Volunteering - Publications - Faculty & Research

02 May 2016
Research & Ideas

Why People Don’t Vote--and How a Good Ground Game Helps

to put off until it is too late. The researchers recruited volunteers to perform some 20,000 direct door-to-door visits to random households. They found that just providing information on how to register wound up increasing registration... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Communications; Public Relations

12 Nov 2008
Research & Ideas

The Marketing of a President

positive and unruffled demeanor, and his compelling biography attracted the attention and empathy of voters. Second, Obama converted this empathy into tangible support. More citizens volunteered time and money to help the Obama campaign... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

26 Jun 2012
First Look

First Look: June 26

by a public health organization are randomly allocated to four groups. Agents in the control group receive a standard volunteer contract often offered for this type of task, whereas agents in the three treatment groups receive small... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 May 2011
Research & Ideas

The Difficult Transition from For-Profit to Nonprofit Boards

detail, nonprofit boards are often larger, have more committees, and have a very different trustee life cycle. Further, as Chapter Seven describes, the heart of the governance process is a volunteer nonexecutive chairman and View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

16 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Can Applied Economics Save Homeless Puppies?

coming from. Yet, about 3 million dogs and cats are killed every year because they don’t get homes, so there’s clearly room for improvement in matching pets with families.” THE BIRTH OF WAGAROO Exley has been fervent about finding homes for dogs since she was... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

23 Jul 2007
Research & Ideas

HBS Cases: How Wikipedia Works (or Doesn’t)

in 1999 by Jimmy Wales under the name Nupedia, the service today claims 1.8 million articles in English, 4.8 million registered users, and 1,200 volunteers who regularly edit Wikipedia articles. Anyone can submit or edit an article, which... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Publishing

29 May 2020
Op-Ed

How Leaders Are Fighting Food Insecurity on Three Continents

and helped smaller relief agencies with staffing and support. Its own staffing was increased by 25 percent to accommodate the increased workload, COVID-19 requirements, and the fact that many of SecondBite’s 900 volunteers fell into... View Details

Keywords: by Howard Stevenson and Shirley Spence; Agriculture & Agribusiness

18 Oct 2016
Op-Ed

Why Business Should Invest in Community Health

focuses on improving health care access, investing nearly 500,000 skill-based volunteer hours since 2004. It works with non-profit community health centers that provide primary care to underserved communities to build health worker skills... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch, Howard Koh, and Pamela Yatsko; Health

10 Nov 2008
What Do You Think?

How Much Can You Ask of Your Customers?

so that volunteers (often customers, but also others) can easily contribute content (opinions and ratings for Zagat guides), "stuff for sale" (eBay online marketplace), behavioral data (Google's search engine algorithm), and... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

30 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Entering the Age of Alliances

volunteers trained by Time to Read. Instead of financial grants, Time Warner supplies reading materials (especially magazines published by the company), classroom space, and tutors at its various offices around the country. Even when a... View Details

Keywords: by James Austin

18 May 2021
Book

Launching a Career in the COVID Economy? Here Are 5 Tips.

Volunteer for work: New projects are opportunities to show your competence and your commitment. But be careful not to over-commit. Volunteer only if you have the time to follow through. 5. Claim an... View Details

Keywords: by Carolyn DiPaolo

17 Feb 2015
HBS Case

HBS Cases: The Battle for San Francisco

online than with the community outside their door. Companies often limit their community engagement to contributions to nonprofits or organizing volunteer opportunities. "Traditionally, the way these companies engage is through a... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Technology

05 Jun 2013
Op-Ed

Corporate Leaders Need to Step Up on Climate Change

several very large companies cannot, on their own, get us there. In fact, historically, no big environmental problem, from air and water pollution to acid rain or ozone depletion, has ever been solved by businesses volunteering to do the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Toffel & Auden Schendler

29 May 2001
Research & Ideas

Good News, Not Blues, For the Inner City

businesspeople, we've seen ourselves as helpless" in eradicating seemingly intractable problems like poverty, he said. Though giving money and volunteering time are good things to do, a better solution, he insisted, is to apply... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

22 Dec 2015
First Look

December 22, 2015

National Organization Team Rubicon, a military veteran volunteer disaster relief organization, has experienced significant success in attracting attention and support in its first four years of operation. The challenges of managing the... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

26 Sep 2019
Research & Ideas

What Can the World’s Largest Refugee Camp Teach Us About the Meaning of Work?

month to receive $25 Volunteering for 12 days and receiving $25 without prior notice Refugees will survey members of their community about how they spend their days. To test whether reducing near-term uncertainty improves well-being, some... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

01 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

Connecting With Nonprofits

activities as cause-related marketing programs, event sponsorships, special projects, and employee volunteer services. Integrative Stage. A smaller but growing number of collaborations evolve into strategic alliances that involve deep... View Details

Keywords: by James Austin

05 Dec 2005
What Do You Think?

Is Growth Good?

war, neither of which add to the net wealth of the world as a whole. And GDP remains unaffected when people volunteer to help those in need or simply carry on the daily voluntary activities needed to keep a family together. But that isn’t... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

27 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

What Happens When Ordinary People Get Creative?

mainstream press, led to the 2011 book The Progress Principle—a guide for managers who want to provide catalysts for progress among their employees. But the research also revealed a more meta result: Amabile realized the extent to which people View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

22 Mar 2016
First Look

March 22, 2016

counter this ambiguity, this paper proposes that the strength of the greedy signal relates to an individual's volunteer reputation. Results from an online experiment support this possibility: the crowd out in response to public incentives... View Details