Publications

December 2011
Case

Negotiating the Path of Abraham

By: James K. Sebenius and Kimberlyn Leary

The Abraham Path Initiative board faces strategic and negotiating challenges in revitalizing a route of Middle East cultural tourism following Abraham's path 4000 years ago. The Path begins in the ancient ruins of Harran, in modern-day Turkey, where Abraham first heard... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Governing and Advisory Boards; Partners and Partnerships; Negotiation; Social Entrepreneurship; Religion; Culture; Tourism Industry; Israel; Syria; Middle East; Turkey; Jordan

May 14, 2024
Article

One Way to Help Employees Build Emergency Savings

By: Timothy Flacke and Peter Tufano

Intentional cooperation between two organizations — BlackRock, a major asset management firm, and national non-profit, Commonwealth — created the conditions for the nation’s largest payroll processor, multiple U.S. employers, retirement record keepers, and others to... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Personal Finance; Income; Nonprofit Organizations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Partners and Partnerships

Read Now

December 2019 (Revised August 2022)
Exercise

Janet Ames (C)

By: Brian Trelstad and Brian Trelstad

The series of Janet Ames cases follow a fictional alumna of Harvard Business School into her consulting career in Boston. Over the series of cases, Ames is first offered the opportunity to join the board of a Boston-based non-profit organization, which offers students... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy; Board; Non-profit Management; Career Changes And Transitions; Evaluation; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Governing and Advisory Boards; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Management; Personal Development and Career; United States

September 2009 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Endeavor: Creating a Global Movement for High-Impact Entrepreneurship

By: William A. Sahlman

This case describes a critical inflection point in the growth of an international development "mentor capitalist" nonprofit, Endeavor. As Endeavor aims to scale its high-impact entrepreneurship model globally, founder Linda Rottenberg must determine what success looks... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Social Entrepreneurship; Global Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Nonprofit Organizations; Jordan

September 2007 (Revised February 2008)
Case

Partners in Health: The PACT Project

By: Richard M.J. Bohmer and Josh Friedman

Partners in Health is a Boston-based, not-for-profit that provides health care to people in some of the poorest regions of the world, including Haiti, Malawi, Rwanda, and Peru. In 1998, PIH established a program (PACT) in Boston to bring care to AIDS and TB patients... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Nonprofit Organizations; Non-Governmental Organizations; Developing Countries and Economies; Service Delivery; Health Industry

30 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 30, 2008

(forthcoming) Abstract This paper analyzes the association between ownership, top management incentives, and expenditures on accounting information. We argue that organizations with privately appointed boards of directors such as for-profit and non-governmental View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

August 2011 (Revised July 2014)
Case

Earl Martin Phalen: Ready to ROAR?

By: Noam T. Wasserman, Julia Taylor and Yael Braid

Earl Martin Phalen is in the midst of starting his second non-profit organization, Summer Advantage, by implementing the lessons he learned from BELL, the non-profit he had founded and run for the prior 15 years. His aspirations for Summer Advantage were to make it... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Nonprofit Organizations; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Selection and Staffing; Leadership Development; Financial Management

November 2010 (Revised January 2011)
Case

The Tzu Chi Foundation's China Relief Mission

By: Herman B. Leonard and YiKwan Chu

Tzu Chi is one of the largest charities in Taiwan, and one of the swiftest and most effective relief organizations internationally. Rooted in the value of compassion, the organization has many unusual operating features -- including having no long term plan. This case... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Crisis Management; Service Delivery; Mission and Purpose; Religion; Natural Disasters; Nonprofit Organizations; Welfare; China; Taiwan

July 2009 (Revised August 2009)
Case

From Little Things Big Things Grow: The Clontarf Foundation Program for Aboriginal Boys

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Michael Vitale

This case focuses on the growth of an innovative non-profit institution that motivates aboriginal children to attend school by harnessing their love of football. View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Welfare; Education; Sports; Service Industry

27 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 27

Foundation, focused on building the organizational capabilities of nonprofits that served the disadvantaged youth in the United States, has recently been named an intermediary in the federal government's new social innovation fund (SIF),... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Apr 2010
Research & Ideas

One Report: Better Strategy through Integrated Reporting

How can managers better identify, describe, and confront the issues of environmental and social sustainability that their companies increasingly encounter? One answer is One Report, a method of integrating information about financial and nonfinancial performance into a... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

September 2023
Case

FoodCloud: Tackling Food Insecurity and Climate Change in One Bite

By: Brian Trelstad and Emer Moloney

In 2013, Aoibheann O’Brien and Iseult Ward founded FoodCloud, a non-profit social enterprise that aimed to address food waste and food insecurity issues. Through its technology platform, Foodiverse, FoodCloud connected surplus food from retailers with community groups... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Expansion; Technological Innovation; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Growth and Development Strategy; Green Technology Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Republic of Ireland; Europe

December 2008 (Revised March 2009)
Case

The World Food Programme during the Global Food Crisis (A)

By: Anette Mikes, Peter Tufano, Eric D. Werker and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve

Rising food prices threatened an unprecedented number of people around the world with malnutrition or starvation in 2008. The new Executive Director of the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP)—the world's largest food relief agency—must not only address this... View Details

Keywords: Food; Globalized Firms and Management; Nutrition; Crisis Management; Business and Government Relations; Nonprofit Organizations; Welfare

September 2003 (Revised October 2005)
Case

Performance Pay for MGOA Physicians (A)

Examines the transition of an orthopedic surgical group at a premier teaching and research hospital from a system in which the surgeons are compensated with flat salaries to a system where they are compensated based on profitability. Allows for an examination of... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Motivation and Incentives; Nonprofit Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Compensation and Benefits; Health Industry

21 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

The Geography of Corporate Giving

Why companies support nonprofits and other socially responsible activities is an intriguing question for both academics and practitioners. After all, there is no clear-cut evidence that corporate "do-gooding" results in greater... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

September 2024
Case

Open Door Legal: Universal Legal Access

By: Brian Trelstad, Taylor Greenthal and Sarah Mehta

This case is about Open Door Legal (ODL), a San Francisco-based civil legal aid nonprofit. CEO Adrian Tirtanadi founded the organization in 2012 with a mission to achieve universal access to legal representation for all city residents. By 2024, ODL had opened four... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Law; Growth Management; Nonprofit Organizations; Civil Society or Community; Business Model; Expansion; Legal Services Industry; United States; California; Los Angeles; San Francisco

August 2003 (Revised December 2004)
Case

Peninsula Community Foundation

By: James E. Austin, Jane Wei-Skillern and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

After leading the Peninsula Community Foundation (PCF) through a period of tremendous growth, its president, Sterling Speirn, is facing the prospect of a decline in the foundation's asset base for the first time in the foundation's history. In addition, the fact that... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Product Positioning; Planning; Alliances; Opportunities; Nonprofit Organizations; Valuation; Financial Services Industry

November 2002 (Revised March 2006)
Case

ApproTEC Kenya: Technologies to Fight Poverty and Create Wealth

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

ApproTEC markets a range of technologies to improve the income of subsistence farmers and other small-scale entrepreneurs in East Africa. Having achieved considerable success in its first eight years, the two founders/entrepreneurs are seeking ways to scale the impact... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Development Economics; Poverty; Information Technology; Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Growth and Development Strategy; Kenya; Africa