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:
“The Globalizer program is a much-needed experience for social entrepreneurs who have gained traction in their work. It is a truly helpful exercise for those how are actually scaling and those who are looking to scale. It allows entrepreneurs to do what they should, think about the future of their fields and how their organizations can play a part in shaping that transformation.”
“Once you pass the Globalizer process, you start to figure out how your impact can change, not just to increase or scale to get more beneficiaries, but rather systemic changes.”
"Helping out in the Ashoka Globalizer program allowed me not only to apply our thinking and our methods to a challenging and very interesting project, it was also an extremely rewarding experience. It was 1) tremendously inspiring to work directly with social entrepreneurs that are full of passion and ideas and very grateful for your help, 2) a great learning experience, as you deeply go into understanding a social problem, it's causes and drivers and 3) a great opportunity to meet extremely senior and experienced ASN Coaches, a number of social entrepreneurs, the Ashoka staff and other consultants that are excited by this opportunity"
"Working with Ashoka's social entrepreneurs has been an exceptionally inspiring and fulfilling experience. I found the thought partnership with innovative global leaders Fabio Rosa and Eric Dawson an eye-opening experience that has shaped the way I view my aspirations and career. I know we all learned tremendously from each other. I look forward to staying involved with Ashoka and doing whatever I can to make the fellows successful."
"I found working with the Ashoka Globalizer Fellows truly inspiring. In fact looking back now, I think it has helped shape my view on what the purpose of a company can be. The Ashoka Fellows are super engaged entrepreneurs, extremely willing to learn and grow. I really enjoyed being able to offer my entrepreneurial experience to those social entrepreneurs. There’s lots we can learn from each other."
