The Schwab Foundation for Social Enterpreneurship

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship provides unparalleled platforms at the regional and global level to highlight and advance leading models of sustainable social innovation. It identifies a select community of social entrepreneurs and engages it in shaping global, regional and industry agendas that improve the state of the world in close collaboration with the other stakeholders of the World Economic Forum.

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship is a not-for-profit, independent and neutral organization, founded in 1998, with the purpose to advance social entrepreneurship and to foster social entrepreneurs as an important catalyst for societal innovation and progress. The Foundation is under the legal supervision of the Swiss Federal Government and is headquartered in Cologny-Geneva, Switzerland.

The Foundations’s main activities include:

  • Identifying and highlighting the world’s leading social entrepreneurs: Annually, the Foundation select 20-25 Social Entrepreneurs from a pool of applicants through a global “ Social Entrepreneur of the Year” competition. The  profiles of the selected social entrepreneurs can be searched and viewed online.
  • Community building: Currently, over 260 social entrepreneurs form part of the Schwab Foundation community. They come from around the world and work in a wide range of sectors, but they have many challenges and characteristics in common. The Foundation fosters the peer-to-peer exchange of the social entrepreneurs and supports the replication of their methodologies among each other.
  • Connecting social entrepreneurs: The Foundation supports the participation and active involvement of its selected social entrepreneurs at the regional and global meetings of the World Economic Forum. These meetings offer unique opportunities for social entrepreneurs to connect with corporate, political, academic, media and other leaders.
  • Generating solutions in partnership: Social entrepreneurs participate in  Forum initiatives, the conversations shaping the future agendas of industries, and are experts for the  Forum’s Global Agenda Councils. The Foundation works with selected companies to advance specific activities of social entrepreneurs or initiatives that support social entrepreneurship ( partners).
  • The next generation of social entrepreneurs: The Foundation works with the  Forum of Young Global Leaders to identify rising social entrepreneurs with a significant impact under the age of 40.
  • Additional services: The Foundation works with Harvard University, Stanford University and INSEAD to provide scholarship opportunities to the best executive education courses in the field to the selected social entrepreneurs. The Foundation works closely with leading academic institutions to publish case studies on specific social entrepreneurs for incorporation in undergraduate and graduate level courses

The Foundation does not give grants or invest financially in the organizations of its selected social entrepreneurs.

What The Foundation can offer ?

The Foundation invests its limited resources in creating unprecedented opportunities where social entrepreneurs who have successfully implemented and scaled their transformational idea, can further the legitimacy of their work, have access to usually inaccessible networks, and in consequence, mobilize the financial and in-kind resources that enable them to continue to strengthen and expand.

How to find more information?

Visit The Foundation website: http://www.schwabfound.org/[/fusion_text]