2025 Awardees and Impact Report

The Schwab Foundation's 2025 report highlights a global community of nearly 500 social innovators who have directly impacted over 931 million lives. It identifies a global sector of approximately 10 million social enterprises generating $2 trillion in annual revenue and creating 200 million jobs. The document profiles the 2025 cohort across four categories—Social Entrepreneurs, Corporate Social Innovators, Public Social Innovators, and Collective Social Innovators—and details initiatives to integrate AI and outcome-based financing into social impact models.

• The global social enterprise sector is significantly larger than often estimated, comprising approximately 10 million enterprises that generate roughly $2 trillion in annual revenue and provide nearly 200 million jobs.
• Social enterprises demonstrate a stronger capacity to bridge the gender gap in leadership compared to conventional businesses, with women leading one in two social enterprises globally, versus one in five in traditional enterprises.
• The Schwab Foundation's community of nearly 500 social entrepreneurs and innovators has achieved a direct impact on more than 931 million lives.
• In the past year, innovators within the foundation's network mobilized $1.25 billion in financial resources, with the primary sources being philanthropic grants (33%) and earned revenue (22%).
• The foundation has launched the 'AI for Social Innovation' initiative to promote ethical AI adoption and bridge the gap in financial and non-financial resources available to impact enterprises using AI.
• The foundation is researching ways to scale outcome-based financing (OBF) by mobilizing the private sector, including the development of 'impact currencies' and 'carbon assets' to attribute economic value to social and environmental impact.

APA

World Economic Forum (2025). 2025 Awardees and Impact Report. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Social_Innovation_in_Action_2025.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. 2025 Awardees and Impact Report. 2025. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Social_Innovation_in_Action_2025.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=2025 Awardees and Impact Report |date=2025 |url=https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Social_Innovation_in_Action_2025.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum20252025, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{2025 Awardees and Impact Report}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2025}, url = {https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Social_Innovation_in_Action_2025.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }