Heading in the right direction – Skoll award confirms we are!

When BasicNeeds was awarded the prestigious 2013 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, we realised this was a natural outcome of having cultivated one of our core venture support criteria – openness to a collaborative working relationship with VPF.  Simple and even somewhat clichéd, yet if you can get this grounded from the start, then tackling challenges transforms them into opportunities.

So what was VPF's contribution?

By matching BasicNeeds, an international development organisation with Bernie Waldron as their VPF contact point. Bernie is an international business leader and experienced mentor with over 15 years non-executive board experience and 25 years of executive and management experience, spanning Private Equity, UK plc and global blue-chip corporates such as IBM and Maersk Data Group.

What was also key was that BasicNeeds’ mission - to bring about lasting change in the lives of people with mental illness and epilepsy around the world (since 2000, they have reached 580,130 people with mental illness and epilepsy their carers and family members in 12 countries), was one that Bernie felt inspired by.

Life post Skoll Award

This award has also coincided with the launch of BasicNeeds’ 5 year strategy to reach 1 million people. So indeed exciting times for them!

The relationship with Skoll is also already bearing fruit, with substantial financial backing from the foundation.  Winning such an award provides a platform where BasicNeeds’ message can be heard by an even greater and more diverse audience, opening up opportunities for even more growth areas where VPF can and is currently assisting BasicNeeds with.  These areas include branding, communications, and recently recruiting an investment professional for their development committee – Giles Marshall. Giles attended one of our networking events and shortly thereafter took the steps to offer his invaluable pro bono skill set.

Crowdfunding

BasicNeeds is also thrilled to be partaking in the biggest CrowdRise Challenge ever! Launched jointly by Skoll Foundation and Huffington Post called ‘Skoll Social Entrepreneurs challenge’. Yet another innovative approach to increasing awareness and funding.

Click here to access the challenge and then select BasicNeeds as the team to donate to.

Click here to read more about Crowdrise hosted by Edward Norton.

So what is this Crowdfunding hype all about?

Have a look at this short animated video that will attempt to shed some light – enjoy!