From the “Who” to the “What”: the Skoll Foundation Clarifies Its Priorities
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Skoll awardee mPharma works to make drugs affordable and accessible in several African countries. Photo: Skoll Foundation
While the Skoll Foundation’s strategic focus has evolved over the years, its interest in social entrepreneurship has remained constant. The idea of finding and backing people with the vision to tackle big problems—and the talent to turn creative ideas into real-world results—has always been of more interest to Skoll than any one issue.
Now, that’s shifting as Skoll organizes around five strategic priorities it sees as interconnected: strengthening health systems and preventing pandemics; mobilizing climate action; reimagining inclusive and sustainable economies; keeping democracy safe by promoting effective governance; and advancing racial justice.
At the same time, the foundation is taking a “proximate” approach, doubling down on the social entrepreneurs and social innovators that have been its long-term focus. But rather than helping them go it alone, the new approach opens doors to thinking across systems and working collaboratively. Within the new framework, Skoll will identify existing and emerging changemakers around the world and connect them to decision-making that can be scaled and put into action.
Aligning actions and aspirations
It would be easy to chalk up Skoll’s changed approach to recent events in the world. But the rethinking at Skoll actually began in 2019, as it reached its second decade. At that time, the folks at Skoll decided that taking a reflective step back would help them move forward in a way that “aligns actions with aspirations.”
Which is not to say that recent historic events haven’t played a role in its thinking. As the foundation sought new ways to engage with partners, COVID-19 and an ongoing racial reckoning prompted the foundation to lean into strategic approaches and move with urgency on pressing issues.
Shivani Garg Patel, chief strategy officer at Skoll, characterized the move as “almost like a shift from the who to the what.”
On March 30, the foundation published an annual letter announcing a broadened investment approach that embraces social innovators and creative problem-solvers across sectors. Skoll will continue to put its greatest trust in “those closest to the challenge,” and looks to them to lead change. But it plans to use that as the basis of exploring new funding opportunities and building relationships with the “individuals, groups and ideas that have the potential to transform our world.”
A bit of background
Skoll was founded in 1999 by Jeff Skoll, a Canadian tech innovator who was eBay’s first president and first full-time employee. Skoll has since gone on to found the Jeff Skoll Group, a portfolio of philanthropic and commercial enterprises that includes Participant Media.
Since its beginnings, the Skoll Foundation has invested more than $935 million in 165 organizations on five continents, toward its mission to help people around the globe live in “a sustainable world of health and prosperity.” Often, that work has centered on finding social entrepreneurs who operate closest to problems, disrupt spaces that are “ripe for change,” and innovate around movement-building.
A highlight of Skoll’s ongoing work is the foundation’s signature Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship, which annually invests in four to six organizations seeking to move the needle on the world’s most pressing problems. Each awardee receives $1.5 million over three years to increase impact and scale their work.
At the same time, the foundation is drawing on lessons from past initiatives like the Skoll Global Threats Fund, which wound down in 2017. The fund’s wide focus included climate change, pandemics, water security, nuclear proliferation and Middle Eastern conflict. Some areas grew into standalone disciplines, like climate and pandemic work. Others collected findings that were incorporated elsewhere.
A proximate approach
Skoll is taking a “proximate” approach to identifying emerging innovations and solutions within its priorities. That means partnering with social entrepreneurs that have “lived or learned” experience with the challenges they face, as well as the drive to effect lasting change.
Take pandemic work, for example, something Skoll was already involved in before COVID-19. Going forward, work to strengthen health systems and prevent pandemics will be grounded in the way COVID-19 magnified and exposed inequities around the world, and disproportionately hurt weaker systems.
As the pandemic spread, Skoll accelerated collaboration in South Asia, Latin America and Africa. In Africa, it adopted a particular focus on the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), which coordinated responses across sectors like government, business, civil society and philanthropy.
Skoll also centers on fortifying weak institutions by promoting effective governance, bolstering democratic institutions and stabilizing global security. Recently, the focus was stateside as free and fair elections came under threat in the United States. Over the longer term, Skoll will be working to ensure voter access that was stymied by the pandemic and partnering with on-the-ground organizations like Fair Count that combat voter suppression. Citizen action and movement building are also priorities.
The foundation’s plans around climate action include investing in communications to build public support and backing the necessary infrastructure to support a movement. An investment in Communicating Our Power, for example, creates a cohort of 20 organizations that work to promote bold solutions for climate justice. In keeping with Skoll’s intention to build upon its networks, the foundation also supports Ceres’ work to engage the business and investment community in climate-friendly practices. Geography is also a consideration. Skoll actively supports social entrepreneurs that work in climate hotspots.
A belief that existing economic systems privilege the wealthy few grounds Skoll’s support for the kinds of social innovations that can create more inclusive systems. That includes investing in behavioral, systems and policy shifts—and new paradigms like Imperative 21, which was co-created by another Skoll awardee, B Lab.
Skoll’s CEO Don Gips says the foundation decided equity was core to its strategy even before George Floyd. He describes the organization as “very early in its own equity journey,” and engaged in listening and the idea of giving up power.
Racial equity funding will back social innovations that shift attitudes and narratives, and seek proximate solutions that elevate oppressed voices. Skoll’s partners in supporting civic participation and multiracial solidarity include the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund, which counteracts anti-Asian violence and sentiments, and Echoing Green’s Racial Equity Philanthropic Fund, a $50 million initiative that’s using levers like teaching the private sector how to participate in equity work.
“Part of its DNA”
Garg Patel called attention to Skoll’s work in health systems and preventing pandemics when characterizing the organization’s strategic evolution. The foundation’s long and deep work in both areas and its great proximate partners put it in a position of real opportunity when COVID hit. As a result, Skoll intimately knew the places that were most impacted and how to help find impactful solutions on the ground, she said.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, it had multiple ways of “showing up,” both through direct funding and building connections. Yes, Skoll invested in Africa CDC, a social innovator working with response efforts in the region. But it was also able to bridge connections between its networks of social entrepreneurs and social innovators that can lead to collaborative, sustainable change.
Going forward, Skoll will continue to leverage those relationships, a community of practice Patel calls “part of its DNA.”
