Local leaders drive transformational change around the globe. In 2026, 54% of applications came from Africa, 25% from North America, and 10% from Asia. The countries with the most applicants were the United States, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, India, and Ghana, which collectively made up 61.5% of applications. Additionally, this application round marked the first time applicants were given the option to denote their work as global to indicate efforts across multiple locations throughout the world. The global designation accounted for 6% of applications.

At Echoing Green, no promising leader is too early in their journey to support—even if their idea is just sketched on the back of a napkin. This focus on the earliest stages of innovation has remained a constant for us and our applicants. 23% of applicants are at the earliest stages of developing their ideas and solutions, while 42% of 2026 applicants—consistent with prior years—are in the early implementation stage.

The breadth of issues represented among applicants highlights the versatility of social innovation as one of the most powerful drivers of social change. For the first time, applicants were asked to indicate a primary program area. The top three issue areas in 2026 were climate (19%), education (16%), and physical/mental health (12%). However, delineating issue areas is not always clear-cut. While applicants indicated a primary program area, many are also creating impact that spans single issue areas, geographies, and communities. And many are innovating, too, through business models and tactics, often in intersectional and collaborative ways.

Given Echoing Green’s emphasis on early-stage innovators, it’s not uncommon for applicants to apply before having raised any funds or before accessing the resources necessary to fully realize their vision. However, fundraising is increasingly challenging for applicants. The fallout from the United States’ federal funding cuts and slashing of global foreign aid has been devastating. Data from the Human Rights Funders Network projects that official development assistance will decrease by $62 billion in 2026—a 28% decline from 2023. At the same time, geopolitical instability continues to worsen, making the fundraising environment even more difficult to navigate.

For Fellowship applicants from 2021 to 2025, 35% had not yet raised any funds for their vision. In this year’s applicant pool, that number jumped to 53%—the highest since we started tracking at this level of detail in 2012.