Ashoka
Who We Are
Ashoka is a global network of social entrepreneurs and changemakers (Ashoka Staff, Ashoka Fellows, Ashoka Young Changemakers, Ashoka Support Network, Partners, Institutional Leaders, CEOs) from across the identity spectrum seeking to co-lead and co-create an Everyone a Changemaker world.
Each member of Ashoka's network self-identifies as a changemaker – a person that sees themselves as capable of creating large-scale change. At Ashoka's core are social entrepreneurs, visionary and persistent individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social, cultural, and environmental challenges, and offering new ideas for systems-level change.
Ashoka Netherlands
Ashoka Netherlands was founded in 2014, and forms part of the Ashoka consortium. Since its launch, Ashoka Netherlands has elected 13 Fellows who are bringing about system-changing innovations regionally, nationally, and internationally.
Together with Ashoka Fellows, Ashoka Support Network (ASN), as well as Institutional Leaders and Partners, we are building towards a world where we can respond quickly and effectively to social challenges, and support and learn from one another during a transformative social process.
Since 2019, Ashoka Netherlands' main focus is in the field of planet & climate. The collective impact program Weaving for a Thriving Planet is uniting 20 system-changing organizations to take concrete action for tackling climate change and biodiversity loss.
Ashoka's History
Bill Drayton founded Ashoka in 1980 based on the idea that the most powerful force for good in the world is a social entrepreneur: a person driven by an innovative idea that can help correct an entrenched global problem. The world’s leading social entrepreneurs pursue system-changing solutions that permanently alter existing patterns of activity.
Ashoka's Priorities
Ashoka currently focuses on three strategic priorities to support a world where everyone can make a change to their society and its culture:
Social Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurs champion innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social, cultural, and environmental challenges. They model changemaking behavior, and catalyze organizations and movements where everyone can be changemaker.
Empathy & Young Changemaking
In order to thrive, young people need to know how to make an impact in today’s rapidly evolving world. Gaining the skills for changemaking, including empathy, must become the new norm for growing up.
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Organizing for a Changemaker World
Succeeding in a world where everyone drives change requires a new way of organizing: where we break through walls between sectors and within organizations to work together in fluid, open, and communicative teams.