On March 3rd, 2005, Venture Strategies was awarded the top prize by a jury of philanthropists as part of a competition for social entrepreneurs working across borders. In an open judging session, judges gave special recognition to Venture Strategies for our scalability, sustainability, and strategies to launch initiatives that will endure long past our direct involvement.

The competition, sponsored by Global Giving and the Global Philanthropy Forum, started with an online election from 150 nominated international projects. Then, 16 finalists were selected for receiving more than 1600 online votes. On March 3rd, at an intensive three-hour event at Stanford University, 200 philanthropists navigated among the finalists and placed their votes. At the end of the evening, a jury of philanthropists deliberated openly about criteria for selecting the winning projects. The five equal winners, including Venture Strategies, each received a $20,000 award.

 Venture Strategies is pleased to have been part of the competition and honored to be among the winners. The award will be used to expand marketing and education in our Nigeria program for the drug misoprostol. Misoprostol has the potential to end maternal death from post partum hemorrhage low income settings around the world where the drugs used in hospital settings, requiring cold storage and intravenous administration, cannot be used. All of our projects in reproductive health, including this one, are undertaken in response to requests from our network of medical colleagues in developing countries.

Please view our project description on the Global Giving web site. It is now possible to donate online.