The Skoll Foundation

How do you support workers and their families in a country where there is no shared definition of “work”? Nine in 10 working citizens in India are employed in the informal sector—often in daily gigs that lack income stability. This intense job insecurity in a country with some 600 million people of working age is one of the challenges Indus Action sought to address. The organization, a 2026 Skoll Awardee, fills the gap between government intent and real-world impact.

In Pakistan, where families are plagued by one of the highest under-five mortality rates in the world, one organization asked a powerful question: How many of the 1,000 children who die every day could we save by rethinking basic health care infrastructure? To answer it, ChildLife Foundation looked at the structures and systems already in place throughout the country and devised a way to transform them without building new facilities from scratch.

August 11, 2026 The medicines already existed. The challenge was reaching people in time. Muso’s model of proactive community healthcare is showing what becomes possible when care moves closer to families. In 2009, a community health worker in the bustling capital of Bamako, Mali, found a young boy at home who had become dangerously ill within a matter of hours. Recognizing he needed urgent medical care, she arranged for him to be taken to a health facility.

The 2026 Skoll World Forum took place April 21–24 in Oxford, U.K. and online, bringing together 1,500 social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, storytellers, government officials, and private-sector leaders to explore sustainable solutions to the complex challenges we face.

Today, the Skoll Foundation announced the three organizations that will receive the 2026 Skoll Award for Social Innovation: ChildLife Foundation, SmartStart, and Indus Action. The $2 million award provides unrestricted support to nonprofit organizations with a proven track record of advancing transformational social change on intractable global issues.

The Skoll Foundation and its Board of Directors are delighted to announce that Salah Goss has joined the Foundation as Chief Program Officer. Salah will play a pivotal role in the Foundation’s next chapter, overseeing our work to support social entrepreneurs and other innovators through strategic grantmaking and investing, storytelling, partnerships, and convenings—including the Skoll World Forum.

The Skoll Foundation is thrilled to welcome a fantastic lineup of speakers for the 2026 Skoll World Forum from April 21–24. These leaders and visionaries from around the globe will share their ideas and insights about how we can collaborate to advance solutions to the urgent challenges we face. In a moment defined by the social sector’s resilience, this year’s Forum will bring us together to reimagine a future that enables people and planet to thrive.

A growing movement shows that protecting the world’s forests—and the people who have safeguarded them for centuries—is one of the most powerful, and overlooked, tools in the fight against climate change. By Lee Helland & Carina Mia Wong A woman stands at the edge of the Amazon Rainforest. Behind her, an explosion of life—thousands of animal species, billions of trees, lush canopy. Ahead, another kind: Humanity. People from every corner of the Earth fill the city of Belém, Brazil.

Ecologists tell us that the true strength of a forest lies not in the trees’ towering trunks or the grandeur of their awe-inspiring canopy. Rather, the source of its resilience is largely invisible, coursing beneath the surface within the mycelium—delicate fungal threads that facilitate resource-sharing and communication. By channeling energy and resources upward, these connections enable forests to regrow and renew, ensuring collective survival.