The Ashoka Globalizer

Great business ideas go global to serve customers around the world. By contrast, no such market forces are at work in the social sector. Social innovation too often remains local or national. Although many of the ideas and the entrepreneurs behind them have the potential for global spread, the social sector still lacks a process that focuses specifically on the global scope of change and the resources and mechanisms necessary for globalizing an idea successfully.

After defining and developing the practice of social entrepreneurship around the world, Ashoka now aims to leverage its global reach, selection process and network of social and business entrepreneurs to link initiatives ready for a global scale to the financial, strategic and intellectual support they require to go global.

The Globalizer program taps into Ashoka’s broad network of changemakers across the business, government, and citizen sectors. It begins with a three-month advisory phase where a support team of volunteer advisors—leading strategy consultants and high-level business leaders—help Ashoka Fellows reflect on key issues and establish a solid strategy to spread their impact.

The process culminates in a Summit meeting where participating Ashoka Fellows gather with highly successful CEOs, entrepreneurs, and experts to further refine their strategies, solve key challenges, and open strategic doors. The Globalizer also identifies underlying patterns in innovative solutions and disseminates them, empowering social entrepreneurs everywhere to develop more effective strategies to spread their impact.

Advisor support comes from the Ashoka Support Network and organizations including McKinsey and Company, AT Kearney, AlphaSights and PWC.

Over the past three decades, Ashoka has developed its Fellowship to include over 3,500 individuals in more than 90 countries – the world’s pre-eminent network of social entrepreneurs. Through a rigorous internal selection process, the Ashoka Globalizer identifies the Fellows within this network with the greatest potential for catalyzing global systems change. These entrepreneurs are challenged to further refine their leading social innovations, in order to adapt their strategies for the accelerated global spread. Throughout this intense process, they are supported by experts from the Globalizer team, working alongside experienced advisors from partners consulting agencies and the Ashoka Support Network of business leaders committed to social change.

Retrace the extraordinary Globalizer journey towards systemic change, take a deep dive into some of the stories and successes of our social entrepreneurs, and get insights on the impact of the program — by clicking on the image below to read the full report: