Audra – A colleague of mine forwarded this initiative “Young Men at Risk: Transforming the Power of a Generation” http://changemakers.net/en-us/forum/25 and it reminded me about the Ashoka Foundation: www.ashoka.org. Many of you already know about it but for those who don’t already know: Here is a little info:
“Vision
Ashoka envisions a world where Everyone is a Changemaker: a world that responds quickly and effectively to social challenges, and where each individual has the freedom, confidence and societal support to address any social problem and drive change.
Mission
Ashoka strives to shape a global, entrepreneurial, competitive citizen sector: one that allows social entrepreneurs to thrive and enables the world’s citizens to think and act as changemakers.”
A book about some of their work has the modest title “How to Change the World”
- a good read. http://www.amazon.com/How-Change-World-Social-Entrepreneurs/dp/0195138058 Website: http://www.howtochangetheworld.org/
References to Ashoka in book http://www.ashoka.org/node/966
What Ashoka has done in some of their initiatives is travel to regions and ask people who is doing work of significance to local communities. They collect index cards on the people and eventually focus in on those doing the best work. They then fund them to take some time from their regular work (and pays them a salary comparable to their existing wages) during that time to scale or more fully develop their project – this could be rural electrification or water, health services, etc. Really great targeted funding on a scale that has huge local impact.
P.S. Ashoka was the name of a great king in India who”unified the Indian subcontinent in the 3rd century BC, renouncing violence and dedicating his life to social welfare and economic development. For his creativity, global mindedness and tolerance, Ashoka is renowned as the earliest example of a social innovator. “
