Publications

23 May 2016
News

Meet the 2016-2017 HBS Leadership Fellows

May 2001 (Revised June 2010)
Case

Jumpstart

By: Allen S. Grossman

Many in the nonprofit sector doubt whether organizational performance can be measured. Jumpstart, a 10-year-old nonprofit, developed performance measurement and management systems from its inception. The organization has experienced explosive growth and attributes a... View Details

Keywords: Management Systems; Measurement and Metrics; Organizational Culture; Performance Improvement; Nonprofit Organizations

October 2018 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Khan Academy 2018

By: William Sahlman and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded in 2008, Khan Academy was a global educational nonprofit with a mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone anywhere in the world. By 2018, the organization had expanded into numerous content areas, product areas, and geographic markets.... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Sustainability; Scaling; Social Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Strategy; Education; Entrepreneurship; Teaching; Education Industry; California

October 1997 (Revised June 2001)
Case

Disney (C): The Mouse in Times Square

By: Michael A. Wheeler, Thomas Dretler and Georgia Levenson

Disney's first foray into an urban environment, is the restoration and development of the landmark New Amsterdam Theater in New York's Times Square. Disney must negotiate with the city, state, and various nonprofit organizations focused on the redevelopment of Times... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Types; Urban Development; Tourism Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

May–June 2023
Article

Should Your Start-up Be For-profit or Nonprofit?: A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs

By: Cait Brumme and Brian Trelstad

Years ago the line between nonprofit and for-profit enterprises was clear, but that has changed. Nonprofits now offer products that compete with those of the best for-profits, and for-profits can deliver as much social value as charities. Despite the blurred... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Social Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Nonprofit Organizations; For-Profit Firms; Decision Choices and Conditions

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October 2003
Case

Financing Biodiversity Conservation by the Global Conservation Fund

By: Mihir A. Desai and Julia Stevens

The Global Conservation Fund is an international nonprofit organization with a $100 million endowment and an exclusive focus on land preservation. The fund and its director must decide which projects to fund over the next year and what financing mechanism to use.... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Protection; Project Evaluation; Environmental Sustainability; Projects; Finance; Decision Making; Financial Instruments; Nonprofit Organizations

13 May 2014
News

Harvard Business School Announces 2014 Leadership Fellows

March 2020 (Revised May 2022)
Case

The Art of the Merger: The Museum of Modern Art and PS1

By: Dennis Yao and Hillary Greene

This case examines the organizational relationship between the Museum of Modern Art and its affiliate MoMA PS1. The relationship raises a number of business and corporate strategy questions regarding the evolution of organizational relationships and their management.... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Nonprofit Organizations; Corporate Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Disruption; Decision Making; Fine Arts Industry; United States; New York (state, US)

May 2006 (Revised November 2006)
Case

Willa Seldon at Tides Center (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Emily Stecker

Willa Seldon, an African-American woman with 16 years of for-profit experience, was hired as executive director of Tides Center, a nonprofit in San Francisco, CA. Tides Center was a fiscal sponsor dedicated to supporting individuals and groups working toward social... View Details

Keywords: For-Profit Firms; Nonprofit Organizations; Transition; Change Management; Leadership Style; Performance; Customer Satisfaction; San Francisco

Article

In Search of the Hybrid Ideal

By: Julie Battilana, Matthew Lee, John Walker and Cheryl Dorsey

In the first large-scale, quantitative study of nascent social entrepreneurs, researchers from Harvard Business School and Echoing Green examine the rise of hybrid organizations that combine aspects of nonprofits and for-profits and the challenges hybrids face as they... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Organizational Design

Find at Harvard

08 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Colloquium: The Future of Social Enterprise

changing the way that funders, practitioners, scholars, and organizations measure performance. Our paper traces a growing pool of potential funding sources to solve social problems, much of it stemming from an intergenerational transfer... View Details

Keywords: Re: V. Kasturi Rangan & Dutch Leonard

14 Feb 2018
Blog Post

Meet HBS Leadership Fellows: Verdell Walker, Sesame Workshop

Fellowship year. Sesame Workshop (SW) is the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street and much more. SW’s mission is to help kids grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. Since I’ve been here, I’ve... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government

04 Jan 2019
News

How Companies Can Balance Social Impact and Financial Goals

V. Kasturi Rangan

Kash Rangan is the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at the Harvard Business School. Formerly the chairman of the Marketing Department (1998-2002), he is now the co-chairman of the school's Social Enterprise Initiative. He has taught in a wide variety of MBA... View Details

Keywords: advertising; agribusiness; apparel; automobiles; computer; consumer products; e-commerce industry; high technology; industrial goods; marketing industry; pharmaceuticals

October 2002 (Revised May 2004)
Case

Starbucks and Conservation International

By: James E. Austin and Cate Reavis

Starbucks, the world's leading specialty coffee company, developed a strategic alliance with Conservation International, a major international environmental nonprofit organization. The purpose of the alliance was to promote coffee-growing practices of small farms that... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Growth and Development Strategy; Markets; Demand and Consumers; Production; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Cooperative Ownership; Performance Efficiency; Alliances; Nonprofit Organizations; Food and Beverage Industry; Mexico

15 Sep 2008
Research & Ideas

The Coming Transformation of Social Enterprise

actually accomplish. Why aren't nonprofits more accountable and transparent with all this money? That's a very big issue in this sector because there is no common measure or framework to assess whether these View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson

June 2018
Case

Feeding America (A)

By: Scott Duke Kominers and Alan Lam

This case describes how Feeding America, the third-largest nonprofit organization in the U.S., designed a marketplace for allocating donated food across its network of food banks. It considers the promises and pitfalls of using market-based allocation in the context of... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Nonprofit Organizations; Food; Resource Allocation; Fairness; Performance Efficiency; United States