
 "Many of the problems of our modern world, ranging from disease to drugs to crime to terrorism, derive from the inequalities between the rich and the poor . . . be they rich nation versus poor nation or rich community versus poor community. It is in the best interests of the well-off to help empower those who are not as well-off to improve their lives." —Jeff Skoll
The Skoll Foundation’s mission is to advance systemic change to benefit communities around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs. We believe that social entrepreneurs see opportunities where others see problems and crises. They apply innovative solutions to social and environmental issues, empowering people and communities to envision and create positive change. They work in many kinds of organizations, including nonprofits, social purpose ventures such as community development banks, and hybrid organizations that mix elements of nonprofit and for-profit organizations.
The Skoll Foundation believes that social entrepreneurs represent a powerful force for large-scale impact or equilibrium change. Their work has the potential to reduce economic disparities, increase opportunities for the disadvantaged, promote healthy communities, and increase the interpersonal and intercultural understanding that is the foundation for world peace.
For a more in-depth discussion of social entrepreneurship, please refer to "Social Entrepreneurship: a Case for Definition."
The Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship
The Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship support social entrepreneurs whose work has the potential for large-scale influence on critical challenges of our time: tolerance and human rights, health, economic and social equity, peace and security, institutional responsibility, and environmental sustainability. These issues are at the heart of the foundation’s vision of empowering people to create a peaceful, prosperous, sustainable world.
Skoll social entrepreneurs are innovators who have tested and proved their approach, are poised to replicate or scale up their work to create equilibrium change and engage others with a message that resonates with individuals whose resources are crucial to advancing these solutions. The Skoll Awards are designed for leaders who contribute value to a peer network committed to continuous learning. By telling their stories, they join in the foundation’s ongoing celebration of the power of social entrepreneurs.
The Skoll Awards provide later-stage, or mezzanine, funding, subject to payment limitations described below under Budget Guidance. In most cases, the grant is provided for core support to help organizations expand their programs and capacity to deliver long-term, sustainable equilibrium change. The Skoll Awards are not intended for new or early-stage programs or initiatives. Programs submitted for consideration should have a track record of no less than three years. In addition to core support, the SkollFoundation supports the participation of Award recipients in the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
Deadline for Applying:
Applications are accepted and reviewed on a year-round basis, with successful applicants receiving initial funding installments shortly after decisions are made. Regular deadlines (listed below and updated regularly) assist us in managing the internal review process for these applications, a process that takes a minimum of six months to be completed. Awards will be presented publicly at a ceremony at the Skoll World Forum, which occurs at the end of every March in Oxford, England.
We are currently streamlining and simplifying our application process and not accepting any new applications. Please click here to receive notification of our revised process when it is complete.
The following sections are designed to provide an in-depth description of our eligibility criteria, the application process, frequently asked questions (FAQs) and instructions on filling out the application. It is our hope that this material will give prospective applicants a clear understanding of our criteria. We encourage you to review all materials prior to filling out the application.
Jump to:
Overview
Eligibility Criteria
How to Apply
Eligibility Quiz
Online Application and Instructions
FAQs
Glossary of Terms
Click here to learn about Skoll Award winners
 Social entrepreneurs
Just as entrepreneurs change the face of business, social entrepreneurs act as the change
agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss by improving systems, inventing new
approaches and creating sustainable solutions to change society for the better. However,
unlike business entrepreneurs who are motivated by profits, social entrepreneurs are
motivated to improve society. Despite this difference, social entrepreneurs are just as
innovative and change oriented as their business counterparts, searching for new and
better ways to solve the problems that plague society.
