The Skoll Foundation

09/24/2026

“The other requirement for good collaboration is commitment.”

Alexandra Tuinstra of Root Capital shared this at the 2026 , and her words carry extra weight as social entrepreneurs and world leaders gather in New York for and . Progress on everything from climate to health to economic opportunity depends on cross-sector collaboration and on partners willing to stay at the table long after this whirlwind week ends.

Many members of the Skoll community are using their time in New York to nurture the connections that fuel effective collaboration—and as they do so, we’re excited to see how they’re modeling approaches that center communities closest to the challenge.

Though food security and food system resilience are largely absent from the official UNGA agenda, Root Capital is showing up to make the case that global climate finance discussions must consider the small-scale producers on the frontlines of climate impacts. By partnering with agricultural enterprises and expanding their access to finance, the organization helps strengthen livelihoods in rural communities to drive lasting climate solutions.

Another leading organization that understands the importance of sustained collaboration with communities is Global Witness, who is in New York to remind global decision-makers that protecting environmental defenders must be a crucial component of climate action. The organization works alongside affected communities to push for industry accountability while campaigning for solutions at the global level.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities are often the ones on the frontlines of that defense. Skoll partner Global Alliance of Territorial Communities unites them in protecting their forest territories, representing 35 million people across 24 countries who steward more than 958 million hectares of land. GATC’s focus this week is on advocating for the importance of direct investment in those territories via robust community participation in decisions that affect their well-being.

A throughline across our portfolio is our partners’ commitment to showing up, day after day, and working shoulder to shoulder with those most impacted by the challenges they seek to solve. That staying power is what defines the kind of collaboration that can outlast any single convening.

09/21/2026

As world leaders converge in New York this week for and , we will be listening and learning alongside our partners, , and other changemakers as they surface evidence-based, proximate solutions to the challenges before us.

You can catch our team members at some of these events:

- Monday: Our partners Room to Read, Last Mile Health, and One Acre Fund will gather for “Education as Infrastructure: How Learning Powers Progress,” hosted by The Sidebar (another valued partner!) to explore why investing in learning is foundational to many of the issues we care about: health, agriculture, and economic development. Join the waitlist to attend: https://luma.com/auhb7exs

- Tuesday: We’ll join our partners Breakthrough Trust, Fundación Paraguaya, VisionSpring, Blue Ventures, and The Video Consortium at The Impact Lounge to celebrate the impact of the years-long partnership known as “Solutions Inside Out.” Attendees will screen four films from the Solutions Storytelling Project, a Skoll-supported initiative led by Video Consortium that connects regional filmmakers with social innovators to produce short, solutions-focused documentaries that catalyze positive change. Register to attend: https://events.humanitix.com/impact-lounge-climate-unga-week-2026

- Tuesday: Our partner The Tenure Facility will be at Reciprocity House, bringing together Indigenous Peoples, local community organizations, funders, and others working on land rights and security. View the program and RSVP: https://luma.com/user/usr-XGsb9OQNPLZZvqZ

We’re grateful for the chance to come together with so many social entrepreneurs and innovators to deepen community relationships and drive progress and collaboration across sectors.

09/18/2026

In Sierra Leone’s coastal town of Bonthe, mangroves are an essential part of local life—for construction, food, and a source of income. For the Indigenous communities who have stewarded the land for generations, protecting the mangroves is mission-critical.

When the Africa Conservation Initiative (ACI) sought to generate carbon credits from the area’s mangrove population, which absorbs carbon dioxide, more than 200 local and Indigenous communities came together to negotiate with the ACI to protect their rights over their land, including the large concentration of mangrove trees.

Skoll partner Namati, a legal empowerment organization, played a key role. Namati united communities around six principles of carbon justice to ensure the new carbon project would respect their land rights, livelihoods, and leadership.

Namati provided independent legal and technical support, ensuring these communities had informed consent and helping them build a mutually beneficial agreement with the ACI that included sustainable conservation of the mangrove ecosystem and directed 40% of the revenue from the carbon project to the 220 affected communities.

This effort sets a global precedent for making carbon projects more equitable and inclusive for Indigenous populations—and it’s exactly the kind of work we hope to see lifted up at next week.

See the full story in the video here:

In Bonthe, Sierra Leone, 220 local communities negotiated with the ...

09/17/2026

In the thousands of community-based early childhood education centers that SmartStart South Africa supports across South Africa, three principles are at the center: love, play, and talk.

Love and warmth foster a sense of acceptance that creates an environment where children can grow and learn without judgment. Play gives children space to exercise their imagination and think outside the box, while interactive talk aids the development of language, logical reasoning, and problem-solving skills.

This recipe has been remarkably successful in unlocking the benefits of early childhood education. Among the more than 160,000 children reached by SmartStart centers every week, students have demonstrated significant improvements in math, literacy, and motor skills. At the same time, the proportion of children “falling far behind” was nearly halved.

As Founding CEO Grace Matlhape explains, these values aren’t prioritized solely because they’re the right thing to do—they are direct drivers of the outcomes the organization works to achieve.

Learn more here: https://skoll.org/2026/09/11/a-deeper-look-at-how-smartstart-creates-educational-and-economic-opportunity-for-south-africans/

09/15/2026

In early childhood, we have an innate, unique ability to learn. But when this crucial period is missed, neural pathways are lost. That’s why early childhood education is foundational, and children who receive high-quality early learning reap lifelong benefits in both their schooling and future careers.

Despite its importance, nearly one-third of three- to five-year-olds in South Africa lack access to high-quality early education that could transform the trajectory of their lives.

