The Brin Wojcicki Foundation Leverages Social Entrepreneurship with $1 Million Matching Grant to Ashoka

Ashoka to Use Gift to Further the Future of Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship

WASHINGTON, April 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The Brin Wojcicki Foundation presented $1 million in a donation matching campaign to Ashoka, a global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs.

The donation will be announced at Ashoka's Future Forum, a one-day event to be held tomorrow, April 6, in Washington's Newseum. The Future Forum will bring together top social innovators, thought leaders, and business and government leaders from around the globe to map collaborative entrepreneurship in key areas of social innovation.

The Brin Wojcicki Foundation used the form of a matching grant with the goal of triggering more donations and support.

"The world needs more social innovations. That is why we want to get more people involved with Ashoka. I think the more people know about Ashoka the more they are inspired to make a difference in their own lives," says Anne Wojcicki. Anne has been a long time supporter of Ashoka's work, an interest that began years ago when she visited Ashoka Fellows in India.

"That trip had a significant impact on me. It was one miracle story after another. The Ashoka Fellows were passionate, highly innovative and truly focused on making a difference. I had never seen that kind of passion before."

"Anne and Sergey are without a doubt game-changers, under their lead I have no doubt that their Foundation will be as well," says Ashoka's CEO Bill Drayton. "This partnership is one of top entrepreneurs working together across sectors -- it will help its social entrepreneurs across the world tip the world with major, needed structural social changes. Tomorrow's Future Forum will highlight some of this better future."

About Ashoka

Ashoka unites 2,700 of the world's top social entrepreneurs. Over half have changed national policy within five years of their launch and election as Ashoka Fellows. Ashoka helps them start up, succeed long term, and come together in a community of mutual help and collaboration that multiplies the field's impact locally and globally.