After receiving nearly 1,500 applications for our fellowship program this past fall, Echoing Green has narrowed this record-setting pool to thirty incredible finalist organizations. More than 200 social change experts, business leaders, and Echoing Green alumni from all over the world have spent the last two months reviewing applications and interviewing candidates. And now, their hard work and deep analysis make us proud to announce the following organizations as 2008 Echoing Green Fellowship Finalists:

Advocates for Informed Choice
Asociación Nacional de Derecho Ambiental (National Environmental Law Assoc.)
Blanket And Sponge Project In Asia (BASPIA)
Chordoma Foundation
City Hall Fellows
CREA
Disaster Accountability Project
Embrace
FORGE
Global Citizen Year
Green Coast Enterprises
GreenMango
Growth Through Energy & Community Health (GTECH) Strategies
Hot Bread Kitchen
Indian School of Education
Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK)
Livelihood Equity Connect
New Orleans Parent Organizing Network
Operation ASHA
Opportunity Maine
PharmaSecure - Addressing counterfeit drugs
School Invest
ServeNext.org
Sustainable Health Ventures
Terra Resource Development International
The Op-Ed Project
The Seven Women Center
The Urban Teacher Institute
Ventures in Development
Village Projects International

These amazing social entrepreneurs will compete for twenty fellowships in New York this May. In the meantime, check our website later this month to find out more about our finalists. And thank you to all the fellowship candidates for inspiring us with your bold ideas for social change and making this one of the toughest decisions our evaluator team has ever faced!