People, not projects, champions, not project plans, make a real difference in the world. This is one of the key pillars of our theory of change and it was reinforced by much of what we learnt in 2014. In 2015, we dove deep into what an enabling environment for change makers looks like. The network effect of the fellowship proved to be invaluable.
Crafting solutions to social challenges does not come with a step-by-step guide or an expert with the magic formula. What you need is support to keep on experimenting, testing, failing and fighting back. It can only be solved by doing and learning, and the best way to do that is together (with others, in the trenches). We fund individuals in the first instance, but we specifically fund individuals together, on parallel, and often intersecting, roads.
We are dedicated to building a small community of Fellows that not only shape and influence each other, but trust and respect each other, even when opinions differ. This close mesh network forms a strong support structure of peer references - experiential, intellectual, social - it is a network of peers with a comparable frame of reference, learning and evolving, amplifying useful truths and cautionary tales, accelerating the positive social change.
2015 has been a tumultuous year globally. New social challenges appeared, old ones neared breaking point and questions of belonging was at the heart of much of the turmoil. Openness and technology have a key role to play in enabling each of us to reclaim the power to change the world for the better, build our own solutions and share with others. We’ve started by creating a space where this seems not only possible, but inevitable.
Year in THINKING
How we measure success
Read moreApplicants, and sometimes even Fellows, find it difficult to compute the broad question “what do YOU want to do?”. They keep looking for guidance to narrow down the scope of possibility and fit within prescribed parameters. Yes, we want open and innovative, we like technology and we get excited about...... >>
Our experiment in the world
Read moreThis is not where we started and it is almost certainly not who we will be indefinitely. But our experience in philanthropic investment so far has resulted in a couple of key principles that govern how we behave in the world, and specifically how we structure our relationships with those...... >>
Download our legal templates
Read moreSince 2007 we have required Fellows to apply open licences - first CC-BY-SA and then CC-BY - to all intellectual property created during the fellowship. The same principle applies to works produced within the Foundation. Openly licensed resources are only as useful as the number of people who can access...... >>
Year in PEOPLE
We focus our energy by supporting openness in intellectual property, data, privacy, hardware, education, publishing, government, science, telecoms, environment, music, transparency and the Web.
