Pioneer in Social Entrepreneurship to be Awarded Academy's Highest Honor

Fuess Award to be Presented March 5 to Bill Drayton, Founder and CEO of Ashoka

March 02, 2009  -- Barbara Landis Chase, Phillips Academy head of school, has announced that Bill Drayton '61, a pioneer in social entrepreneurship, has been selected as the recipient of the 24th Claude Moore Fuess Award. The award will be presented at a special student and faculty gathering on Thursday, March 5, in Cochran Chapel on the Academy campus.

Named in honor of Phillips Academy’s 10th head of school, the award, which acknowledges distinguished contribution to public service, is Andover’s highest honor. 

Drayton, a MacArthur Fellow, is the founder of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a nonprofit organization that fosters social entrepreneurship worldwide. Ashoka Fellows combine results-oriented methods of business entrepreneurship and the goals of social reform to engage individuals and communities in “change-making.”

While many established activists, including Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus, serve as part of the Ashoka network, Drayton places his greatest hope in young adults.

“Every child wants to figure out how to be a good person,” explained Drayton in an interview with National Geographic Traveler. “They’re totally ready to see an opportunity, a problem, to build an organization, to really contribute. And all we have to do is create the structures for young people to make that less difficult.”

Last summer, as part of Phillips Academy’s service learning program in Mumbai, India, students and faculty witnessed the work of Ashoka firsthand. Andover participants used the social entrepreneurship model, partnering with Ashoka Fellows and residents of a Mumbai neighborhood to improve local living conditions. One such participant, Celia Lewis '10, will have the honor of co-presenting the Fuess Award to Drayton with Head of School Chase.

“Bill Drayton is truly an incredible human being, who, by following his dreams and passions, has been able to make a tremendous impact on the world today. I think that his determination, perseverance, and desire to make a difference have always been relatively natural components of his personality, and for that I admire and respect him,” said Lewis. “I feel so incredibly honored, and even somewhat awestruck, to be co-presenting the Feuss Award.  Mr. Drayton’s many successes are my dreams, and I hope that one day I, too, will be able to make as much of an impact on the world as he has. ”

Lewis, along with Trisha Macrae '09 and Zoe Weinberg '09, attended the Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School’s 2009 Social Enterprise Conference this past Sunday, at which Drayton was a speaker.
 
Described by U.S. News and World Report as one of America’s best leaders, Drayton identifies and develops “changemakers” throughout the world, providing them with a support network and modest “social venture capital.” Since 1981, Ashoka has funded more than 2,000 social entrepreneurs in more than 70 countries. Within five years, according to Drayton, more than 50 percent of Ashoka Fellows have successfully changed national policy.

While on campus on March 5, Drayton will deliver an address and meet with students and faculty. “We welcome the opportunity for the Phillips Academy community to hear Bill Drayton’s vision of the enormous potential of non sibi (not for self) actions taken by changemakers of all ages," said Chase.

First awarded in 1967, the Claude Moore Fuess Award has honored decades of alumni for distinguished efforts and achievements in public service. Previous recipients include: The Reverend William Sloane Coffin '42, social activist; Harlan Cleveland '34, U.S. Ambassador to NATO; and Robert Conover Macauley '41, founder of AmeriCares. The most recent award, in 2006, was presented to Sarah P. Chayes '80, a former National Public Radio journalist active in organizing efforts to rebuild schools, houses, and businesses in war-torn Afghanistan