Publications

2013
Working Paper

Non-Standard Matches and Charitable Giving

By: Michael Sanders, Sarah Smith and Michael I. Norton

Many organisations, including corporations and governments, wish to encourage charitable giving, and offer incentives for their employees, customers and citizens to do so. The most common of these incentives is a match rate, where the organisation agrees to pay, for... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Organizational Culture; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

March 2002 (Revised August 2006)
Case

September 11th Fund, The: The Creation

By: Jane Wei-Skillern

Describes the entrepreneurial process through which the September 11th Fund was created, developed, and operated, focusing primarily on the furst seven weeks of the fund. This case details the genesis of the fund as a partnership between the United Way of New York City... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Partners and Partnerships; Social Entrepreneurship; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

Educators

Purchase

Spring 2024
Article

One Aspirational Future for India’s Higher Education Sector

By: Tarun Khanna

Several recent encouraging experiments in Indian higher education suggest a plausible aspirational path toward a more salubrious future than that suggested by an otherwise struggling system. Four case studies of privately conceived and funded universities each exhibit... View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; India

July 15, 2013
Article

Five Tips for Running an Effective Charitable Foundation

By: Josh Baron

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Performance Effectiveness

February 2018
Article

The Impact of a Surprise Donation Ask

By: Christine L. Exley and Ragan Petrie

Individuals frequently exploit "flexibility" built into decision environments to give less. They use uncertainty to justify options benefiting themselves over others, they avoid information that may encourage them to give, and they avoid the ask itself. In this paper,... View Details

Keywords: Charitable Giving; Prosocial Behavior; Self-serving Biases; Excuses; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Behavior

April 2013
Article

Making a Difference Matters: Impact Unlocks the Emotional Benefits of Prosocial Spending

By: Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Ashley V. Whillans, Adam M. Grant and Michael I. Norton

When does giving lead to happiness? Here, we present two studies demonstrating that the emotional benefits of spending money on others (prosocial spending) are unleashed when givers are aware of their positive impact. In Study 1, an experiment using real... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Spending; Prosocial Impact; Subjective Well Being; Donations; Happiness; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

18 Sep 2000
Research & Ideas

Getting It Done: Improving Nonprofit Performance

number of for-profits that are focusing on problems in areas such as education and welfare-to-work? According to Bloomberg Senior Lecturer in Philanthropy Allen Grossman, the answers to these kinds of questions must take into... View Details

Keywords: by James E. Aisner

2014
Article

Models of Caring, or Acting as if One Cared, About the Welfare of Others

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper surveys the theoretical literature in which people are modeled as taking other people's payoffs into account either because this affects their utility directly or because they wish to impress others with their social-mindedness. Key experimental results that... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

Profile

Avi Kremer

He can no longer walk, talk, or swallow, but Avi Kremer (MBA 2007) won’t let that slow down his pursuit of a cure for ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease. As founder of Prize4Life, the nonprofit he launched in 2006 with HBS classmates and professors, Kremer... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Entrepreneurship

12 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

The Better is the Enemy of the Good

Keywords: by Christine L. Exley and Judd B. Kessler

01 Sep 2009
News

A Book by Its Cover

series to accommodate different preferences, the company employed a stable of writers, hundreds of whom today crank out 130 million books a year in 29 languages. A prominent backer of the fine arts, Heisey was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1994 in... View Details

Profile

Michael R. Bloomberg

Bloomberg Philanthropies works to improve lives by focusing on the arts, education, the environment, government innovation, public health, and accelerating the pace of Black wealth accumulation. In 2017, together with Harvard Kennedy... View Details

Article

The Multidimensional Effects of a Small Gift:: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment

By: Ellen Garbarino, Robert Slonim and Carmen Wang

Using a large natural field experiment, we demonstrate that a small unconditional gift (pen) more than doubled both small (survey) and large (blood donation) responses. We find no evidence that the opportunity for a small response crowded out the larger response;... View Details

Keywords: Reciprocity; Gift Exchange; Blood Donation; Charitable Behavior; Field Experiment; Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

November 2002 (Revised January 2003)
Case

SBC Foundation, The

By: Diana Barrett, Sarah Aaron and Cassandra Hanley

Examines the role of the corporation as it makes philanthropic donations. Questions raised include the connection between corporate strategy and giving, the degree to which grant making should be decentralized, and the size and focus of grants. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

Keywords: Professor Bill George; Professor Joseph L. Bower; Professor Herman B. Leonard; Professor Lynn S. Paine; Professor Howard Stevenson; Professor Noam Wasserman; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

01 Mar 2012
News

Faculty Books

Way by a Billion-Dollar Fundraiser by Howard Stevenson with Shirley Spence (Timberline LLC) Philanthropy is a powerful force in society, but the challenges are great, particularly during an economic downturn that has dampened... View Details

25 Apr 2014
News

An investment in meaningful results

million in over 200 programs and schools in 2013. The organization's 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief raised more than $50 million to help victims of the storm rebuild and recover. Robin Hood takes a venture philanthropy approach to... View Details

01 Dec 2003
News

DonorsChoose: Teaming Up with Teachers

Ilana L. Goldman (MBA ’02) always knew that she wanted to work in the public sector. But she didn’t expect to find herself back on the HBS campus just eighteen months after graduation talking about her new job. Goldman is vice president of DonorsChoose, a New York City... View Details

Keywords: Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations; Personal Services

Article

Selfishly Benevolent or Benevolently Selfish? When Self-interest Undermines versus Promotes Prosocial Behavior

By: Julian Zlatev and Dale T. Miller

Existing research shows that appeals to self-interest sometimes increase and sometimes decrease prosocial behavior. We propose that this inconsistency is in part due to the framings of these appeals. Different framings generate different salient reference points,... View Details

Keywords: Altruism; Charitable Giving; Framing; Prosocial Behavior; Reference Points; Self-interest; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Framework; Behavior

2016
Working Paper

Market Design for Altruistic Supply: Evidence from the Lab

By: Robert Slonim and Carmen Wang

Volunteer supply is widespread. Yet without a price, inefficiencies occur due to suppliers’ inability to coordinate with each other and with demand. In these contexts, we propose a market clearinghouse mechanism that improves efficiency if supply is altruistically... View Details

Keywords: Laboratory Experiments; Volunteering; Public Goods Provision; Market Design; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Economics

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