April 23, 2009 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The founder of the Skoll Foundation, which supports nonprofit leaders working on innovative social projects, is putting $100-million into a new fund to take on world problems that he believes have the potential to make social change moot.
Jeff Skoll, the first president of eBay, says the Skoll Urgent Threats Fund will focus on five issues: climate change, water scarcity, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, and the Middle East conflict.
“Over the last five years, it really has become apparent that there are a number of issues that are absolutely urgent in the world, and if we don’t get ahead of them in the next five to 10 years, the long-term work that everyone else is doing may not matter so much,” he says.
World of Possibilities
The fund will be led by Larry Brilliant, who was the first executive director of Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org. The two became close after a trip to India in August 2007, during which Mr. Brilliant took Mr. Skoll to see a village beset by polio, a water supply full of fecal matter, and scientists working to develop hybridized seeds that can tolerate salty water if sea levels rise.
Since starting the Skoll Foundation, in 1999, Mr. Skoll has used many approaches to focus attention on social issues. His for-profit film company, Participant Media, produced An Inconvenient Truth, the 2006 film about global warming. His investment firm puts money into products like waterless urinals. And the foundation itself, based in Palo Alto, Calif., makes awards that average about $1-million a year to support social entrepreneurs.
Skeptics may wonder if Mr. Skoll is trying to take on too much with his new fund, but he notes that he has a history of using relatively small sums to make big differences. An Inconvenient Truth, he says, cost only about $1-million to make, but it spawned publicity about climate change that he estimated as worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The $100-million will come from money that Mr. Skoll has already put into his foundation, which has assets of $700-million. But he says he intends to add to the urgent-threat fund.
“I hope we’re not taking on too much,” he says. “Any one of these five issues could bring the world to its knees.”
Partners Wanted
Both Mr. Skoll and Mr. Brilliant acknowledge that they will need partners. Mr. Brilliant says he has talked to a half-dozen of the country’s biggest foundations and says they are willing to work with the new fund.
The fund’s headquarters will be in the San Francisco area, where Mr. Brilliant lives. Though still making decisions on staffing, he expects to hire “some of the world’s most knowledgeable people in these five areas.”
