Social Change with Long-Term ImpactAshoka has helped change the lives of millions around the world. While those stories are extraordinary, we are most proud of the systemic change that we create — shifting societal perceptions, encouraging new behavior patterns, and revolutionizing entire fields. We understand that this type of change takes time. As a result, our approach to measuring impact does not only assess how many children receive free social services, but more importantly, how the entire child welfare system is changed to put children first; nor just how many women gain access to formal employment, but how national policy toward women’s economic participation has shifted. This change signals the adoption of a Fellow’s idea at the national or international level and that our true measure of the bottom line — sustainable and scalable social change — has been achieved.

Every year, Ashoka conducts a Measuring Effectiveness study focusing on the classes of Fellows elected five to ten years prior. This study is our assessment tool which uses sustainable indicators — rather than short-term metrics — to capture the impact of Fellows. Results of our most recent study found that over half of our Fellows have already changed national policy, within 5 years and 90 percent have seen independent institutions replicate their innovations around the globe.

Creating a Movement of Changemakers

We think innovation can happen all around us — starting with you.

All of us have the potential to be powerful changemakers. Ashoka envisions a world where everyone can create social change — whether it is working in a local community or at a national or global level.

Each of us has a role to play in inspiring hope and in creating a world of equity, justice, and peace.

Are you a changemaker? Join us. www.ashoka.org

ASHOKA

Around the world, where governments and businesses have been unable to meet social needs, citizen organizations have emerged to fill in the gaps.

Over 25 years ago, Ashoka was founded with the understanding that the most successful leaders of these new organizations were operating with the same ingenuity as the best entrepreneurs in the business sector.

Ashoka named these leaders “social entrepreneurs” and defined the field as “social entrepreneurship”.

Ashoka is the world’s working community of more than 2,000 leading social entrepreneurs and the largest global organization investing in innovative ideas and the people behind them.

Our support ensures that our Fellows’ ideas are replicable, scalable, sustainable, and have the potential for global impact. We champion the most important new social change ideas.

We help integrate and connect social and business entrepreneurs around the world in order to promote an entrepreneurial “eco-system” of global initiatives that supports the fast-growing needs of the citizen sector.

Envision a world of people who see the possibility of change, feel empowered to imagine innovative solutions and make social change happen. A world

in which every citizen could be a changemaker.

Ashoka is making that world a reality. We are creating an Everyone A Changemaker™ society.

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*Measuring Effectiveness Study

SELECT & SUPPORT BUILD COMMUNITY

SUPPORT GLOBAL CHANGE

Select and Support Role Models for Social Innovation Ashoka selects leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, in some cases providing them with a stipend for three years to launch and spread their social innovation. These Fellows serve as society’s role models — practical visionaries with system-changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. They are empathetic leaders who empower others to take social initiative, beginning a cycle that cultivates generations of local changemakers. Individually and collectively, in community after community, the notion of our Fellows disrupt the old ways and challenge the idea that things cannot change. These entrepreneurs are central to Ashoka’s vision because they create the necessary enabling environment for an Everyone a Changemaker™ World.

Develop Collaborations and Communities of Social Entrepreneurs

We unite our Fellows into a dynamic community that produces cross-cutting synergies that are much greater than the sum of its parts. The combined efforts of these entrepreneurs allow us to explore many methods for systemic solutions to global challenges. Ashoka shares these principles with the larger population of changemakers by seeding innovation into, through and between our various global programs.

Transform Insights into Global Social ChangeAshoka reverses the historical notion that only a small group of people can cause change and is dedicated to opening up change-making to everyone. As influence is created and shared by an increasing number of citizens, a critical factor for diminishing inequities in any group or sector will be the number of people who feel empowered to make change happen. Everything we do at Ashoka ensures interaction between the individual and the communities of social entrepreneurs; the field; the social, business and citizen sectors; and supportive financial structures.

VENTURE is the mechanism through which Ashoka finds and supports the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Ashoka was founded on the Venture model over 25 years ago, and remains the heart of Ashoka — the work upon which all of our efforts depend.

GLOBAL FELLOWSHIP helps Ashoka Fellows to do more together than they could do individually — providing a global perspective for local innovation.

CHANGEMAKERS applies the “open source” principle of social problem-solving to anyone who chooses to participate through a series of online “collaborative competitions” in a community that treasures quality of idea, collegiality and innovation.

FULL ECONOMIC CITIZENSHIP harnesses the innovations of Ashoka Fellows to create new business/social models that serve the lowest-income populations in the world.

LAW FOR ALL works with social entrepreneurs and partners from the public, private and social sectors to defend changemakers, encourage pro bono legal culture and foster access to justice.

YOUTH VENTURE ensures that all young people are given the opportunity to unlock change-making power early in their lives.

CITIZEN BASE INITIATIVE markets capacity building for organizations worldwide that are creating social change.

ENTREPRENEUR TO ENTREPRENEUR encapsulates the Ashoka Support Network program, which engages business professionals and their organizations with our Fellows.

SOCIAL FINANCIAL SERVICES develops a range of financial services, products and partners to finance social change-making to a standard that is equivalent to those of the business sector.

GLOBAL ACADEMY brings together leaders who provide conceptual and representational guidance for the field of social entrepreneurship — acting as architects for the dynamic, competitive citizen sector of the future.

Ashoka’s Framework for Creating Social ChangeAn Everyone A Changemaker™ World

Ashoka was founded on the belief that social entrepreneurs are the most powerful force for changing the world. Our investment in leading entrepreneurs is deliberate—we support the best innovators, who we believe will achieve the greatest impact for systemic social change. But innovation happens at many levels and anyone who creates change is capable of becoming a changemaker themselves. The more changemakers we enable, the more power we can collectively harness to create a more empathetic and equitable world. Though the world is still in need of leading social entrepreneurs, it is not limited to them. As role models for the next generation of social leaders, our Ashoka Fellows are building an Everyone A Changemaker™ world. From one acorn to many, the Ashoka tree continues to flourish and grow.

We believe that the synergy between a passionate “who,” an innovative “what,” a sustainable “how,” and a community of

changemakers can and will change the world.

Programs