Finance & Investment

24 Industry Leaders Now Back Pledge to Fund Social Innovation Worldwide

11 more companies have joined the Schwab Foundation’s Rise Ahead Pledge — an initiative to address the $1.125T funding need of the world’s 10M social innovators.

Published 2 months ago | About a 4 minute read

Image: High Resolves

On Monday, 11 more companies joined the Schwab Foundation’s Rise Ahead Pledge — bringing the total signatories to 24 and highlighting the growing corporate commitment to investing in social innovation to build a more sustainable, equitable world for all.

The Pledge was launched in January 2024 with 13 signatory companies — including EY, IKEA, Microsoft, SAP and Suez — that have now been joined by 11 new organizations. This growing group of industry leaders is backing an ambitious initiative aimed at addressing the estimated $1.125 trillion funding need that social enterprises face worldwide and maximizing the full potential of social innovation.

The new signatories are: Automation Anywhere, Banco Davivienda, EDP, GE HealthCare Foundation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Foundation, Jubilant Bhartia Group, Philips Foundation, Reckitt, Renault Group, TikTok and Zurich Insurance Group.

With new signatories from Asia and Latin America, support for the Pledge signals social innovation’s relevance globally.

“The Rise Ahead Pledge presents an exciting and much-needed opportunity for the private sector to collaborate with and support social entrepreneurs worldwide,” said Daniel Nowack, Head of Schwab Foundation’s Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship. “The growing number of signatories reflects how social innovation is becoming a strategic business capability, addressing sustainability issues and business objectives. We encourage other companies to join the pledge and benefit from the shared value created by the social economy."

Social innovation is the creation and scaling of transformative solutions to critical social and environmental challenges based on a commitment to equity, inclusivity and sustainability and aimed at improving lives — notably of marginalized or underserved communities.

By endorsing the Rise Ahead Pledge, companies collectively aim to increase their engagement in social innovation and significantly bolster the social economy by 2030, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Signatories commit to starting new initiatives or expanding on existing activities in at least two of six engagement areas:

providing financial support to social innovators
providing non-financial support to social innovators
buying from social innovators (social procurement)
providing financial support to the social innovation ecosystem
integrating social innovation principles into core business operations, and
implementing or expanding programs to support employees to develop social innovation initiatives internally.

Furthermore, signatories commit to creating collective quantitative targets for their activities in time for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January 2025. A report outlining the impact of investments so far by the signatories — including the total cumulative financial contributions made — will be published in early 2025.

"The challenges our society faces demand innovative solutions, and social entrepreneurs are leading the way. By joining the Rise Ahead Pledge, we are not only enhancing our support for social innovators but also fostering collaborations that can scale their solutions across Latin America,” said Javier Suarez Esparragoza, CEO of Colombia’s Banco Davivienda.

AI for Impact

The Rise Ahead Pledge is complemented by a new Schwab Foundation report, developed in collaboration with EY and Microsoft, that emphasizes the need to bolster support for social innovators by employing novel technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to drive positive change. AI for Impact: Strengthening AI Ecosystems for Social Innovation notes that while AI could benefit countless lives worldwide, less than 1 percent of AI investments today focus on impact-driven initiatives.

Along with case studies of how social enterprises are deploying AI to improve civic participation among the underserved in India (Haqdarshak) and provide early childhood education in low-resource areas in Africa and Asia (High Resolves), the report illustrates how the private sector — through strategic partnerships with intermediaries — can play a key role in nurturing AI for impact by providing funding, technology and capacity-building support:

Pledge signatory SAP is advancing AI skills for youth and social enterprises through educational programs — helping to bridge the digital divide and ensuring inclusive benefits from AI advancements.
Nigeria-based medical distribution company LifeBank developed a blood-tracking tool that ensures the delivery of safe blood by leveraging blockchain to improve its traceability across the supply chain. Its partnership with IBM has enabled the enterprise to overcome infrastructural limits, regulatory barriers and skill gaps to scale the solution.

The report also highlights the critical role that social innovators play in mitigating the environmental and social risks of AI, and how technology organizations and other corporates can draw lessons and derive benefits through partnerships and intentional support initiatives.

“Building a more just, equitable and sustainable future begins with innovation," said John Schultz, EVP and Chief Operating Officer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “The Rise Ahead Pledge is a powerful catalyst for the impact we know the global network of social innovators and entrepreneurs can achieve — the HPE Foundation is dedicated to unlocking as many opportunities as possible for this vibrant community.”