Seattle, May 4, 2021 — The winners of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards were announced today, honoring the businesses, projects, and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to pursuing innovation when it comes to solving economic equality, health and climate crises, or social justice.
Upaya Social Ventures was selected as a finalist in the Impact Investing category for our Recycling Philanthropy initiative, centered around Upaya’s innovative Pool of Recoverable Grants. We are humbled to be recognized for this project alongside so many inspiring and impactful organizations.
We developed our Pool of Recoverable Grants to activate and deploy philanthropic dollars into businesses with the greatest impact potential. While recoverable grants aren’t new, pooling them is. Pooling the grants together enables Upaya to fund a diverse portfolio of investments, increasing the likelihood of a positive return. Structuring the grants as recoverable enables philanthropists to deploy their funds with the potential to recover and redeploy them for multiplied impact if the investments are successful.
Upaya’s first $1 million Pool of Recoverable Grants was raised in 2019. So far, 12 investments have been successfully deployed from the pool into early-stage companies in India to create jobs for people living in extreme poverty.
About the World Changing Ideas Awards:
World Changing Ideas is one of Fast Company’s major annual awards programs and is focused on social good, seeking to elevate finished products and brave concepts that make the world better. A panel of judges from across sectors choose winners, finalists, and honorable mentions based on feasibility and the potential for impact. With the goals of awarding ingenuity and fostering innovation, Fast Company draws attention to ideas with great potential and helps them expand their reach to inspire more people to start working on solving the problems that affect us all.
About Upaya Social Ventures
Upaya Social Ventures is fighting extreme poverty through dignified jobs. Founded in 2011, Upaya provides investment and consulting support to early-stage businesses aimed at creating jobs for the poorest of the poor. Upaya’s continually growing portfolio of impact investments has created over 15,000 lasting, dignified jobs. Endorsed by ImpactMatters as a high-impact, cost-effective nonprofit, Upaya’s teams in Seattle and Bangalore are committed to a goal of helping entrepreneurs create jobs for 50,000 people in India by 2023. Please visit www.upayasv.org for more information.
