Publications

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

March 2022
Article

When Less Is More: Consumers Prefer Brands that Donate More in Relative versus Absolute Terms

By: Elizabeth A. Keenan, Anne V. Wilson and Leslie K. John

When trying to make a good impression on consumers through charitable giving, is it better for brands to maximize the overall dollars they donate or how much they give in relative terms; for example, the proportion of profits? Across five studies we show that consumers... View Details

Keywords: Cause-related Marketing; Charitable Donations; Generosity; Altruism; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior

Profile

Leo Markel

Why was earning your MBA at Harvard Business School important to you? I came to Harvard Business School to further develop my leadership ability. While confident in my analytical skills, I recognized that I did not have the leadership skills necessary to achieve my... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital / Private Equity; Financial Services; Other Financial Services; Nonprofit / Government

2025
Working Paper

Tax Elasticities of Top Donors: Evidence from Family Foundations

By: Simon Essig Aberg

High net-worth donors who give through a family foundation or donor-advised fund constitute the fastest growing segment of charitable giving in the United States. Using a novel database of foundation tax filings, I document facts about top donors, estimate how they... View Details

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

SSRN

April 12, 2024
Editorial

A New Paradigm for Family Giving

By: Christina R. Wing

Keywords: Family Business; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Wealth

May 2015
Teaching Note

Walmart: Segmenting Social Impact

By: Michael E. Porter, Mark R. Kramer and Pamela Sud

This case provides a sample of Walmart's social engagement activities and asks students to categorize each as philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, or creating shared value. View Details

Keywords: Creating Shared Value; Society; Value Creation; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

Purchase

August 2012
Article

Organ Allocation Policy and the Decision to Donate

By: Judd B. Kessler and Alvin E. Roth

Organ donations from deceased donors (cadavers) provide the majority of transplanted organs in the United States, and one deceased donor can save numerous lives by providing multiple organs. Nevertheless, most Americans are not registered organ donors despite the... View Details

Keywords: Organ Donation; Health; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Decision Making; Resource Allocation; Mathematical Methods; United States

December 2002 (Revised March 2003)
Case

Gates Foundation and Small High Schools, The

By: Stig Leschly

Covers the evolution of the Gates Foundation's multibillion dollar effort to influence reform in the U.S. public education system since 1999, particularly the foundation's recent decision to invest heavily in the breakup of existing urban high schools and the creation... View Details

Keywords: Secondary Education; Urban Development; Social Entrepreneurship; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Education Industry

Educators

Purchase

10 Aug 2022
News

Generosity Multiplied

wasn’t all already here on the platform. We’ve created a really good marketplace, and match funding is the key that unlocks a lot of the potential.” Now Reed wants to share the platform’s design—what he calls “phil-tech” for philanthropy... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley

26 May 2016
News

Thomas J. Tierney, MBA 1980

Smart: Philanthropy That Gets Results Chairman and Cofounder, The Bridgespan Group When Tom Tierney announced that he intended to step down from the top spot at Bain & Company, several of his colleagues thought he should have his head... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

Article

Getting the Most Out of Giving: Concretely Framing a Prosocial Goal Maximizes Happiness

By: Melanie Rudd, Jennifer Aaker and Michael I. Norton

Across six field and laboratory experiments, participants assigned a more concretely-framed prosocial goal (e.g., making someone smile or increasing recycling) felt happier and reported creating greater personal happiness after performing a goal-directed act of... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Behavior; Goal Framing; Affective Forecasting; Goals and Objectives; Happiness; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

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

14 May 2013
Blog Post

Alumni: Where are they now? Featuring Matt…

HBS alum, Matt Segneri, MBA 2010, provides an update on his career post-HBS. Check out his original profile at graduation. Current Position: Government Innovation at Bloomberg Philanthropies Current Location: New York Cit Tell us what... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government

01 Sep 2009
News

Make the Most of HBS Alumni Resources

thinking. I hope we all take advantage of what this great school can still do for us. — Ann Kelly (MBA ’99) is a partner at the Global Philanthropy Group in Seattle, Washington, where she lives with her one-year-old son. A member of the... View Details

Keywords: Educational Support Services; Educational Services

November 2023 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Kickstarter: Crowdfunding for the Arts

By: Rohit Deshpandé and Alexis Lefort

Kickstarter was a virtual crowdfunding platform and community that allowed creators of all kinds to raise funding for creative projects. The executive team was wrestling with a tension in its business model: the organization earned the majority of its revenue from... View Details

Keywords: Fundraising; Mission; Crowdfunding; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Arts; Web Services Industry; United States

Educators

Purchase

Article

Social Recycling Transforms Unwanted Goods into Happiness

By: Grant Edward Donnelly, Cait Lamberton, Rebecca Walker Reczek and Michael I. Norton

Consumers are often surrounded by resources that once offered meaning or happiness but that have lost this subjective value over time—even as they retain their objective utility. We explore the potential for social recycling—disposing of used goods by allowing other... View Details

Keywords: Disposition; Well-being; Prosocial Behavior; Pro-environmental Behavior; Happiness; Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Environmental Sustainability

June 2014
Article

Charitable Giving When Altruism and Similarity Are Linked

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper presents a model in which anonymous charitable donations are rationalized by two human tendencies drawn from the psychology literature. The first is people's disproportionate disposition to help those they agree with, while the second is the dependence of... View Details

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