The winners are leading examples of how citizen sector organizations (CSO) have created strategies to build two-way relationships with their "citizenry." These strategies sustain organizations, scale-up their size, and increase the impact of their work by energizing a citizen base.

"This pioneering, on-line interaction allowed us to engage an entire global community and expand the possibilities of citizens engaged in authentic changemaking," said Meredith Lobel, associate director of Ashoka's Citizen Base Initiative. "The impressive set of winners and finalists demonstrate how, through innovation and perseverance, an organization's citizen base not only financially supports an organization, but also advances the organization's social mission. This approach collectively seeds new forms of social change."

This Changemakers Innovation Award competition spotlights several key trends that are emerging in the citizen sector throughout the world:

• A new sector of professional, intermediary citizen sector organizations is coalescing to help bridge the business and social sectors using fee-for-service and volunteer arrangements. Changemakers competition participants such as New Sector Alliance, Ebay for Charities, Social Purchasing Portal, Alliance for Womens' Equity, and Microaid are contributing to the professionalization of the citizen sector by joining business and academic experts with citizen sector organizations to provide consulting and pro bono services, and help channel funds into the citizen sector.

• Youth organizations are springing up in countries including Nigeria, India, and Brazil to build youth participation in the digital revolution as a way of stimulating bottom-up participation in social change. Many use the Internet to foster youth-to-youth and teacher-to-teacher mentoring rather than waiting for outside assistance to master new technologies.

• Organizations are becoming creative about how they can produce goods and services that are valued by their community (broadly-defined), and how, in return, their citizen base can provide the support and resources they need to sustain themselves.

• Population movements across national borders are often driven by structural problems but organizations (such as Human Citizen Corps, Madre Coraje and the Byrraju Foundation) are encouraging helpful interchanges that build a global citizen base, such as having former "diaspora" citizens return to their villages, professionals volunteer for long-term projects, medical experts provide professional development overseas, and business leaders in Spain intern in rural Peru.

About the Competition

The Changemakers.net community contributed one- to five-star ratings and comments for the 99 competition applications received between November 16 and January 21. A judging panel selected 12 finalists. Visitors to the Changemakers.net Web site voted for their top three choices from the finalists from Feb. 3 to 14. Changemakers.net community members voted based on the following criteria: innovation, mobilization of citizens, generation of resources, replicability, and feasibility.

About Changemakers.net

Changemakers.net is building the world's first global online "open source" community that competes to surface the best social solutions, and collaborates to refine and implement them. Individual social change initiatives are brought together into a more powerful whole that an engaged online community refines through a competitive-collaborative process.

About Ashoka's Citizen Base Initiative (CBI)

CBI is a global program dedicated to helping organizations diversify their financial base so that they become sustainably rooted in their local constituency instead of remaining dependent on foundation and government funding. CBI aims to "tip" the thinking and behavior of the citizen sector towards innovation in building a broad citizen base of support ?people, money, information, and businesses?to achieve sustainability and ensure maximum social impact.

About Ashoka

Ashoka is developing the profession of social entrepreneurship around the world by identifying and investing in social entrepreneurs?extraordinary individuals with unprecedented ideas for change in their communities?when no one else will. It does so through stipends and professional services that allow "Ashoka Fellows" to focus full time on their ideas for leading social change in education and youth development, health care, environment, human rights, access to technology and economic development. Ashoka has invested in more than 1,500 Ashoka Fellows in 53 countries. Those Fellows have transformed the lives of millions of people in thousands of communities worldwide. www.ashoka.org

Creating a Citizen Base for Your Organization:
Innovative Ways to Generate Money & Resources

The five winners of the Changemakers Innovation Award were selected by a vote of this online community. They won based on their ideas for creatively generating resources from a diversified citizen base, comprising individual citizens and citizen organizations, businesses, and the media. Organizations that receive support from such a citizen base — in the form of money, people goods, and services — have demonstrated that they are stronger and more independent than when they rely solely on foundation and government grants. Each winner received a $1,000 cash prize and more.

The winners were the top five vote-getters from among 12 finalists that emerged from a competition attracting 99 entries from 39 countries worldwide.

Visitors to this Web site were asked to vote for the best entries that include creative ways to:

• Mobilize citizen support
• Generate financial and nonfinancial resources
• Establish relationships with strategic partnerships
• Engage and manage volunteers
• Engage the community through membership drives, events, and outreach
• Develop information and spread your message

Something for everybody . . .

Even if you didn't enter the contest, you can read the entries and profit from these valuable ideas for creatively sustaining your organization.

Awards

Prizes were awarded for up to five of the best ideas. Winners received:

• A $1,000 cash prize;
• A copy of the book How to Change the World by David Bornstein and Ashoka's Leading Social Entrepreneurs;
• Announcement of winners on the Changemakers and Citizen Base Initiative Web sites, and an e-newsletter sent to major social change organizations and potential funders.

Participants

Anyone working in the citizen sector was elegible to participate by submitting an online entry or forwarding this to a qualifying organization. Eligible participants included members of citizen sector organizations (NGOs), civil associations, foundations, community-based organizations, cooperatives, and schools.

Voting for the Best Contest Entries

Visitors were asked to vote for the best contest entries considering the following criteria:

Innovation

The idea creatively finds new channels or resources, or utilizes traditional resources in creative
    new ways

Mobilizing Citizen Support

It creates active citizen participation where citizens either provide access to new resources or
    are the resources themselves (e.g., as volunteers);

It improves relations with "stakeholders" or other members of the community.

Generates a Diversity of Resources to Heighten Social Impact

It consists of multiple types of activities (e.g., generating income or in-kind goods and
    services; establishing relationships with businesses, media or government; or engaging members
    and volunteers);

The implementation strategy clearly reinforces an organization's social impact and improves its
    efficiency;

The strategy strengthens, expands, and/or reflects an organization's mission.

Replicability

The lessons can be applied or transferred to other organizations anywhere in the world;

The necessary resources and skills are available or transferable to any location or field;

The strategy can be modified and adapted to cultural conditions other than those of an
    organization's original community.

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