Social entrepreneurs that meet Skoll's criteria for Awards can be characterized by their
ability to:
• Recognize an unjust equilibrium that leads to the exclusion, marginalization or suffering
of vulnerable
members of our society
• Identify an opportunity within this unjust equilibrium to change the existing system and,
through inspiration,
creativity, direct action, courage and fortitude, implement a better solution
• Demonstrate potential to scale up their innovation until they have replaced the old system
with a new, stable
equilibrium that
alleviates the suffering of the targeted group and
creates a better future
Large-scale impact, systemic change
See also “equilibrium change.” Systemic social change delves behind immediate problems,
involves new ways of applying resources to underlying causes and results in tangible and
enduring benefits. Systemic change occurs when an outcome or goal has been attained and
the subsequent result either eliminates the cause of the problem or alters programs, policies,
funding streams and/or services to reduce the impact of the problem on a long-term basis. Equilibrium change
Equilibrium describes a stable state, generally economic or social, controlled by and
benefiting established entities. The social entrepreneur sees the limitations of an existing
equilibrium and offers a more efficient solution with the potential to benefit those not served
by the existing model. Skoll is seeking social entrepreneurs who have created and are
implementing new, large-scale approaches that can change the equilibrium by fundamentally
tranforming the lives of marginalized populations . The ultimate example of equilibrium
change would be to eliminate a problem by solving its root cause or to create global impact
by driving universal adoption of a new innovation by all individuals who address the same issue. Replicate, scale up
To replicate or scale up an innovation is to significantly expand its impact in size, amount or
extent. Scaling an innovation can occur in many ways, including growing an organization’s own
capacity, developing independent affiliates or franchising, encouraging widespread adoption
of the model by others, or through a combination of these approaches. The most competitive
applicants have a clear, achievable plan that leads to exponential growth of their innovation,
as opposed to slow, incremental growth over time.
For a better understanding of how other social entrepreneurs are working to expand their
impact, we encourage you to visit www.socialedge.org where you will find multiple discussions
and blogs about what it means to overcome the real-life barriers that social entrepreneurs face
as they seek to expand their impacts.
Mezzanine stage
Mezzanine-stage funding is a venture capital term used to describe later-stage financing for a
company
that is between a startup (seed funding) phase and an initial public offering. We deem
a social
entrepreneurial organization to be at the mezzanine level if it has fully pilot tested its idea,
documented its outcomes and developed a written plan to scale up its innovations, but has
not yet achieved large geographic scale or had its idea widely adopted.
Issue area, critical challenge
The Skoll Foundation funds social entrepreneurs working to solve problems in the following
issue areas which have been selected because of their importance to addressing the critical
challenges of our time. Many applicants work in more than one of these areas. If you apply,
you will be asked to designate a primary, and if appropriate, a secondary area of focus.
Among the issue areas are:
• Tolerance and Human Rights, such as religious and racial tolerance, women’s rights,
sexual exploitation and human trafficking, torture and wrongful imprisonment, immigration, and
general tolerance and human rights issues
• Health, such as pandemics, disease control, access to health care and system problems,
pollution and toxins, population control and lifestyle
• Environmental sustainability, such as climate change, water scarcity, biodiversity and
depletion of natural resources, global
warming, oceans and waste (general and nuclear)
• Peace and security, such as conflict in the Middle East, nuclear proliferation, war, terrorism,
arms and drug trafficking,
government involvement, conflict resolution,
and sustainable
development and education
in conflict zones
• Institutional responsibility, such as unethical labor practices, bribery and corruption,
unethical government (e.g., executive pay), shareholder activism, business and the environment,
irresponsible marketing, unethical sourcing and procurement, and global media integrity
• Economic and social equity, such as poverty and distribution of wealth, drugs, crime and
violence, microfinance, homelessness and affordable housing, and education
Core support
A core support grant is usually given as unrestricted, flexible funding that can be
used to cover any costs associated with an organization’s ongoing charitable activities,
provided the organization does not change its mission or alter any goals or objectives
negotiated as part of the grant. Grants given as restricted funding must be used for
a specific purpose or project.
Although the Skoll Foundation gives core support funding whenever legally possible,
it works with each Awardee to identify and commit to the achievement of specific core
organizational goals and objectives. Detailed program budgets and financial
reports are required for grants and loans governed by a fiscal sponsor or expenditure
responsibility agreements, including for-profit organizations and some foreign nonprofits.
All awardees, even those receiving core support, are required to report on a regular
basis on progress toward negotiated objectives.
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