Photo courtesy;The Skoll Foundation
The Skoll Foundation has honored five pioneering organizations with the 2025 Skoll Award for Social Innovation during a ceremony held at the New Theatre in Oxford as part of the 22nd Skoll World Forum. The event was held on April 3rd,2025.
From a news release, each organization received $2 million in unrestricted funding to accelerate their efforts in addressing critical global challenges ranging from healthcare and housing to democracy and inclusive economic growth.
“We are living in a time of profound upheaval. When crisis strikes, social innovators run toward the problem to step in with solutions that address root causes,” said Don Gips, CEO of the Skoll Foundation, during the announcement of the winners earlier before the awards were scheduled for April.
“These leaders show us that the world may be fractured, but repair and lasting progress are possible when we work together across issues, sectors, geographies, and ideologies.”
The systems-level work of these five organizations requires sustained funding and partnerships, which the Award and the Forum aim to catalyze. Each Awardee organization received $2 million in unrestricted funding to scale their work and increase their impact.
The 2025 recipients of the Skoll Award for Social Innovation are:
Apis & Heritage Capital Partners (A&H) is restoring the American Dream by helping low- and middle-income employees become owners of their businesses when sellers are ready to retire, ensuring continuity for businesses and prosperity for workers and communities. A&H converts profitable businesses with diverse, hardworking teams into 100 percent employee-owned enterprises by providing loans for upfront financing and consulting support to help new employee owners succeed. To date, A&H has transitioned businesses with a combined value of $65 million to employee ownership, benefiting hundreds of workers and their families.
Community Health Impact Coalition (CHIC) is a global network advancing professionalism in community health. It ensures that community health workers (CHWs) are salaried, trained, and supported. CHWs—70% of whom are women—deliver essential care worldwide. CHIC helped shape the 2018 WHO guidelines on CHWs.
Now, 47 countries recognize CHWs in national health policies. One billion people still lack access to formal health care.CHIC is closing that gap by shifting global health systems.
EarthEnable improves the health and living conditions of rural African families and reduces the housing industry’s carbon footprint by working with community-based entrepreneurs and local masons to develop and install more affordable, sustainable housing materials. EarthEnable provides affordable, sustainable flooring in East Africa that replaces dirt floors, which harbor disease, with eco-friendly alternatives. Their materials are locally sourced and far less carbon-intensive than concrete.
Over 200,000 people in Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda have benefited. More than 1,000 local jobs have been created through this model. By 2027, EarthEnable aims to help fulfill housing needs for 700,000 people.
Healthy Learners trains teachers in Zambia as school health workers and links schools with the public healthcare system, increasing health service access for children over five years of age. Healthy Learners has partnered with the government and trained school health workers to monitor student health, perform basic first aid, provide preventative care, and refer severe cases to a clinic. This reduces absenteeism and enables students to learn and thrive. Healthy Learners works with 600 schools and serves more than 980,000 children across eight of Zambia’s 10 provinces. By 2028, Healthy Learners aims to reach 2.5 million children, or 70 percent of the primary school population.
Pacto pela Democracia (Pact for Democracy) is coordinating the non-partisan pro-democracy movement in Brazil, facilitating a broad coalition to counter anti-democratic forces and build trust in democratic institutions. Pacto pela Democracia has galvanized a cross-ideological coalition of more than 200 civil society partners united to preserve stability and democratic rule of law in Brazil. The coalition cultivates relationships with business leaders, academics, and journalists to build a cohesive, coordinated, and aligned pro-democracy ecosystem. Their work today has proved vital as rising autocratic threats, disinformation campaigns, and election-related violence are testing the resilience of democratic institutions. These efforts enabled the coalition to successfully protect the process and results of the 2022 Brazilian election, coordinating and deploying more than 80 collaborative actions to monitor and respond to election-related threats.
“As global challenges multiply, the 2025 Skoll Awardees continue to meet the moment with determination, innovation, and optimism for our collective future,” said Marla Blow, president and COO of the Skoll Foundation. “Whether it’s resourcing community health workers worldwide to enable lifesaving care, safeguarding the democratic rule of law, generating wealth through employee ownership, making sustainable and healthy homes accessible to all, or structuring school systems to keep students healthy—these social innovators are transforming our world.”
About the Skoll Foundation
The Skoll Foundation catalyzes transformational social change by investing in, connecting with, and championing social entrepreneurs and innovators who, together, advance bold and equitable solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.
