Another Reason to Check Out GWU

By On January 2, 2012 · Leave a Comment · In Fellowships, Public Service, Social Entrepreneurship

The George Washington University in Washington, DC offers their students over 50 public service fellowships, including The Knapp Fellowship for Entrepreneurial Service-Learning. This fellowship provides graduate and undergraduate students $10,000 to bring innovative ideas into practice that align with his or her academic goals.

“Our hope is that this award will help students make a difference.”, says GWU President, Steven Knapp. “Since arriving at George Washington three years ago, we have been struck by our students’ passion for changing the world and by the imaginative and intellectually serious way in which they harness that passion by developing concrete, innovative projects.”

GWU grad Melissa Eddison received the inaugural fellowship award for creating the GW Student Food Co-Op, which sells locally grown foods on the GWU campus. Melissa helped manage GWU’s community gardens and taught others how to grow and compost food.

If you are a GWU student, Knapp Fellowship proposals are due Friday, February 17.  Good luck!

 

New Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship for Black Male Achievement

By On December 20, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Fellowships, Social Entrepreneurship, United States

The Open Society Foundations and Echoing Green have partnered to create the Open Society Black Male Achievement Fellowship, which provides significant funding and resources for social entrepreneurs creating new start-up companies focussed on black male achievement.

The BMA Fellowship provides a $70,000 stipend, stipends for health insurance, professional development, and conferences, and access to the Open Society and Echoing Green global alumni networks. BMA Fellowships last for 18 months.

About the program:

“The Open Society Foundations’ Campaign for Black Male Achievement is a multi-issue, cross-fund strategy to address black men and boys’ exclusion from economic, social, educational, and political life in the United States. The campaign responds to a growing body of research that reveals the intensification of black males’ negative life outcomes. It builds on U.S. Programs’ mission to support individuals and organizations that nurture the development of a more democratic, just society, as well as the Open Society Foundations’ expertise and past work to reduce incarceration, promote racial justice, and support youth engagement and leadership development.” Read more

The Open Society Black Male Achievement Fellowship is currently accepting applications for the summer 2012 BMA Fellowships. Applications are due January 9, 2012 at 12:00 pm Noon EST and are available online. Good luck!

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Designers Change the World Through the IDEO.org Fellowship

By On December 4, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Design, Entrepreneurship, Fellowships, International Develoment, Public Service, Social Entrepreneurship

IDEO.org is a new non-profit working to support designers who can make the world a better. Each year, the IDEO.org Fellowship Program seeks talented people from the design, business and social sectors, who can serve as “innovators in residence” at IDEO.org’s offices in San Francisco, CA for 12 months. Fellows work with experienced IDEO designers to develop innovative solutions to poverty-focused problems around the world, using “human-centered design” to address challenges in areas such as agriculture, gender equity, financial services, health, water, and sanitation.

Good describes the IDEO.org Fellows as “big-picture thinkers that make up a new breed of humanitarians—designers.” Currently, fellows are developing open-source design kits, such as designs for urban gardening in Ethiopia, and are blogging about the process, giving other social sector leaders a chance to learn from their successes, failures, and unusual approaches to eradicating poverty.

The application process for this professional fellowship is highly competitive and open to applicants from around the world. They especially seek candidates who have experience working in developing countries or low-income communities. The start-up environment and frequent travel requires fellows to be flexible, resilient and open to other cultures and lifestyles.

Applications are due December 9, 2011 – so act now!

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New Tides Fellowship for Non-Profit Leaders

By On November 9, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Fellowships, Non-profit, Philanthropy, Public Policy, Public Service, Social Entrepreneurship

There is a new Tides Fellows program is a new social entrepreneurship fellowship at Tides focused on research-based approaches to increasing innovation and capacity in non-profit organizations and philanthropy.  Tides is a values-based, social change platform that leverages individual and institutional leadership and investment to positively impact local and global communities.

This year three Tides Fellows will each pursue a unique set of projects to support a broad progressive agenda. Anthony Jewett, Co-founder of the National Center for Global Engagement, will focus on helping Tides explore crowd-funding in the social sector, particularly for racial justice work. Gara LaMarche, former President and Chief Executive Officer of The Atlantic Philanthropies, will document his experience in various social movements toward his work examining the role of morality in philanthropy. Sonal Shah, former Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the first White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, will focus her initial research on impact investing and developing tools for the philanthropic sector to better partner with the public and private sectors on critical social and economic issues. Read more about these Fellows!

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PopTech Fellows Bring Science to the Masses

By On November 3, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Business, Fellowships, Social Entrepreneurship, Technology

The PopTech Fellows are a global network of thought leaders and scientists taking an interdisciplinary approach to social entrepreneurship. Each year, PopTech chooses 10-20 Fellows from all over the world working on “highly disruptive” innovations. They come from a wide variety of disciplines, to be “mashed together” to develop new ideas on how to tackle major social challenges such a poverty and climate change. The Fellows come to Washington, DC to be trained in speaking with the media about science.

An assistant Engineering professor at University of Pennsylvania, Katherine Kuchenbecker, was recently selected as one of ten PopTech Science and Public Leadership Fellows. “I do want to connect [the research that my students and I do] to things that matter to other people — not just scientists and engineers,” said Kuchenbecker. Read more.

The fellowship provides an all-expenses-paid, multi-day intensive program focused on insights and tools for accelerating and scaling “big bet” innovations, such as branding, media relations, social media, finance, leadership, digital storytelling, and design. Fellows also participate in interactive training sessions facilitated by leaders in social innovation, as well as PopTech’s renowned annual conference in Maine, where Fellows eloquently pitch their ideas to leading journalists.

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$300,000 Fellowships for Innovative Rhode Islanders

By On October 27, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Fellowships, Social Entrepreneurship

The Rhode Island Foundation has announced the Rhode Island Innovation Fellowship, a new fellowship program providing $100,000 a year for up to three years for two Rhode Islanders “to develop, test, and implement innovative ideas that have the potential to dramatically improve any area of life in Rhode Island.”

According to the Rhode Island Foundation, the fellowship will focus on the “greatest good for the greatest number of Rhode Islanders, a small idea that has big potential to be built to scale, or new approaches to longstanding, intractable challenges.” The Foundation’s six funding sectors are: arts and culture, community and economic development, education, environment, health, and human services. The fellowship appears to have a social entrepreneurship bent.

“There is no monopoly on creative thinking, exceptional ideas, or the potential of people to help solve issues affecting the lives of Rhode Islanders,” said John Carter, the philanthropist funding the fellowship. “Letitia [Carter] and I wanted to provide a platform for change – one in which everyone is invited to participate. We believe The Rhode Island Foundation is the ideal organization to carry forward our dreams for Rhode Island’s future and we are excited to embark on this adventure together.”

The deadline for applications is December 23, 2011. Read more about the fellowship.

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Code For America: A New Kind of Fellowship!

By On September 2, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Computer Science, Fellowships, Public Service, Social Entrepreneurship, Technology

Code for America recruits talented web developers, designers, and entrepreneurs through its fellowship program to leverage the power of the internet to make governments more open and efficient. Fellows are competitively selected and are paid to work on innovative tech projects in cities such as Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington DC, and Boston. In doing so, they become civic leaders able to realize transformational change in government with technology.

In January, the fellows receive a one month orientation program at CfA’s Bay Area headquarters, including a guest speaker series with leaders in both government and the web industry. In February, fellows will be embedded on-site in their assigned cities, working with city officials hands-on to understand their needs and develop the project. See the 2011 11-month program schedule. Fellows receive a stipend of $35,000, travel expenses, and healthcare benefits.

Jennifer Pahlka, Executive Director of CfA, wrote:

“Our fellows are trained to ask questions first, code later. Throughout the year our teams in Seattle and Philadelphia conducted extensive, on-the-ground user research, developing a deep understanding of how to empower local civic leaders. What they learned was that there was a great amount of energy and enthusiasm in both cities for civic participation, but they lacked some modern tools to turn those ideas into action.” Read more.

Sounds very cool to us. We hope there will be a Code for New Zealand one day!

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Redevelopment Fellowships Drive Mid-Career Professionals to Detroit

By On August 26, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Business, Fellowships, Law, Public Service, Social Entrepreneurship, Technology

The Detroit Revitalization Fellowship just chose 29 mid-career professionals in fields like business, law, architecture and urban planning to become full-time Fellows for organizations dedicated to redeveloping Detroit. 640 professionals from over 40 states applied. Some candidates left high-paying jobs or passed up other offers to be part of the fellowship program.

“I think it’s because of what Detroit is and was,” says Ahmad Ezzeddine, Associate Vice President for Educational Outreach at Wayne State. “I think people want be part of the transformation of a major American city. That was a major driver for a lot of people. Detroit is important to the country, and to be part of its transformation and revitalization is exciting to people.” Read more.

Fellows are provided a full-time, salaried position and also participate in a unique executive leadership program by Wayne State University. More than 20 host organizations are partnering with Fellows to work on projects in health care, neighborhood redevelopment, land use, entrepreneurship, and education.

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New U.S. State Department Fellowship for Young Leaders from Abroad

By On August 13, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Fellowships, International Affairs, International Develoment, Non-profit, Peace & Security, Philanthropy, Public Service, Social Entrepreneurship, Women's Studies

The U.S. State Department just launched a new fellowship program for young leaders from abroad, aged 25-38, to spend 4 months in the U.S. working at community-based organizations and government agencies. The goal of the Community Solutions Program fellowship is to help these young leaders gain experience and new skills they can use in their own countries.

One of the incoming Fellows, Thomas Julo Barlue of Liberia, will be working at Peace First, an organization in New York City founded as a response to the sky-rocketing youth homicide rates in the early 1990s. Thomas writes:

“During my stay in New York, I will be focusing on critical conflict resolution skills and how to develop projects that improve communities and instill a sense of civic engagement, in schools and among young people.” Read more.

66 young leaders from 21 countries will come the U.S. on August 16 for an orientation in Washington, DC. In addition to spending 4 months at a community-based organization, the Fellows take part weekly in an online leadership institute. The Fellows work in the fields of transparency and accountability, tolerance and conflict resolution, environmental issues and women’s issues. Read the full article here.

 

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Meet Dr. Hausler, Build Change Founder and Fellowship Winner

By On July 10, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Announcements, Science, Social Entrepreneurship, Technology

Everywhere we go, Ryan and I meet exceptional people who have been awarded fellowships. Today I met Dr. Elizabeth Hausler, the Founder of Build Change, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people build safer, earthquake-resistant housing in China, Indonesia and Haiti.  The organization was seed-funded in 2004 with an Echoing Green Fellowship, which provides support to emerging social entrepreneurs. In 2009, Dr. Hausler was also named an Ashoka-Lemelson Fellow, an award for innovators who adapt a technology for use as a social change tool.  To date, Build Change has helped build almost 18,500 homes and trained more than 4,000 construction professionals and school children.

Are you a social entrepreneur with an exceptional idea? There is a wide range of fellowships and awards for talented people looking to solve the world’s most difficult problems , and we look forward to adding these fellowships to the ProFellow database!

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