Skoll Foundation
US philanthropic foundation funding social entrepreneurs
The Skoll Foundation is an American private foundation based in Washington D.C. as of 2026, having relocated from Palo Alto, California. The foundation makes grants and investments intended to reduce global poverty. It was founded by Jeffrey Skoll in 1999.
The Skoll Foundation's total assets (including its affiliated funds) exceed $2 billion as of 2025. The combined entities made grant disbursements totaling about $106 million in 2025, based on unaudited numbers reported by the foundation. According to Skoll's most recent audited financial statements (2024), the non-grant expenses for the foundation totaled around $32 million in 2025.
History
Skoll set up the foundation in 1999 to fund social entrepreneurship through awards, grants and educational programs at Oxford and Harvard Universities. Skoll, the first president of eBay, created the Skoll Foundation after setting up the eBay Foundation.
In 2001, Skoll hired Sally Osberg, formerly the founding executive director of the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose. Osberg was the foundation's first employee, president and CEO. Osberg claims that she led the organization through its startup, implementation and renewal phases.
The public source identifies “Skoll Foundation” as uS philanthropic foundation funding social entrepreneurs. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Skoll, Foundation and philanthropic.
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This entry incorporates text from “Skoll Foundation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.