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Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship
Eligibility Criteria
To be considered for a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, an organization must be led by a social entrepreneur and meet the criteria described below.
Qualifying organizations will:
- Be led by a social entrepreneur
- Have implemented innovative programs that demonstrate effective approaches to critical social and environmental challenges with global implications. Organizations developing local or regional models for replication on a national or international scale should show that the location where the model is being tested is central to the issue in question. Examples are peace and security initiatives in conflict regions, biodiversity solutions in species-rich “hot spots,” educational opportunities in inner cities and disease treatments at the source of potential epidemics.
- Be able to describe a clear, long-term path to creating an equilibrium change
- Demonstrate proof of concept with measurable outcomes
- Have a clear, compelling plan for reaching scale
- Demonstrate a track record of at least three years
- Have a clear plan for long-term financial and operational sustainability
- Commit to working with peers and the Skoll Foundation to share learning and communicate success strategies
In general, Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship will not support:
- Individuals, either through scholarships or other forms of financial support
- New or early-stage business plans or ideas
- Organizations whose mission and work focus on a single municipality, province or state
- Government agencies
- Public schools and school districts
- Programs promoting religious or ideological doctrine, such as those principally sectarian in nature
- Lobbying (beyond that allowed by law for charitable organizations)
- Film financing
- Endowments, cash reserves or deficit reductions
- Land or site acquisition
- Political campaigns
- Institutions that discriminate on the basis of race, creed, age, gender or sexual orientation in policy or practice
- Grantmaking to other organizations or individuals
Budget Guidance
Although Skoll does not have an absolute budget threshold for eligibility, as a practical matter, organizations with annual revenues below (U.S.) $2.5 million, if activities are primarily in developed countries, or below (U.S.) $1 million, if activities are primarily in developing countries, tend to be less competitive. The selection process prioritizes organizations based on their readiness to scale up their work significantly and, hence, favors organizations above these budget thresholds.
You may find it instructive to visit the Web sites of past Award recipients and note their budgets, the numbers of their partners, sites and beneficiaries, and the scope of their activities. As further guidance, please note that organizations receiving a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2007 with activities primarily in the developed world had median revenues of (U.S.) $5 million, while those primarily in the developing world had median revenues of (U.S.) $2 million.
An additional consideration is the amount of the Skoll Award (generally $1 million) as a percent of your organization’s total budget. In calculating payments of the Skoll Award, we will not make payments that represent more than 30 percent of an organization’s actual revenues in the first year of the Award, 25 percent in the second year and 20 percent in the third year. This guideline reflects our interest in funding organizations that are growing their funding base and reducing reliance over time on Skoll funding.
Legal Structures
To receive a Skoll Award, an organization must be a legally incorporated entity. The Skoll Foundation recognizes that social entrepreneurs work in the business sector as well as in the nonprofit arena. For-profit or hybrid organizations may apply for funding if the grant or program-related investment would contribute to a charitable purpose and activities.
Organizations that do not have U.S. IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit status,
including organizations based in other countries, will be asked to submit additional documentation at the appropriate time. Please do not submit any additional information with your Online 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
Click here to download the guidelines in PDF format
 Endowment
An endowment is a permanently reserved pool of funds intended to provide interest
and investment income for continued support of a not-for-profit organization. Similarly,
a board can designate a cash reserve to be held as an endowment or for an
emergency fund. Skoll funding cannot be used to fund an endowment or a cash reserve.
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 global 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
Proof of concept
Proof of concept is evidence which demonstrates that a model or innovative approach is
viable, feasible and capable of solving or diminishing a particular problem. It is drawn from
actual experience using an innovation in a real-world environment for a sufficient amount of
time to prove that the model:
• Is cost-effective and sustainable
• Provides the intended results
• Provides a measurable improvement over other existing models (or diminishes a problem
that no one else is addressing)
• Contains a system to continually refine the model based on evidence from the field
The most competitive applicants can show that they have assessed the effectiveness of the
proposed approach and have incorporated lessons learned in preparation for replication or
scaling up.
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.
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. Sectarian
Sectarian groups are religious, political or ideological organizations whose services are
limited to a particular sect or who require recipients to adhere to a specific dogma, political
point of view or religious practice in order to receive services. 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
Sustainability
Sustainability for a social entrepreneurial organization is the ability to achieve and sustain
its impact for as long as there is a need for its intervention. Factors that contribute to long-
term sustainability include:
• Leveraging a broad array of resources over time and applying them in the most effective way
• Building the governance and staffing capacity necessary to create and maintain a strong
management
structure, high-quality partnerships, skill in communicating its model and the
ability to evaluate and
measure change
• Achieving large-scale impact through elimination of the root cause of the problem and/or
widespread
acceptance of an innovation and replication by others Track record
A track record is a documented history of actual, recognized accomplishments under
“real-world” conditions. The most competitive Skoll applicants can demonstrate:
• No less than three years of experience in implementing the proposed model or approach
• Documented results showing the actual impact resulting from their intervention
• Evidence that others in the field are aware of and acknowledge the validity of the
proposed innovation U.S. public charity or 501(c)(3)
The section of the United States tax code that defines nonprofit, charitable, tax-exempt
organizations is 501(c)(3). After filing the required paperwork to document its nonprofit
mission, a 501(c)(3) designated charity will receive a confirmation letter and tax
identification number from the IRS. A foreign entity can apply for and receive a
U.S. 501(c)(3) designation provided it complies with U.S. laws and meets certain
requirements and restrictions.
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