Nonprofit - Publications - Faculty & Research

2010
Working Paper

The Many Faces of Nonprofit Accountability

By: Alnoor Ebrahim

What does it mean for a nonprofit organization to be accountable? Nonprofit leaders tend to pay attention to accountability once a problem of trust arises—a scandal in the sector or in their own organization, questions from citizens or donors who want to know if their... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Accountability; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Leadership; Mission and Purpose; Performance Evaluation; Nonprofit Organizations; Business Strategy

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23 Feb 2004
Research & Ideas

It’s Back to Business-Basics for Nonprofits

To transform lofty aspirations into quantifiable impact, nonprofits need to become more familiar with traditional business tools such as business plans, precise mission statements, and goal setting to improve their performance. That was... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

October 2010
Article

The Emerging Capital Market for Nonprofits

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Allen S. Grossman

Many of our largest and most successful companies today did not exist 50 years ago. During this same time interval, companies that ranked among top in the 1960s have disappeared, been merged out of existence, or become much smaller presences in the U.S. industrial... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Investment Funds; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Corporate Accountability; Management Practices and Processes; Infrastructure; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Effectiveness; Nonprofit Organizations

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April 2009 (Revised April 2009)
Background Note

Note on the Nonprofit Sector

By: Allen S. Grossman and Naomi Greckol-Herlich

This note introduces students to the current state of the nonprofit sector around the world. It also provides insight into the sector's origin and purpose as well as the identifying important current trends. The note draws on numerous sources to provide a single... View Details

Keywords: Trends; Globalization; Business History; Nonprofit Organizations

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February 2023
Article

Nonprofits in Good Times and Bad Times

By: Christine L. Exley, Nils H. Lehr and Stephen J. Terry

Need fluctuates over the business cycle. We conduct a survey revealing a desire for nonprofit activities to countercyclically expand during downturns. We then demonstrate, using comprehensive U.S. nonprofit data drawn from millions of tax returns, that the public's... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Business Cycles; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

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2010
Chapter

The Many Faces of Nonprofit Accountability

By: Alnoor Ebrahim

Calls for greater accountability are not new. Leaders of organizations, be they nonprofit, business, or government, face a constant stream of demands from various constituents demanding accountable behavior. But what does it mean to be accountable? By and large,... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Corporate Accountability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Taxation; Leadership; Management; Nonprofit Organizations; Behavior; Trust

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14 Dec 2011
Research & Ideas

The New Measures for Improving Nonprofit Performance

For-profit businesses have a common goal: create value for owners or shareholders by creating value for customers. It's a focus that must seem enviably straightforward from the perspective of nonprofit organizations and social enterprises... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

16 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Nonprofit Networking: The New Way to Grow

Whether their mission is to protect wildlife, help disabled people, or offer financial services in developing countries, nonprofit organizations often believe they need to grow big before they can achieve significant social impact. HBS... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Program

Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management

Summary Today's nonprofit organizations are faced with shifting demands for services, resource constraints, and diverse operational challenges. They must also learn to navigate the advent of new technology and new sources of funding. To... View Details

2015
Article

Regulator Leniency and Mispricing in Beneficent Nonprofits

By: Jonas Heese, Ranjani Krishnan and Frank Moers

We posit that nonprofits that provide a greater supply of unprofitable services (beneficent nonprofits) face lenient regulatory enforcement for mispricing in price-regulated markets. Consequently, beneficent nonprofits exploit such regulatory leniency and exhibit... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Business Earnings; Fairness; Governance Compliance

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Program

Driving Nonprofit Performance and Innovation—Virtual

nonprofit organization—especially when tackling society's toughest challenges—senior executives and board members must prioritize assessment of organizational performance. In this live online program, you will explore how to align mission... View Details

01 Dec 2008
News

NYC Club Hosts Nonprofits

STRATEGIC ADVICE: HBS professor Michael Porter took a question before his presentation. What happens when you bring over 450 CEOs and presidents of New York City’s leading nonprofits together for a daylong educational summit? Answer: a... View Details

01 Oct 2018
News

For Profit and Nonprofit

Carla Harris (MBA 1987) is vice chairman of Morgan Stanley and a 2018 recipient of the HBS Alumni Achievement Award. In this interview she talks about how her role allows the opportunity to work with nonprofits in a variety of ways.... View Details

Keywords: Finance

01 Jun 2003
News

Prize for Nonprofit Paper

“Managing Multi-Site Nonprofits,” by HBS professors Allen S. Grossman and V. Kasturi Rangan, has received the annual Editors’ Prize for the Best Scholarly Paper in the journal Nonprofit Management and Leadership for 2002. This paper... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

March 1991 (Revised July 1996)
Background Note

Sources of Financing for New Nonprofit Ventures

Designed to help nonprofit entrepreneurs design fund-raising strategies that are appropriate for their specific organizations. Discusses the major fund-raising alternatives, including foundations, corporations, government sources, wealthy individuals, and the public,... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Financing and Loans

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July 1996 (Revised February 2011)
Teaching Note

Identify the Nonprofit (TN)

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Ramona Hilgenkamp

Teaching Note for (9-195-215). View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations

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12 May 2011
Research & Ideas

The Difficult Transition from For-Profit to Nonprofit Boards

Editor's note: For those of who have attended meetings of both nonprofit and for-profit boards, the differences between the two organizations couldn't be clearer. Nonprofit boards meetings tend to be longer,... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne