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The Skoll Foundation is an American private foundation based in Palo Alto, California. The foundation makes grants and investments intended to reduce global poverty. It was founded by Jeffrey Skoll in 1999. The total assets of the foundation (including its affiliated funds) amount to $1.127 billion as of 2018. The combined entities made grants totaling about $71 million in 2018 (and disbursements of $56 million), based on unaudited numbers reported by the foundation. According to the most recent audited financial statements, the non-grant expenses for the foundation totaled around $17 million in 2018.
In 2001, Skoll hired Sally Osberg, formerly the founding executive director of the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose. Osberg was the foundation's first employee, president and CEO. Osberg claims that she led the organization through its startup, implementation and renewal phases. Osberg and her colleagues set up platforms to connect civil society members with private and public sector leaders. These platforms included partnerships with Sundance Festival and Oxford's Saïd Business School.
In 2003, Skoll established the private Skoll Foundation. The two entities, which have distinct governing bodies but share staff and offices, together operate the foundation's grantmaking and other programs.
In April 2017, Osberg announced plans to step down from the role of CEO.
In 2018, Richard Fahey assumed the role of interim president after 14 years of executive leadership at the foundation. In February 2019, Donald Gips was appointed as the foundation's CEO. Formerly, Gips served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa. In March 2021, the foundation hired Marla Blow as its president and chief operating officer. She had formerly served as the senior vice president for social impact in North America for the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.
The foundation, which moved to its Palo Alto headquarters in 2004, also collaborated closely with the Skoll Global Threats Fund, established in 2009, to address climate change, , water security, nuclear proliferation, and conflict in the Middle East. Some of the fund's initiatives supported by the foundation have included an app, developed in partnership with the Brazilian Ministry of Health, that allowed monitoring of health conditions and potential infection by the Zika virus virus during the 2016 Olympics; supporting surveillance technologies that identify epidemics at their earliest outbreak; and development of an online tool that will help policymakers identify global water risk and food security hot spots.
The foundation began funding research into pandemic preparedness and prevention in 2009. Simultaneously, the organization funded research into climate change water scarcity, nuclear weapons and conflict in the Middle East; it called this its Global Threats Fund. Previously, the foundation partnered with Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org to fund Nathan Wolfe's 2008 research into cross-species transmission amongst Cameroonian bushmeat hunters. In 2018 the fund created Ending Pandemics, a non-profit spun out from its research into pandemic detection and rapid response.
Skoll increased the foundation's 2020 grant to $200 million to respond to the pandemic's economic, health and social impact. The African Field Epidemiology Network, a group that works with Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention were the foundation's first COVID-related grantees. The foundation also gave sixty-four past and current Skoll grantees $50,000 in emergency funding during this period.
| + Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship awardees | ||
| Bunker Roy | ||
| Ann Cotton | ||
| Paul Rice | ||
| Martin Burt | ||
| Nina Smith | ||
| Victoria Hale | ||
| Amitabha Sadangi | ||
| Nick Moon Martin Fisher | ||
| Luis Szaran | ||
| Sakena Yacoobi | ||
| Jeroo Billimoria | ||
| Jim Fruchterman | ||
| Mindy Lubber | ||
| Albina Ruiz | ||
| Taddy Blecher | ||
| Gary Cohen | ||
| Quratulain Bakhteari | ||
| Karen I. Tse | ||
| J.B. Schramm | ||
| John Wood | ||
| Heidi Kuhn | ||
| Vera Cordeiro | ||
| Blaise Judja-Sato | ||
| Vicky Colbert | ||
| Joe Madiath | ||
| Roshaneh Zafar | ||
| Bill Strickland | ||
| Rupert Howes | ||
| Michael Eckhart | ||
| Connie Duckworth | ||
| Jenny Bowen | ||
| Maria Cecilia Flores-Oebanda | ||
| Bart Weetjens | ||
| Martin von Hildebrand | ||
| Soraya Salti | ||
| Juan E. Méndez, Paul van Zyl | ||
| Wendy Kopp | ||
| Gary White | ||
| Scott Gilmore | ||
| Marc Freedman | ||
| Michael Jenkins | ||
| Andrew Youn | ||
| Ambrosuis Ruwindruarto, Silverius Oscar Unggul | ||
| Molly Melching | ||
| Rebecca Onie | ||
| Ellen Moir | ||
| Madhav Chavan | ||
| Tim Hanstad | ||
| 2012 | Nidan | Arbind Singh |
| Carne Ross | ||
| Sal Khan | ||
| Yves Moury | ||
| Mabel van Oranje | ||
| Josh Nesbit | ||
| Jockin Arputham | ||
| Sam Parker | ||
| lasdair Harris | ||
| Safeena Husain | ||
| Jagdeesh Rao Puppala | ||
| Ma Jun (environmentalist) | ||
| Bryan Stevenson | ||
| Chuck Slaughter | ||
| Vivek Maru | ||
| Oren Yakobovich | ||
| Kola Masha | ||
| Elizabeth Hausler | ||
| Raj Panjabi | ||
| Bradley Myles | ||
| Jennifer Pahlka | ||
| Barbara Bush | ||
| Selco Foundation | ||
| Nancy Lublin | ||
| Gregory Rockson | ||
| Julie Cordua | ||
| Aparna hedge | ||
| Drew Kodjak | ||
| 2022 | Common Future | Rodney Foxworth |
| 2022 | Financing Alliance for Health | Angela Gichaga |
| 2022 | MapBiomas | Tasso Azevedo |
| 2022 | NDN Collective | Nick Tilsen |
| 2022 | Noora Health | |
| 2022 | NOSSAS | Alessandra Orofino |
| 2023 | AMAN | Mina Setra & Rukkha Sombolinggi |
| 2023 | Reach Digital Health | Debbie Rogers |
| 2023 | Protect Democracy | Ian Bassin |
| 2023 | Conexsus | Carina Pimenta |
| 2023 | PolicyLink | Michael McAfee |
| 2024 | Food for Education | Wawira Njiru |
| 2024 | IllumiNative |
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| 2024 | Meedan | Ed Bice |
| 2024 | SaveLIFE Foundation | Piyush Tewari |
| 2025 | Apis & Heritage Capital Partners (A&H) | |
| 2025 | Community Health Impact Coalition | |
| 2025 | EarthEnable | Gayatri Datar |
| 2025 | Healthy Learners | |
| 2025 | Pacto pela Democracia | Flávia Pellegrino |
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