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"Ultimately, the goal here is to build a brand around social relevance in media." --Jeff Skoll, photographed outside of Participant Productions

But Skoll remains hopeful. He explains why with a sort of eye-of-the-needle parable about a rich friend who'd retired to simply play golf and live the life. "He said, 'Well, I think the world's in terrible shape and so I just want to have a good time, take care of my family, enjoy my friends, and that's it.' And I said, 'How can you feel that way if you really love your kids? Don't you want to make the world better for them?' He said, 'Well, take the Middle East. If you can show me there's any hope of resolving that, maybe.'" As it happened, in the spring of 2005, Skoll, in his spare time, had Gandhi dubbed into Arabic and started hosting screenings in Palestinian refugee camps, some with Sir Ben Kingsley in attendance. The ultimate goal is to have a million people in the Arab world learn about a hero of nonviolence. "My same friend saw that project, and he decided to help out and do something with my foundation," Skoll concludes.

Most of the world probably relates more readily to a retired millionaire who says, "What could I possibly do?" than to the one who says, "Let's do something." Yet the whole purpose of Participant is essentially to get people to Be Like Jeff, to believe in the possibility of change--and to dedicate their own resources to bringing it about. Of course, very few people are as smart, as rich, or as lucky as Jeff.

And so Participant's biggest mountain may actually lie ahead: the prospect of continuing one day without Skoll. He says he envisions the company "as an institution that lives on long after I'm gone," but stepping back might not be so easy. "Frankly, I didn't expect to be doing this as full-time as it ended up becoming," he says. "Initially, I thought I'd take a year, I'd build up the team, and then I'd be able to commute back and forth. And now we're heading well down year three, and it's all-encompassing."

Skoll misses living in Silicon Valley and closely managing his foundation, which is still building its portfolio--and which is already such a key player in social entrepreneurship that a couple of experts I contacted said they couldn't comment because they're applying themselves for Skoll cash. The foundation awards funding to 31 entrepreneurs around the world (eventually the portfolio will expand to 40 to 45) to help them greatly increase the scale of their projects. For example, biotech entrepreneur Victoria Hale has created a nonprofit drug company, the Institute for OneWorld Health, to run trials and bring to market drugs for infectious diseases in Third World countries neglected by Big Pharma. Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sakena Yacoobi founded the Afghan Institute of Learning, which educates 350,000 women and children annually in Afghanistan and has trained 10,000 teachers.

"I think the purpose of both Participant and the [Skoll] foundation is absolutely strategic and brilliant," pronounces Bill Drayton, a pioneer in the field himself who founded the group Ashoka in 1980. In particular, he says, both promote awareness of positive change makers, closing what he calls the "perception gap" that lets apathy grow. "I am perfectly prone to saying nasty things about foundations that aren't contributors, but I really think these folks are successful."

In the end, perhaps the greatest secret to Participant's early success is a very Hollywood concept: a hero. "Jeff is a business entrepreneur, he's a social entrepreneur, he is a role model," Drayton says. "He's a person who has really strong values and he's demonstrating that." Luckily, this particular hero also has a sense of humor. When I ask what universe Skoll wants to conquer next, he answers without hesitation: starting a family with his new fiancee. "We got engaged, and I got back, told all our family and friends, and everyone's like, 'Congratulations, congratulations,'" he says. "Except for the friends I have in L.A., who would say, 'Oh, I'm sorry! My condolences.' One said, 'You know, you could be dating anybody, I mean, Hollywood actresses or anybody!' I'm like, 'Nah, it's okay.' Only in Hollywood."

Anya Kamenetz is the author of Generation Debt (Riverhead, 2006). She lives in New York.