The Skoll Global Threats Fund’s mission is to confront global threats imperiling humanity by seeking solutions, strengthening alliances, and spurring actions needed to safeguard the future.

Global threats have the potential to kill or debilitate very large numbers of people or cause significant economic or social dislocation or paralysis throughout the world. Global threats cannot be solved by any one country; they require some sort of a collective response. Global threats are often non-linear, and are likely to become exponentially more difficult to manage if Skoll Global Threats Fund doen’t begin making serious strides in the right direction in the next 5-10 years.

Cross-cutting focus
Skoll Global Threats Fund believes global threats share causes, challenges and, potentially, cures. Skoll Global Threats Fund primarily seeks to identify and address complex challenges common to multiple global threats. Crosscutting areas that Skoll Global Threats Fund believes could help society manage these threats include:

Communication:  Promote better understanding of uncertainty and risk at every level of discourse, public to political.

Governance:  Develop more competent governance, including both formal functioning structures as well as formal and informal networks.

Engagement:  Create new coalitions and facilitate better coordination of actors of all kinds across multiple sectors, with a special focus on “strange bedfellows.”

Information:  Enable access to and promote transparency in data, processes, and financial flows around global threats to facilitate informed decision making.

Innovation:  Promote innovations in models, technology, or approaches (including incentivizing for long-term thinking). 

Approach
Skoll Global Threats Fund works proactively to find, initiate, or co-create breakthrough ideas and/or activities that Skoll Global Threats Fund believes will have large-scale impact, either directly or indirectly, and whether on cross-cutting issues or individual threats.

Activities
The Skoll Global Threats Fund does not accept unsolicited grant proposals. Skoll Global Threats Fund has developed strong networks around the global threats and cross-cutting challenges Skoll Global Threats Fund addressing and look to partners and other thought leaders to surface innovative ideas. Skoll Global Threats Fund may use an RFP process periodically to solicit ideas on specific activities Skoll Global Threats Fund believes are not being sufficiently addressed in the current work.