Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship

Activities: Others

Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship

Eligibility Criteria

To be considered for a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, an organization must meet the criteria described below.

Qualifying organizations will:

·        Be led by a social entrepreneur who has been critical to the organization's success and is committed to staying with the organization through its next growth phase.

·        Have an innovative approach to driving equilibrium change in one of Skoll's six critical issues.

o   Should provide evidence that approach is distinct from, and more effective than, other approaches.

o   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 and disease treatments at the source of potential epidemics.

·        Be able to demonstrate evidence of significant impact that validates the effectiveness of the organization’s intervention and directly supports the organization’s drive to achieveequilibrium change.

·        Have a clear and realistic plan for greatly expanding impact and/or advancing an ultimate solution to the issue

o   Plan should be based on an expansion strategy that has been tested and has demonstrated succes

·        Be able to demonstrate a strategy for financial, organizational, and impact sustainability

·        Make the case that the organization’s development and/or the issue on which it is focused is at a point where a strategic investment from Skoll could lead to significant acceleration in impact

·        Commit to work with the Skoll Foundation, peers, partners and other intermediaries to advance large-scale impact in their issue area

Skoll Award winners 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

·        An open-source replication mentality

·        Commitment to systems, including for measurement and learning

·        Diversified and mission-aligned funding sources

·        Individuals, either through scholarships or other forms of financial support

In general, Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship will notsupport:

·        Individuals 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

·        University-based projects

·        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

·        Local offices of parent organizations, or specific programs within organizations

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.

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.

 

 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 discussionsand blogs about what it means to overcome the real-life barriers that social entrepreneurs face as they seek to expand their impacts.

 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

Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship

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 Skoll Foundation 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.

The next and final deadline for applications for the 2011 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship is Wednesday, August 4, 2010. Following this deadline, we will be making adjustments aimed at streamlining and simplifying our application process.  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.

How to Apply

Please note that the selection process for Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship is highly competitive. Each year the Skoll Foundation receives hundreds of applications for the small number of Awards offered, which means that many fine organizations are not selected for an Award. We have enormous regard for the important work being done by all of our applicants, whether they are selected for an Award or not.

Our application process is designed to select organizations that most closely align with our criteria. We urge applicants to complete theEligibility Quiz to assess whether their organization meets our selection criteria.

Application Process

Below is a description of the application process. For more detailed instructions on how to fill out the application, please see the “Online Application and Instructions” section.

1.    The first stage is the Eligibility Quiz. This tool is intended to help applicants assess their eligibility and potential competitiveness for a Skoll Award. At the end of the quiz, applicants are given a code that allows them to access the application. Applicants cannot move forward to the next phase until they have completed the Eligibility Quiz. However, you can view a preview of the applicationbefore taking the quiz.

2.    The second stage is the Online Application. After taking the Eligibility Quiz, applicants who feel that their organization is eligible can proceed to completing an Online Application that requests key organizational details and brief answers to 10 questions. Skoll staff will review all applications. Those that are less competitive or do not fit our criteria will be declined at this stage.

3.    The third stage is an invitation to submit a Full Proposal. Applicants selected to move forward in the process will be contacted by a program officer and invited to submit a Full Proposal. We anticipate that between 8 to 15 applicants will be asked to submit Full Proposals each year.

4.    The fourth stage is Due Diligence. This process usually includes interviews, a site visit, reference checks, follow-up questions, an in-depth financial review and a discussion of grant objectives. We expect that approximately half of the organizations that are invited to submit Full Proposals will move on to the Due Diligence stage.

5.    The final stage is the Selection of the Awardees. Decisions will take place on a year-round basis following completion of Due Diligence. We anticipate making eight to 12 Awards during each 12-month cycle.

Timeline:

1.    The next and final deadline for applications for the 2011 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship is Wednesday, August 4, 2010. Following this deadline, we will be making adjustments aimed at streamlining and simplifying our application process.  Please click here to receive notification of our revised process when it is complete. 

2.    Applications are acknowledged electronically, usually within minutes of submission.

3.    The application decision and, for successful applicants, an invitation to submit a Full Proposal occurs within six months of submission of the application deadline.

4.    Due Diligence takes several weeks to several months, depending on the schedule and project complexity.

5.    Award winners will be publicly celebrated during a ceremony at the Skoll World Forum in March of 2011.

 About the Skoll Foundation

The Skoll Foundation was created by Jeff Skoll in 1999 to pursue his vision of a sustainable, peaceful and prosperous world. Jeff believes that strategic investments in the right people can lead to lasting social change. The Skoll Foundation’s mission is to drive large-scale change by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs and other innovators dedicated to solving the world’s most pressing problems. Social entrepreneurs are proven leaders whose approaches and solutions to social problems are helping to better the lives and circumstances of countless underserved or disadvantaged individuals. By identifying the people and programs already bringing positive change around the world, the Skoll Foundation empowers them to extend their reach, deepen their impact and fundamentally improve society.

Invest

The Skoll Foundation invests in social entrepreneurs through theSkoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. These three-year awards support the continuation, replication or extension of programs that have proved successful in addressing a broad array of critical social issues: tolerance and human rights, health, environmental sustainability, institutional responsibility, peace and security, and economic and social equity.  Within these areas, the Foundation is particularly interested in innovators working on climate change, water scarcity, pandemics, nuclear proliferation and Middle East conflict.

Connect

The Skoll Foundation connects social entrepreneurs with people and resources through a number of academic, business and community channels which serve to advance the work of individual entrepreneurs, as well as the field of social entrepreneurship as a whole. To further academic study and build knowledge of the sector, the foundation launched the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship in November 2003 at the Saïd Business School at Oxford. The Centre funds five Skoll Scholars who participate in the full Saïd MBA program as well as Skoll Fellows who do research in and teach social entrepreneurship. The Foundation and Centre convene at Oxford the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, bringing together the world’s foremost practitioners and thought leaders in social innovation.

ConnectThe Skoll Foundation connects social entrepreneurs with people and resources through a number of academic, business and community channels which serve to advance the work of individual entrepreneurs, as well as the field of social entrepreneurship as a whole. To further academic study and build knowledge of the sector, the foundation launched the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship in November 2003 at the Saïd Business School at Oxford. The Centre funds five Skoll Scholars who participate in the full Saïd MBA program as well as Skoll Fellows who do research in and teach social entrepreneurship. The Foundation and Centre convene at Oxford the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, bringing together the world’s foremost practitioners and thought leaders in social innovation.To foster connections online, the Skoll Foundation supports Social Edge, where social entrepreneurs, nonprofit professionals, philanthropists and others in the social sector connect to network, learn, inspire one another and share resources. The site strikes a balance between the visionary and the practical, with spirited discussions, online workshops and access to resources and experts.CelebrateThe Skoll Foundation celebrates social entrepreneurship and social innovation through film and broadcast partnerships designed to spread the stories of social entrepreneurs.  Partnering with leading content and distribution networks, including, among others, the PBS Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Fund, The Sundance Institute, and Rockhopper TV, the Foundation supports filmmakers, documentarians and other journalists produce works that tell the stories of individual social entrepreneurs and promote large-scale public awareness of social entrepreneurship. 

Source:   www.skollfoundation.org.  

To Apply Online:  

http://www.cybergrants.com/pls/cybergrants/ao_login.login?x_gm_id=1677&x_proposal_type_id=9054 

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