Publications

Research Summary

Overview

By: William C. Kirby

A historian by training, Professor Kirby examines contemporary China's business, economic, and political development in an international context. He writes and teaches on the growth of modern companies in China (Chinese and foreign; state-owned and private); Chinese... View Details

18 Aug 2009
First Look

First Look: August 18

the existing evidence only weakly supports this causal claim. Research in psychology, economics, and neuroscience exploring the benefits of charitable giving has been largely... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2011
Working Paper

Memory Lane and Morality: How Childhood Memories Promote Prosocial Behavior

By: Francesca Gino and Sreedhari D. Desai

Four experiments demonstrated that recalling memories from one's own childhood lead people to experience feelings of moral purity and to behave prosocially. In Experiment 1, participants instructed to recall memories from their childhood were more likely to help the... View Details

Keywords: Judgments; Moral Sensibility; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Organizational Culture; Behavior; Emotions; Personal Characteristics; Welfare

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2007
Report

From Insight to Action: New Directions in Foundation Evaluation

By: Mark R. Kramer, Rebecca W. Graves, Jason Hirschhorn and Leigh Fiske

The field of philanthropy is undergoing a fundamental transition and is moving toward more performance-centered and forward-looking evaluation approaches that provide foundations and grantees with timely information and actionable insights. Based on nearly 100... View Details

Keywords: Foundation Evaluation; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Performance Evaluation

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Research Summary

Unintended Consequences of Fundraising Tactics

Charity fundraisers use a variety of methods to increase donations, with three of the most common being matching funds, seed money, and thank you gifts. Field experiments have shown that matching funds (Eckel and Grossman, 2008) and seed money (List and Lucking-Reiley,... View Details

Article

Happiness Runs in a Circular Motion: Evidence for a Positive Feedback Loop between Prosocial Spending and Happiness

By: Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn and Michael I. Norton

We examine whether a positive feedback loop exists between spending money on others (i.e. prosocial spending) and happiness. Participants recalled a previous purchase made for either themselves or someone else and then reported their happiness. Afterward, participants... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Spending; Happiness; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

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2015
Working Paper

Crowdfunding as 'Donations': Theory & Evidence

By: Kevin J. Boudreau, Lars Bo Jeppesen, Toke Reichstein and Francesco Rullani

For a wide class of crowdfunding approaches, we argue that the reward structure (for funders) is closer to that of charitable donations to public goods than it is to traditional entrepreneurial finance. Many features of the design of crowdfunding platforms can... View Details

Keywords: Crowdfunding Platforms; Entrepreneurial Finance; Free-riding; Voluntary Contributions To Public Goods; Online Technology; Entrepreneurship; Social and Collaborative Networks; Finance; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

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March 2023
Case

MrBeast: Building a YouTube Empire

By: Anita Elberse and Oliver Band

Wednesday November 16, 2022 was a historic day in the ascent of Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, to the top echelon of YouTube creators. That day he became the YouTuber with the most subscribers ever—a total of 112 million. The meteoric rise of the 24-year-old... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Power and Influence; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

December 2005 (Revised August 2007)
Case

NewSchools Venture Fund in 2004: At a Crossroads

By: Stacey M. Childress and Caroline Joan King

Founded as one of the first venture philanthropy organizations in the United States in 1998, NewSchools Venture Fund brought new investors and new ideas to public education reform. By 2004, the organization and its founder were reassessing their model and their role in... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Education; Social Entrepreneurship; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; United States

14 Oct 2014
First Look

First Look: October 14

Review Making Charity Pay By: Norton, Michael I., and Jill Avery Abstract—Companies are increasingly experimenting with the use of philanthropy to enhance consumer loyalty, brand awareness, View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Case

John Whitehead: A Life in Leadership

By: William W. George and Andrew N. McLean

In 2005, John C. Whitehead, chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. (LMDC), confronts the collapse of a delicate agreement among business, government, and public interests in rebuilding on the World Trade Center site. Provides information on the leadership... View Details

Keywords: Education; Construction; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Biography; Leadership; Leadership Development; Agreements and Arrangements; Nonprofit Organizations

March 2024
Case

Ava DuVernay's Array: Disrupting the Hollywood Film Industry

By: Anita Elberse and Morgan Brewton-Johnson

In February 2023 acclaimed filmmaker Ava DuVernay is filming her latest movie, Origin, a daring adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. With Origin, DuVernay is pioneering a method to finance the endeavor—through a combination of... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Intellectual Property; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Disruption; Motion Pictures and Video Industry

November 2006
Article

Utilizing List Exchange and Undirected Good Samaritan Donation through 'Chain' Paired Kidney Exchanges

By: Alvin E Roth, Tayfun Sonmez, M. Utku Unver, Francis L. Delmonico and Susan L. Saidman

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health Care and Treatment

January 10, 2022
Article

The Link Between Income, Income Inequality, and Prosocial Behavior Around the World: A Multiverse Approach

By: Lucia Macchia and Ashley V. Whillans

The questions of whether high-income individuals are more prosocial than low-income individuals and whether income inequality moderates this effect have received extensive attention. We shed new light on this topic by analyzing a large-scale dataset with a... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Behavior; Income Inequality; Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Income

19 Oct 2010
First Look

First Look: October 19, 2010

suggest that helping others leads to higher levels of happiness, the existing evidence only weakly supports this causal claim: research in psychology, economics, and neuroscience exploring the benefits of View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2008
Book

On Competition

By: M. E. Porter

Competition is one of society's most powerful forces for making things better in many ﬁelds of human endeavor. The study of competition and the creation of value, in their full richness, have preoccupied me for several decades. Competition is pervasive, whether it... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Practice; Competitive Strategy; Theory; Value Creation

2006
Book

Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism

By: Arthur C. Brooks

We all know we should give to charity, but who really does? Approximately three-quarters of Americans give their time and money to various charities, churches, and causes; the other quarter of the population does not. Why has America split into two nations: givers and... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Demographics; United States