Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship Annual Report 2024 2025

In 2020, the Schwab Foundation created the Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship, the most comprehensive multistakeholder coalition supporting the social innovation sector. Through this coalition, the Schwab Foundation has developed a platform that mobilizes private- and public-sector leadership to work alongside social entrepreneurs. It also serves as an opportunity to help social innovators and their ecosystem to advance key topics most relevant to the sector. Private-sector engagement Corporate Leadership Council on Social Innovation The Corporate Leadership Council on Social Innovation, co-chaired by Bayer and SAP , emerged as a key platform for corporate engagement, expanding to more than 50 global companies in 2025. Notable milestones include its leadership in launching the Rise Ahead Pledge – a corporate commitment to scaling social innovation investments. As of June 2025, 25 companies have signed on, committing to advance impact across six activity areas, including financial and non-financial support, social procurement and integrating social innovation into core business. The foundation’s Corporate Social Innovation Compass, launched at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2024, systematizes the case for corporate engagement in social innovation. Co-developed with Deloitte, the report outlines 11 mechanisms and five business benefits and has garnered over 3,600 readers. Paired with a widely read Forum article, these efforts generated over 350,000 impressions on social media and supported member growth in the council and the alliance. Read more about the council here. Rise Ahead Pledge Launched during the Annual Meeting in Davos in January 2024, the Rise Ahead Pledge is a corporate commitment to increase investments in social innovation. As of December 2024, twenty-four companies have committed to increasing their contributions and investments in social innovation by 2030 in at least two of the following six activity areas: Providing financial support to social innovators Providing non-financial support to social innovators Buying from social innovators (social procurement) Providing financial support to organizations in the social innovation ecosystem Integrating social innovation principles into core business operations Developing impact-first products and services and/or advancing programmes to support employees to develop social innovation products or services The pledge’s signatories have also committed themselves to publishing collective, quantitative targets for their social innovation activities. They will report on their investments in and impact through social innovation by October 2025, and the results will be unveiled at the Annual Meeting in January 2026. With the support of the Schwab Image: The Schwab Foundation support private sector actors build partnerships with social entrepreneurs and their intermediaries, creating multi-stakeholder partnerships for scaling social innovations. Credit: Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship Schwab Foundation Annual Report 2024–2025 23