Donations - Publications - Faculty & Research

21 Feb 2023
Research & Ideas

Are Your Employees Passing Up Incentives? Try Promoting the Programs More

Might Also Like: Latest Isn’t Always Greatest: Why Product Updates Capture Consumers Giving Back: Consumers Care More About How Companies Donate Than How Much A Penny for Your Thoughts? For Big-Picture Ideas, the Right Pay Structure... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

04 Apr 2022
What Do You Think?

As Disney Board Chair, What Would You Advise CEO Bob Chapek Regarding 'Don’t Say Gay'?

announced that it would not accept the donation until Disney went further to back up its commitments. Pundits, including at least one investment analyst, dubbed the effort, “a day too late.” And DeSantis began repeatedly characterizing... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

22 Apr 2002
Research & Ideas

Does Spirituality Drive Success?

in the Boston-Cambridge area, but was financing over 50 percent of AIDS housing, Glassman said. In addition to outreach and socially responsible investing, the bank offers online donation functionality to any nonprofit that is a bank... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace, Sean Silverthorne & Wendy Guild

30 Jul 2007
Research & Ideas

Repugnant Markets and How They Get That Way

invented ideas about how to organize it so it would work well. There is a New England Program for Kidney Exchange that we helped found, there's an Alliance for Paired Donation headquartered in Ohio that we work with, and there are other... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

08 Sep 2008
HBS Case

The Value of Environmental Activists

There are many methods, most financial, to measure the success of companies in meeting goals. But the question becomes a lot harder at Harvard Business School when MBAs are challenged to measure the efforts of environmental organizations like Greenpeace and the World... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Energy; Utilities

09 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Why Entrepreneurs Should Go Work for Government

startups. And when the 2013 Boston Marathon was attacked, Weiss helped establish the One Fund within 24 hours to serve as a central pool for donations to victims. "The One Fund ended up channeling $60 million to survivors and to the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

15 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

Remembering Alfred Chandler

longer visited HBS with regularity as he was retired from a long life as a prolific academic and professor. I had the privilege of being present at a ceremony honoring Al Chandler after he donated his personal papers to Baker Library. It... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

04 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

When Founders Recruit Friends and Family as Investors

ask them to close their eyes and donate money to you." Speaking from the other side, one investor said about investing in a startup founded by a friend or relative, "I sometimes do it, but I regard it as a gift, not an... View Details

Keywords: by Noam Wasserman

19 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

How Charitable Organizations Can Thwart Excuses for Not Giving

describes in a new working paper, The Better Is the Enemy of the Good. In fact, Exley argues that based on her research, people look for any excuse to avoid giving a donation and then rationalize their skinflint behavior to avoid feeling... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

23 Jan 2008
First Look

First Look: January 23, 2008

Authors:Michel Anteby and Mikell Hyman Periodical:Social Science & Medicine (forthcoming) Abstract Human cadavers are crucial to medical science. While the debate on how to secure sufficient cadavers has focused primarily on donors' behaviors, procuring... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

13 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

Small Businesses Are Worse Off Than We Thought

Luca, whose past research has focused on platform design. For example, Luca and his colleagues reached out to online rating app Yelp several weeks ago to explore ways the company might help small businesses dealing with the crisis. Among other initiatives, he pointed... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Financial Services

17 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

How ‘Hybrid’ Nonprofits Can Stay on Mission

curing societal ills. In reality, though, the line between the two is growing blurrier. "In the not-for-profit sector, a number of organizations are trying to be less dependent on donations and grants," says Julie Battilana, an associate... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

28 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

The Importance of ‘Don’t’ in Inducing Ethical Employee Behavior

different set of students, but then they added a wrinkle: After rewarding themselves from the envelopes on their desks, the students had the opportunity to donate some of their winnings to National Public Radio. Tracking Moral And Immoral... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

14 Dec 1999
Research & Ideas

From Spare Change to Real Change: The Social Sector as a Beta Site for Business Innovation

to government and nonprofit agencies. Businesses have little involvement in how these donations are used. In fact, this model actively discourages companies from taking an interest in results. Companies receive their benefits up-front... View Details

Keywords: by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

18 Mar 2014
First Look

First Look: March 18

Publications August 2013 Social Science & Medicine Who Donates Their Bodies to Science? The Combined Role of Gender and Migration Status Among California Whole-body Donors By: Asad, Asad L., Michel Anteby, and Filiz Garip... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

08 May 2020
In Practice

Nonprofits Hurt by COVID-19 Must Hoard Cash to Hold On

L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration. F. Warren McFarlan: Donations matter more than ever This is the time when tangible support really matters as the funding sources are drying up for so many social enterprises. Your... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

17 Oct 2016
HBS Case

Business Solutions That Help Cut Food Waste

the food that supermarkets and manufacturers and farmers can’t sell, recover it, and give it to people who could use a donation or reduced price meal. We are also trying to reverse decades of misguided thinking about what constitutes... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage

11 Aug 2014
HBS Case

The Business of Behavioral Economics

donations would be matched by the charity, but only if a certain percentage of contributors that day—either 25, 50, 75, or 100 percent—"upgraded" to a recurring monthly donation. They found that the contributors in the "75 percent"... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage; Health

17 Nov 2003
Research & Ideas

The Business of Babies

yet donors are paid according to the desirability of their physical and mental qualities—at least $2,500, but sometimes much more. Spar showed an ad that appeared in Ivy League campus newspapers that offered $50,000 to women who were at least 5' 10" with 1400 SAT... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Health

09 Apr 2020
Research & Ideas

How Social Entrepreneurs Can Increase Their Investment Impact

can be profitable while doing good, suggests new research from Benjamin N. Roth, a Harvard Business School assistant professor in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit. “This idea that you're increasing your impact by leveraging capital, that making investments rather... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

Publications