The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship supports and highlights the work of social entrepreneurs around the world. Here are some excerpts from its web site.
Professor Klaus Schwab created the World Economic Forum as an independent, not-for-profit foundation in 1971 and built it into the foremost global community of world leaders in business, government, academia and civil society committed to improving the state of the world.
In 1998, Klaus Schwab and his wife Hilde decided to create and provide an initial endowment for a second complementary foundation, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, with the purpose to promote entrepreneurial solutions and social commitment with a clear impact at the grassroots level.
The World Economic Forum and the Schwab Foundation work in close partnership to provide Social Entrepreneurs with a platform to showcase their important role in today’s society.
Since its creation, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship has supported the selected Social Entrepreneurs of its network to actively participate in the events and initiatives of the World Economic Forum, providing them with an opportunity to draw on the support, knowledge and networks of its Members and constituents.
While the World Economic Forum and the Schwab Foundation cooperate closely, they are separate legal identities and have different Foundation Boards.
The Foundation is under the legal supervision of the Swiss Federal Government and is headquartered in Cologny-Geneva, Switzerland.
The Foundation’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.
Here is another video that highlights some of the social entrepreneurship work.
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