Case Studies

Dr. Kalpana Sankar, CEO of Hand in Hand, was exhausted after an all-day meeting of the organization’s executive team at its headquarters in Kanchipuram, India. As she prepared for a drive to Chennai, she dreaded the traffic she would face. However, the…

In 1991, former engineering professor Dr. Irwin Jacobs and his team of top-notch scientists and engineers were preparing to take public Qualcomm, their budding wireless communications company. They had proven that their technological approach to wireless…

In 1999, the Germany-based Bertelsmann Foundation and the U.S.-based Charles Stewart Mott Foundation jointly established the Transatlantic Community Foundation Network (“TCFN”). TCFN was a learning organization comprised of community foundations and…

The Global Fund for Women (“Global Fund”) was a funding intermediary that made grants to seed, support and strengthen women’s rights groups outside the United States. Global Fund grantees worked to provide women with economic opportunities and…

In 1988, Paul Jones, a 32-year-old money manager, founded the philanthropic foundation Robin Hood with $3 million and a mission to fight poverty in New York. He invited two close friends, Peter Borish and Glenn Dubin, to serve as co-founders and recruited…

Susan Ford served as the president and cofounder of the Sand Hill Foundation, a family foundation that made grants to organizations that benefited people on the San Francisco Peninsula. Tom and Susan Ford established the foundation in 1995, reflecting…

In 2000, Jed Emerson founded the Center for Blended Value, a think tank based in Colorado that promoted the concept of “blended value” investments. Emerson applied the concept of blended value to criticize the traditionally impermeable wall between…

In 1999, Eli and Edythe Broad established the Broad Education Foundation on the area of Kindergarten through 12th (K-12) public education reform. By 2004, the Broads had committed nearly $500 million to the education foundation. While many educational…

In 1999, eBay’s first president and entrepreneur Jeff Skoll founded the Skoll Foundation. When eBay went public in 1998, Skoll gained sizeable wealth overnight and decided to actively engage in philanthropy. Through his foundation, Skoll sought to fund…

Immediately after the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks, the New York Community Trust (“the Trust”) and the United Way of New York City (“UWNYC”) collaborated to create the September 11th Fund (“the Fund”). The Fund’s mission was meeting the…

In 1913, Benjamin Altman made a capital stock investment (the stock was from his department store B. Altman & Co.) to create the Altman Foundation. Since that time, the foundation has both honored Mr. Altman’s vision of serving New York City’s…

In 1972, Robert Wood Johnson, who built Johnson & Johnson into the world’s largest health and medical care products company, founded the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Its mission was improving the health and health care of all Americans. The foundation…

James Mwangi, the CEO of Equity Bank, a microfinance services provider, oversaw a remarkable turnaround at his organization beginning in the early 1990s. Mwangi’s association with the bank began in 1992, when a founder (who was also a family friend) urged…

In 1948, Jim Casey, one of United Parcel Service’s founders, established the Annie E. Casey Foundation with his siblings. The foundation’s mission was “to build better futures for disadvantaged children and their families in the United States” and to…

Established in 1992, the San Francisco-based McKay Foundation supported organizations that addressed income inequality and poverty. The McKay Foundation focused on developing long-term, community-based solutions to social and economic problems. Robert…