Stanford Graduate School of Business (USA)
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Silicon Valley Bank: The On-Call Associated Program
Soule, S; Drabkin, DCase SGSB-OB88-EInnovation and ChangeMelissa Stepanis, deal team leader for Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) New York tech lending group, had been on maternity leave. When she met with her manager to discuss her anticipated return to work, she was not ready to come back. Not wanting to make commitments that she might not be able to keep, she quit. For Chris Edmonds-Waters, SVB’s head of human resources, Stepanis’s somewhat unexpected departure was concerning. She was the latest exampl...Starting at €8.20
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Tipping Point Community
Meehan, W; McNichols, M; Foroughi, JCase SGSB-SI116-EInnovation and ChangeIn early 2016, Thomas Laffont, then-chairman of the board at Tipping Point Community, a nonprofit organization fighting poverty in the San Francisco Bay Area, gathered with over two dozen fellow board members for a retreat to discuss, among other things, the future of the fast-growing organization. In the 11 years since its founding, Tipping Point had raised nearly $120 million and impacted the lives of more than 600,000 people in need. In 2016...Starting at €8.20
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GuideStar
Meehan, W; Drabkin, DCase SGSB-SI121-EInnovation and ChangeWhen Jacob Harold became head of the Hewlett Foundation’s Philanthropy Program, he began to see GuideStar as much more than just a website. GuideStar was the result of founder Arthur “Buzz” Schmidt’s vision of bringing transparency and accountability to the world of nonprofits. At its core, the organization compiled information that U.S. nonprofits submitted on their IRS filings into an easy to use database. It supplemented that information wi...Starting at €8.20
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Reach Capital: Porformance in Education Technology
McNichols, M; Foroughi, JCase SGSB-SI136-EBusiness Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Innovation and ChangeIn January 2015, Jennifer Carolan, who had served as the managing director of the NewSchools Venture Fund Seed Fund (“Seed Fund”), spun off from the nonprofit venture philanthropy firm to create a for-profit social impact fund focused on education technology (edtech). Through a unique joint venture with NewSchools Venture Fund (“NewSchools”) called NewSchools Capital, the new venture fund, Reach Capital, would allow Carolan to not only raise mor...Starting at €8.20
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Impact America Fund: Challenges of New Fund Formation
Krauel, Patel, H; Ewald, C; Foroughi, JCase SGSB-SI139-EBusiness Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Innovation and ChangeIn July 2013, Kesha Cash transitioned out of her stable role as co-founder of and fund manager for Jalia Ventures (“Jalia”), an initiative investing in early-stage mission driven “businesses operated by entrepreneurs of color,” to launch her own impact venture fund focused on underserved communities. Because Jalia had been funded and supported by Serious Change, L.P., a global impact investment fund, Cash was new to the process of fund formation...Starting at €8.20
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Beneficial State Bank (A): Organization and Measurement of Social Impact
Maureen McNichols, Jaclyn ForoughiCase SGSB-SI134A-EBusiness Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Innovation and ChangeIn November 2004, as presidential hopeful John Kerry conceded the presidential race to George W. Bush, husband and wife team and Democratic supporters Tom Steyer (MBA ’83) and Kat Taylor (JD/MBA ’86) found themselves at an impasse in their political endeavors. The lost presidential bid was not only disappointing but left the couple seeking out new avenues to benefit from their time, passion, and energy. For Taylor, the idea of a beneficial ban...Starting at €8.20
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Good Ventures: The Power of Informed Decisions
Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, Sarah MurrayCase SGSB-SI124-EBusiness Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Innovation and ChangeIn 2010, Cari Tuna quit her job at the Wall Street Journal to work full-time on developing a giving strategy for herself and her husband—Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. In May 2011, the couple created the philanthropic foundation Good Ventures. Tuna made transparency and knowledge sharing core components of the foundation; creating a blog to report on the foundation’s activities and learnings. Good Ventures co-funded projects so that the...Starting at €8.20
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Palantir Philanthropy Engineering: Software to Improve Lives
Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, Sarah MurrayCase SGSB-SI125-EBusiness Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Innovation and ChangeBy 2014, Palantir Technologies, a fast growing Silicon Valley company with global impact at the heart of its mission, had spent several years donating the same software to nonprofits that it sold to commercial customers to help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. It had consolidated these philanthropic activities in 2011, when Jason Payne, a long-time software engineer at the company, made an internal transition to found the compan...Starting at €8.20
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The F.B. Heron Foundation: 100 Percent for Mission - And Beyond
Ewald, Charles; Krauel Patel, Heidi; Foroughi, JaclynCase SGSB-SI140-EInnovation and ChangeIn late March 2017, Clara Miller, director and president of the F.B. Heron Foundation (“Heron”), a philanthropic institution focused on helping people help themselves out of poverty, sat down to put the finishing touches on her President’s Letter. In previous years, the letter included Miller’s lucid thoughts regarding major changes within the organization and advocated for movement toward a “philanthropic world”—a world in which “all sectors—pu...Starting at €8.20
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Forestry and Timberland: Impact Investment Analysis
Foroughi, Jaclyn; McNichols, MaureenCase SGSB-SI156-EInnovation and ChangeMuch like the famous philosophical thought experiment, impact investing raises questions about perception, observation, and reality. What is our sense that an investment results in social, environmental, and financial return? What changes can we observe taking place? What is the state of the situation as it exists (perhaps by measurement)? This case study applies this framework to our analysis of the social, environmental, and financial impact of...Starting at €8.20