Skoll Fund

Skoll Fund

Jeff Skoll founded the Skoll Fund in 1999 as a philanthropic vehicle seeded by his eBay wealth. Unlike a standalone single-family office, the Fund operates as a subsidiary of the Skoll Foundation, with day-to-day operations managed by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation — a 501(c)(3) formed in 2007 that now administers over $9.5 billion in assets across its donor-advised funds and supporting organizations. The Skoll Foundation, led by CEO Don Gips, drives the mission side, while the Fund's investment committee, which includes Capricorn Investment Group partner Ion Yadigaroglu, stewards the endowment. The Fund's known portfolio reflects a diversified, multi-asset-class approach. Positions include the Vanguard Trustees' Equity Fund for public-market exposure, alongside direct real asset commitments such as the MSquared Real Estate Impact Platform and a broader Sustainable Real Estate Portfolio that includes mixed-use properties. A dedicated Digital Assets Portfolio signals an appetite for emerging alternative asset classes. The committee appears to blend traditional equity beta with thematic impact allocations — a posture consistent with a foundation endowment seeking both financial returns and mission alignment. Scale metrics for the Skoll Fund itself are not publicly disclosed, though the Silicon Valley Community Foundation's total assets provide a ceiling. Key operational details — such as investment staff headcount or total deployment — remain private. Jeff Skoll is a signatory of The Giving Pledge and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, placing him within a network of globally oriented institutional peers. The architecture creates a structural separation between grantmaking strategy and investment operations, with the Skoll Foundation setting the mission and the Fund's committee executing the portfolio. The Fund's defining structural differentiator is its embedded governance model. Rather than an independent family office, the Skoll Fund chooses to operate inside a large public charity's legal and administrative infrastructure. This hybrid approach — a founder's endowment housed within a community foundation — allows the investment team to leverage institutional-scale back-office capabilities while retaining direct committee control over asset allocation. It represents a distinct third path between fully insourced single-family offices and fully outsourced donor-advised funds.