Ashoka was the social-entrepreneurship network founded by Bill Drayton in 1980.
Drayton established Ashoka to identify and support people developing practical, system-changing solutions to social problems. Rather than treating social entrepreneurs as conventional charity workers, Ashoka helped make social entrepreneurship a widely recognized field. It selects “Ashoka Fellows” and supports them with funding, connections, and guidance as their ideas expand.
The organization was originally known as Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. Its name refers to Ashoka the Great, the Mauryan emperor who ruled much of the Indian subcontinent in the third century BCE and became associated with public service and moral leadership after the Kalinga War.
Ashoka is easy to confuse with the Skoll Foundation or Acumen because all operate in the social-impact space. They are distinct organizations: Ashoka focuses especially on a global network of social entrepreneurs, while the Skoll Foundation supports social innovators through philanthropy and Acumen uses patient capital to invest in enterprises and leaders addressing poverty.