Changemakers Impact: 2009 in Review

“The Changemakers open source competition model let us shorten our three-to four-year Call for Proposals process for identifying investment-grade opportunities to three or four months, while delivering an equivalent number of quality projects.”

Nancy Barrand
Pioneer Portfolio
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

"The enthusiasm and the participation of the staff, families and friends has been one of the best things that Ashoka Changemakers has done. Moving from a small group of judges to democratizing the evaluation process has been a great experience."

Dr. Mwalimu Musheshe
CEO, Uganda Rural development and Training Programme (URDT)

”At my magazine, we spend enormous time and effort unearthing innovative approaches to providing consumers great travel programs, while preserving the power of the places themselves. I was stunned by the quality of the applications. They showcased great innovation that can be exported to other countries, terrific successes against long odds, and a far-reaching global distribution of projects.”

Keith Bellows
Vice President, National Geographic Society
Editor in Chief, National Geographic Traveler

“We had one moment where we said, what if someone steals our idea? …But we knew we were in the best position to do it the way we were doing it and if someone wanted to do something somewhat similar, well, that would just benefit more people.”

Dr. Terry Lowe
Senior Writer
Family Commons

“It gives innovators a line of site where the ‘white spaces’ may be so that you can start working while the competition is going on… And it incentivizes collaboration.”
Highlighting Ashoka Changemakers’ “Tapping Local Innovations” competition as a ground breaking and “terrific example” of an effective process for sourcing and supporting innovations to leaders gathered for the Clinton Global Initiative 2009

Judith Rodin
President
Rockefeller Foundation

“The opportunity to collaborate and network with others is key. All other entrants too are Champions and we now have the new consciousness to go out there and create more Champions of Quality Education in Africa,”

Raphael Oko
Nigeria Country Coordinator
Teachers Without Borders.

“Changemakers’ open-source competition model makes possible for micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises in Latin America and the Caribbean to access a vast network of sources of knowledge; and for us as a donor, it makes possible to select better projects and partners in a proactive and intelligent way, scaling up innovations and leveraging our funding”

Santiago Soler
Sustainable Tourism Cluster Coordinator
Multilateral Investment Fund, Interamerican Development Bank (MIF/IDB)

"Being recognized among the most innovative solutions for rural communities is a pretty big achievement for us, it has maximized our motivation to keep replicating our work in knowledge and social change."

Tarcio Handel da Silva
Executive Director
Agência Mandalla DHSA