Competition Guidelines

Changemakers Innovation Award: Market-Based Strategies
that Benefit Low-Income Communities

Theses criteria applied to all competition entries, ratings, and votes for the winners. Share your comments on the entries in the discussion forum.

Eligibility Criteria

This competition was open to any citizen sector organization or business (such as NGO, association, community-based organization, cooperative, social enterprise, research organizations and institutes, schools or universities, small and medium size enterprise, and publicly or privately owned corporation) from any country.

All entries must meet these threshold criteria:

• Applications reflect the theme of the competition: market-based strategies that benefit low-income communities;

• There is no restriction on the industry or the products/services provided but the project, enterprise, or initiative must demonstrate positive social impact;

• The primary clients/beneficiaries of the initiative are low-income citizens;

• Applications are beyond the stage of idea, concept or R&D, and at a minimum are being piloted;

• Applications are complete and are submitted in English or Spanish.

Assessment Criteria

The winners of this Changemakers Innovation Award are those entries that best address the following criteria:

Social impact

The products or services provided clearly and significantly improve the quality of life of low-income individuals and their families and have the potential to benefit a large number of poor.

Market-based approach

Because the products or services respond to actual needs, low-income beneficiaries are ready to contribute in part or in full. The initiative is not based on philanthropy.

The initiative has the potential to be profitable or financially self-sustainable in the medium- to long-term as sufficient revenues are generated from either clients' fees or mixed long-term funding sources.

Innovation

The initiative is based on a creative model that breaks from traditional approaches and enables practitioners to overcome the traditional barriers of providing sustainable products/ services to low-income populations. Directly or through operational partnerships. As a result, low-income clients benefit from adequate and effective solutions.

Sustainability

The solution has already been implemented or tested and there is evidence that the initiative is feasible.

There is a well-developed plan to sustain and replicate/ scale up the initiative beyond its current location in order to benefit a large number of low-income citizens.

Competition Deadlines, Procedures, and Rules

The deadline to submit contest entries was September 29, 2005 at noon U.S. Eastern Time. Prior to this deadline, competition participants could also submit one revised version of their first entry based on questions and insights that they received in the Changemakers.net discussion. Participation in the discussion enhances one's prospects in the competition and gives the community an opportunity to understand one's project more completely.

There are three main phases in the competition:

• From August 2nd until September 29: entries were accepted and visitors to the Web site could rate—from one to five stars—the contest entries and discussion postings. These ratings are not used to determine the finalists or competition winners but they provide a convenient way to share your opinion and help set quality standards for the Changemakers community.

• From September 30th until October 14: rating continued, and a panel of judges well-versed in the topic including members of the Changemakers team, Ashoka staff, and other topic experts selected the competition finalists.

• From October 17th until noon (EST) on October 31st: popular online voting selected the four award winners from among the finalists. The Changemakers Innovation Award winners were announced on October 31st, 2005.

Although we recognize that both businesses and citizen sector organizations are key actors in providing large-scale solutions to low-income citizens, we also want to acknowledge that they still operate in vastly different environments. Accordingly, Changemakers will grant four innovation awards in total: two for organizations whose primary mission is social and two for businesses whose primary mission is economic value creation for shareholders. The same assessment criteria will be applied to both sectors.

The Changemakers Innovation Award will include:

• A cash prize of US$5,000 for the top two winners and of US$2,500 for the two second-place winners;

• An invitation for all finalists to an award ceremony with media coverage organized by Ashoka's Full Economic Citizenship initiative (date and location to be announced). As part of the ceremony, Ashoka will invite a small group of investors interested in knowing about the finalists' initiatives and in discussing alternatives that could facilitate the scaling up of these initiatives. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by Ashoka.

We also want to emphasize that participating in the competition by posting an entry or joining the discussion forum gives entrants a chance to advise potential investors in the field about how best to change funding/investing patterns for the sector and to maximize the strategic impact and effectiveness of future investments. The competition will generate an Investor Advisory available to investors, foundations, and other funding agencies. Those participants whose contributions most help frame the contents of the advisory will be acknowledged and may be convened to advise investors at a global meeting.

For more information, contact fec@changemakers.net.

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