SmartStart South Africa is changing that by equipping community members—primarily women—in all nine South African provinces to operate early learning centers out of their homes and community spaces. Not only does this model address access to education, it creates high-quality employment opportunities in communities struggling with staggering jobless rates.

Today, the organization reaches more than 160,000 children every week through its scalable social franchise model. SmartStart equips franchises with training, materials, coaching, compliance support, and peer networks all via a single platform.

Enrolled children demonstrate significant improvements in math, literacy, and fine motor skills, and the percentage of children who are “on track” across five key developmental domains increased from 45 percent to 65 percent in just eight months. SmartStart continues to expand access to early childhood education, ensuring even more young children get the strong start they deserve.

09/14/2026

“If you cannot get the experts to the patient, can you get their expertise to the patient?”

Intelehealth co-founders Neha Verma and Dr. Soumyadipta Acharya set out to answer this question in India, where 6 out of 10 women delay or forgo seeking health care because facilities are too far and too hard to reach.

Intelehealth recognized a dual challenge: while rural women face massive hurdles traveling to urban centers for care, medical providers rarely relocate to the rural communities where 70 percent of India’s population lives. The solution? Bring the expertise where it’s needed with telemedicine.

By integrating telemedicine into India’s public health systems, Intelehealth connects rural health clinics with experts via video, so patients can get diagnosed, treated, and cared for without traveling hours to a distant medical facility.

With and on the horizon, these are essential topics to infuse into ongoing conversations about solutions. The international community has an opportunity to ensure investments in telemedicine can help rural communities overcome the barriers they face in accessing care—particularly as climate-related disasters exacerbate both health risks and make travel more difficult than ever. Intelehealth is building the digital infrastructure in India to alleviate those stressors and provide care where it wouldn’t otherwise be available.

Learn more in this new film: https://youtu.be/c5Bi0q6_Gf4

09/11/2026

Access to health care is a challenge across the world, but particularly in India, where 70 percent of the population lives in rural areas and access to care—especially women’s care—is limited. When issues do arise, Indian women face multiple barriers, ranging from time-consuming and expensive travel to lack of funds to cultural norms, that prevent them from receiving the care they need. As a result, small problems spiral into bigger health issues.

Intelehealth is working to break that cycle, teaming up with governments at every level, nonprofits, hospital groups, and local clinics to connect women across India with the care they need. Intelehealth layers telemedicine into India’s existing brick-and-mortar health care infrastructure, bringing more accessible, gender-sensitive expertise to women across the country. By partnering with existing networks of community health workers and local health clinics, Intelehealth helps direct patients to remote, expert care, ensuring they get the diagnosis and treatment they need—no travel required.

See the full story here in this new film: https://youtu.be/c5Bi0q6_Gf4

09/09/2026

The Amazon Basin is connected in ways that extend beyond national borders and country-level policy, and at the cross-biome TEDx Amazônia gathering last week, with its theme of “Where Everything Connects,” our team gained insights and lessons that made this point clearer than ever.

Alongside environmental, social-sector, and Indigenous leaders from across the nine Amazonian countries and beyond, we heard stories that highlighted how the challenges facing the Amazon, from deforestation to biodiversity loss, drought, and food scarcity, are interconnected—but so are the solutions. We must work together to address these obstacles holistically, not one at a time and not in silos.

In addition to learning from compelling speakers and engaging with our partners, our team had the opportunity to see the work up close. We visited the Yawa Jee Protected Forest in Ecuador, a vast stretch of land stewarded by Indigenous peoples. This community defends not only the forest and wildlife, but their ancestral traditions. It was a stark representation of the power of Indigenous land tenure in preserving critical ecosystems and traditional ways of life.

The more we can recognize that these challenges and solutions are interconnected across the biome, the better we can tackle them—together.

09/08/2026

Jagdish, a laborer in Delhi, India, has been working as a mason for over 15 years, as his father did before him. He is one of the 71 million Indian workers in the construction sector, which relies on temporary work arrangements, informal employer-employee relationships, and frequent relocations.

This system—a hallmark of India’s informal economy—provides little job security or benefit stability, leaving workers vulnerable to unexpected job loss and expenses, particularly in the moments that matter most. The sector’s transient nature also makes it harder to prove eligibility for welfare programs, and most workers don’t have the time, know-how, or flexibility in their schedules to complete the process.

Indus Action is tackling this issue by working to scale governmental labor protections and connect people to their entitlements. The 2026 ’s efforts ultimately have the potential to act as a stabilizing force for India’s families, create pathways to greater wellbeing, and provide additional security for workers in the informal economy.

And so far, their impact has been enormous. Since 2013, over 3 million Indian citizens have been connected with their welfare entitlements through Indus Action’s interventions, and its support has provided additional stability to the laborers who are essential to India’s economy.

Read more about Indus Action here: https://skoll.org/2026/09/03/a-deeper-look-at-how-indus-action-helps-strengthen-indias-social-and-economic-safety-net/

09/03/2026

Ninety percent of India’s workforce is in the informal economy, leading many workers to rely on daily wages without the security of a guaranteed paycheck or workplace social protections.

2026 Indus Action on is taking on that challenge, filling the gap between government programs and real-world impact by connecting millions of Indians—particularly workers, students, and new mothers—to over 5,000 existing social benefits and programs, an estimated 25 percent of which never reach their intended recipients.

Working with both citizens and state agencies, Indus Action is connecting vulnerable Indians to education, health care, and financial benefits that provide pathways out of poverty, breaking the cycle of stress and uncertainty that plagues much of India’s workforce.

Read more about Indus Action’s work: https://skoll.org/2026/09/03/a-deeper-look-at-how-indus-action-helps-strengthen-indias-social-and-economic-safety-net/