Advancing Innovation Processes to Solve Social Problems

 

Grants & Grantees

Featured Grantee

Villgro, formerly Rural Innovations Network, works with smallholder farmers in rural India to develop, field test and commercialize inventions that can help significantly improve the lives of poor and vulnerable people. 

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Grants

  • Monitor Company Group LP

    in support of an effort to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the philanthropic field by developing and implementing a "Strategy...

    http://www.monitor.com
    Location: Cambridge, MA
    Initiative: Innovation
    Region Served: Global
    TERM of the Grant: 9/1/2009 – 6/30/2010
    Amount: $350,000
     

  • GlobalGiving Foundation, Inc.

    in support of its Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding Social Innovation program, in collaboration with Innocentive, Inc., to assist...

    http://www.globalgiving.com
    Location: Washington, DC
    Initiative: Innovation
    Region Served: Developing Countries
    TERM of the Grant: 10/1/2009 – 4/30/2011
    Amount: $415,000
     

  • Smithsonian Institution

    for use by its Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, toward the costs of "Critical Mass: Design and Urbanization," an exhibition that...

    http://www.si.edu
    Location: Washington, DC
    Initiative: Innovation
    Region Served: New York City, South America, Africa, Asia, Central (Middle) America
    TERM of the Grant: 8/1/2009 – 9/30/2011
    Amount: $600,000
     

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    toward the costs of the 2009 International Development Design Summit, to be held in Kumasi, Ghana, summer 2009, which seeks to create...

    http://www.mit.edu/
    Location: Cambridge, MA
    Initiative: Innovation
    Region Served: Ghana, Sub-Saharan Africa, Developing Countries
    TERM of the Grant: 5/1/2009 – 7/31/2010
    Amount: $150,000
     

  • Winterhouse

    in support of efforts to develop collective action and collaboration in human-centered design for social impact across the design...

    http://www.winterhouse.com
    Location: Falls Village, CT
    Initiative: Innovation
    Region Served: Developing Countries
    TERM of the Grant: 11/1/2008 – 12/31/2010
    Amount: $1,500,000
     
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InnoCentive—Using the Wisdom of Crowds

Crowdsourcing, or open innovation, is a relatively new innovation model that allows companies and institutions to look beyond their own four walls to increase the flow of creative ideas and knowledge from a wide network of people to solve problems. The work at InnoCentive, a Rockefeller Foundation partner, is a leading example of open innovation.

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Collaborative Competition

Changemakers (an Ashoka program) has managed to combine theseemingly opposing forces of competition and open collaboration to identify and enhance innovation. This Foundation partner conducts open social innovation "collaborative competitions" on behalf of sponsors to come up with solutions to the world’s most entrenched social problems and allow for best practice sharing, learning and further collaboration.

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RF and InnoCentive Renew Successful Partnership

In renewing this successful partnership, the Foundation links non-profit organizations with InnoCentive’s web-based global network of “solvers,” who are more than 175,000 of the brightest minds in science, engineering, technology and business.

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