Impact Investing

Impact as Value Driver

By Kelly McCarthy & Jon Samuels

We see impact as fundamental to our private-equity investments. We’ve created a model to help integrate impact analysis into underwriting.

Philanthropy & Funding

What Else Can We Do? The Thirteen Intentions of Philanthropy

By Ariel Simon 3

A year of turbulence has exposed the dangers of philanthropic monocultures and upended assumptions about impact, effectiveness, and scale. Embracing the varied intentions that motivate people to give offers a more resilient, pluralistic path forward.

Foundations

Foundations Should Invest More in Staffing

By Kyle A. Smith & Bob Fischer

Critics of grantmaking practices and advocates of reform should support hiring more staff to improve accountability, return on investment, and equality of opportunity.

Measurement & Evaluation

Korea’s Experiment With Pay-for-Success

By Hyun Shin, Gayoung Imm, Myung Eun Jeong, Hyun-Joong Kim & Haeun Kim

The Social Progress Credits program was the world’s first privately led pay-for-success experiment. Its implementation has boosted the South Korean impact ecosystem and provides valuable lessons about the measurement and incentivization of social value.

Organizational Development

Improving Health Care in the DRC

By Chana R. Schoenberger

Performance-based incentives, auditing, and feedback boost performance at health centers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Nonprofits & NGOs

Moving Beyond Overhead

By Brian Mittendorf 2

Charities can find better ways to communicate their spending priorities than a myopic focus on administrative costs displayed in simplistic pie charts.

Foundations

Rating Foundations Without Their Permission

By Caroline Fiennes

We created the Foundation Practice Rating to encourage UK foundations to improve their practices.

Measurement & Evaluation

Finding Meaning in Measurement

By Daniela Blei

Performance measurement can help employees see value and meaning in their work.

Economic Development

The Problem of Social Benefit

By Frank Nagle 1

Economists have obsessed over the question of negative externalities, but market arrangements can also generate positive externalities. We should consider how to harness them for public good. | Open access to this article made possible by Harvard Business School Division of Research and Faculty Development

Collaboration

Two Experiments With Outcomes Frameworks

By Max French 1

The new public management model of governance has failed. But an emerging collaborative and democratic approach shows promise.