Andres Dussan, Paul Wood, a Lazarus Friend & Gaston Wright

Ashoka’s mission is to develop the profession of social entrepreneurship around the world.

Leading social entrepreneurs (Ashoka “Fellows”) work in every area of human need and are found in every country around the globe. What defines them and their work, and what Ashoka demands of its Fellows, is the highest standard of innovation, entrepreneurial skill, creativity, social impact and human ethics.

“Extraordinary individuals
with unprecedented
ideas for change
in their communities.”

Ashoka invests in people. It is a global nonprofit organization that searches the world for social entrepreneurs—extraordinary individuals with unprecedented ideas for change in their communities. Ashoka identifies and invests in these social entrepreneurs when no one else will. It does so through stipends and professional services that allow “Ashoka Fellows” to focus full-time on their ideas for leading social change in education and youth development, health care, environment, human rights, access to technology and economic development.

Ashoka first began electing leading social entrepreneurs to its global fellowship in India in 1982. Today, 20 years later, the fellowship comprises more than 1,200 leading social entrepreneurs in 44 countries. All Ashoka funds are privately raised from individual donors and private or corporate charitable foundations.

Ashoka’s value, especially as a global fellowship, depends on its ability to elect social entrepreneurs with the most powerful new ideas and potential for large scale impact. In reviewing candidates, Ashoka applies one knock-out test and four criteria.

Knock-out test: a new idea
Ashoka cannot elect someone to the fellowship unless he or she is possessed by a new idea, a new solution or approach to a social problem that will change the pattern in a field, be it education, health, or any other, at the national level (or across a broader region for small countries). Ashoka does not invest in new schools or clinics per say. There must be a vision of reform for the education or health care system that promises to change schools or clinics all across the candidate’s country or a broader region.

Criterion 1: Creativity
Successful social entrepreneurs must be creative both as goal-setting visionaries and in the essential follow-up problem solving.

Criterion 2: Entrepreneurial Quality
Ashoka is looking for individuals who are, by temperament, that rare phenomenon, the first class entrepreneur. We are looking for men and women who are possessed by an idea; who will persevere refining, testing, and then spreading or marketing the idea until it has become the new pattern for society as a whole.

Criterion 3: Social Impact of the Idea
Successful social entrepreneurship needs not only an extraordinary champion to develop an idea but a powerful, practical new idea that will spread on its own merits. Therefore, this criterion, unlike the other three, focuses on the candidate’s idea, not the candidate.

Criterion 4: Ethical Fiber
Social entrepreneurs introducing major structural changes in society, in effect, have to ask a great many people to change how they do things. If people do not trust the entrepreneur, the likelihood of success is significantly reduced. The quality of Ashoka’s collaborative fellowship is dependent upon the free exchange of information and insights and trust of each other.