Ashoka's Changemakers 'working tirelessly to find new innovators'
You may have just caught this previous post on Ashoka's Changemakers Patients| Choices| Empowerment competition, which is seeking solutions for the health care industry. From health care to human rights to the environment, Bill Drayton's Ashoka and its Changemakers online platform have been connecting social entrepreneurs around the world for idea-sharing and positive change since its founding in 1980.
Delyse Sylvester, co-director of the Community Team for Ashoka's Changemakers
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I caught up with Delyse Sylvester, co-director of the Community Team for Changemakers, to learn more about its platform and how you, an interested reader, can get engaged with their work.
Kindness: How does Changemakers work?
Delyse Sylvester: Changemakers is an open, transparent, global community of action. Our "collaborative competitions" incentivize social entrepreneurs to present their ideas to a growing number of innovators, thought leaders and enthusiasts to discuss ideas, suggest improvements and offer resources that help refine, improve and build on the entries.
A panel of experts then chooses a short list of finalists, and the winner is selected in an open vote. Since Changemakers launched the first-ever Internet-based competition in 2002, our "open source" forum has inspired a global online community to not only identify and advance winning projects but to strengthen the innovations and help spread and share a range of different ideas. This has helped to spur new thinking and innovation globally. It gives our whole community the opportunity to sharpen their own understanding of the issues while connecting with potential collaborators.
The competition theme is defined jointly with our partners - foundations and corporations – with the Changemakers staff and Ashoka extensive network of Ashoka Fellows. Together we frame the issue for the competition, and Changemakers team reaches out to the world or to a specific local community depending on the geographic scope of the competition.
Changemakers draws on Ashoka's three decades of knowledge and lessons collected as a leader in the field of social entrepreneurship.
Kindness: Why health this time around?
Sylvester: We believe health is one of the most critical issues facing global development. Changemakers, through our extensive Ashoka Fellowship and long-term partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has grown an extensive Health solutions bank. We want to continue to bring new opportunities to the health field and inspire a new generation of innovators, thought leaders and enthusiasts to commit to the best health care options and greater access for the most marginalized communities globally.
Kindness: What are some of the inspiring stories from Changemakers? Have any ideas that have gone on to truly spark change?
Sylvester: We have many inspiring stories of our entrants and we try our best to capture them. Here is our bank of stories: http://www.changemakers.com/en-us/stories/browse/all
Kindness: What percentage of applications are from the U.S.? Worldwide? How do you get the word out?
Sylvester: The current overall figures are skewed to be U.S .-focused as we have held a number of competitions that were focused on communities within the U.S. and offered additional post-competition grant funding envelopes for U.S.-based organizations. We have also held competitions where target regions had been select countries from Africa, South Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, etc. That said, our overall figures (constantly in flux) for U.S.-based entries are approximately 65%. Please also keep in mind that many competition entries come from U.S.-based organizations that focus their work in other regions (i.e. a U.S.-based firm working in Kenya).
In order to "get the word out," we leverage the networks of Ashoka, Ashoka country offices, existing Changemakers' community members, our partners' networks as well as our friends in the social change space such as Next Billion, Social Edge, and much more. We also have a loyal community that exists on Twitter and Facebook who seek out news from Changemakers and share it with their friends and followers. We have a team that works to contact organizations that would benefit from the opportunity to join the Changemakers community, participate in competitions, contribute insights to the field, etc., and provide support and opportunities for scale to our entrants through the entry process. We find that often that it's the word-of-mouth that brings our entrants to our site.
Kindness: How do you track the use of the grant money? Do your competition winners receive ongoing support from your organization?
Sylvester: Our awards are unrestricted grants – funds that they can invest in the best way possible to help their innovation scale up. Our winners really appreciate this type of funding because it is often infrastructure support that they need as they work toward expanding, replicating and bringing their programs to scale. We complete a comprehensive due diligence process to ensure legitimacy, accuracy and integrity of our entrants, and we check their financial background prior to naming finalists. After the award is received, we continue to offer new opportunities to support growth and professional development, including new marketing tools and how-tos, as well as news of other funding sources to explore. Our community members are constantly encouraged to connect with one another, and we often facilitate connections between our community members, creating a network effect of social change around the world.
Kindness: What inspires you the most about the work?
Sylvester: Our entrants – much like our Fellows – are the most passionate and amazing individuals who are singularly committed to making their community better. Whether it's a small rural village serving a few dozen people or millions in a busy, crowded city – whether they are just starting out or have been at it for decades - hearing about their journey is both emotional and inspiring. What we share as a community of action is a fundamental belief that for every issue facing humanity there is an individual, team, community working on a solution to overcome the problem. Changemakers job is to find them no matter how remote or isolated. Finding that key solution is what inspires us every day. Our Changemakers global staff is all equally fueled by the Changemakers community and this makes working together fun. It doesn't hurt that we are all innovators, too.
Kindness: Anything else you'd like to share with readers?
Sylvester: We welcome you to come and connect with social innovators on www.Changemakers.com. We are working tirelessly to find new innovators, bring new opportunities to them, and to change the way that traditional funders can find new investees. We know that you are a Changemaker and you have something to share. Join us
