Our
Impact
We pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship 40 years ago and have supported more than 3,800 Ashoka Fellows across the globe, guiding them to grow unexpected ideas into transformative social progress.
Our 300 Ashoka Fellows in the United States are at the leading edge of solutions to our more urgent public problems: building a more equitable economy, combating climate change, reforming our criminal justice system, expanding access to healthcare, rooting out systemic racism and more.
Ashoka accompanies them along their journeys – with catalytic investments, with strategic guidance, and with an unmatched peer-to-peer community.
As a result our Fellows go further faster in pursuing their systems-changing goals.
Impact of
the Fellows
Ashoka Fellows work in every area of human need and represent one of the most diverse communities of changemakers in the United States. Each is implementing a new idea for solving a social problem in their own way. But all our Fellows are defined by a common commitment to systemic-level change — to addressing the root causes of the problems we see rather than treating symptoms in perpetuity.
Ashoka Fellows are
Systems change experts
focus on shifting mindsets and cultural norms
Trabian Shorters
BME
Trabian changes how the philanthropy sector talks about those it serves: Asset framing shifts the narrative to define people by their aspirations and contribution, not by their despair and weakness – a precondition for achieving equity and inclusion.
INFLUENCE PUBLIC POLICY
Ai-jen Poo
NDWA
Ai-jen has led the effort to pass a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights in nine U.S. states now, guaranteeing overtime pay and sick leave for the millions of workers who care for our loved ones, clean our homes, and much more.
CREATE NEW MARKETS AND VALUE CHAINS
BREN SMITH
GreenWave
Bren revitalizes fishing communities along the country’s coasts, helping blue-collar workers transition from fishing to ocean farming: growing oysters, sea greens and more in a way that restores our oceans.
The Future of Ocean Farming
Ashoka Fellow Bren Smith
BREN SMITH
GreenWave
bren smith does what Fellows do: envision the future 10-15+ years out, and build it. He is proving that we don’t have to choose between jobs and the environment, and making sure that a new Blue-Green economy is structured so that workers benefit most. Enjoy this several-minute introduction to the future of ocean farming.
Ashoka Fellows are
at the Front Lines of
Advancing Equity
These are just 14 of 300 Fellows in the US and 4,000 globally, the large majority of whom address systems that perpetuate inequity
Ashoka Fellows Build
Citizen Power
RAJ JAYADEV
Participatory
Defense Network
Raj Jayadev changes the balance of power in our court system by recruiting family and friends of those accused of a crime to help chronically under-resourced public defenders better serve their clients.
Now across the country, tens of thousands of mothers and sisters, coworkers and neighbors are involved in a “participatory defense” movement. And they’ve saved 7,000 years of prison time already.
Like with all of our Fellows, Raj’s goal is not to “serve” others but rather to empower and accompany them as changemakers in their own right. To bring more and newer voices to the table.
Fellow Impact:
Broad and deep
Ashoka's
impact
Find
We find the creative innovators, including in unexpected places. Our rigorous selection process and criteria have been refined and tested for four decades.
Support
We support these individuals and their teams directly. Ashoka Fellows receive tailored feedback, customized support, and a financial stipend. Since 2001 we have invested $30M into U.S. social entrepreneurs.
Connect
We connect Ashoka Fellows to each other and to other institutions that can advance their work. From Day 1, Fellows join the most extensive, diverse community of peer entrepreneurs in the world.
Grow
We grow their impact. The Ashoka network helps entrepreneurs envison and then step into their next level of impact and influence.
A Fellowship
Lifts All Boats
Each Ashoka Fellow joins a global network of 4,000 peers — a lifelong learning and impact community like no other.
“Ashoka has been a bullhorn for our call to action — spreading our idea across the planet."
"Ashoka is a homecoming for social entrepreneurs who have been homeless. There is no better community that understands the loneliness of leadership."
“Ashoka is a network of individuals who don’t understand limits or boundaries – people who don’t care for the convention of the day."
“I literally would not have been able to continue building this solution if I hadn’t received the stipend from Ashoka in the development years."
86%
90%
the ashoka bump:
fellows exhibit more growth
Compared to their peers who do not get Ashoka fellowships (black line), Fellows (blue line) grow at 2.5x the rate over the 10 years after they join the network.
