Giving

Report on Giving

2023

A Message from Dean Srikant Datar

As this Report on Giving highlights, the collective generosity of alumni and friends like you enables Harvard Business School to remain at the forefront of management education and practice by accelerating our impact and extending our reach.

At the heart of everything we do is our belief in the vital role business plays in the world—by creating jobs, by delivering valued products and services, by driving innovation, and, increasingly, by helping to solve some of society’s most complex challenges.

At HBS, we are advancing business as a force for good through our teaching and the leaders we educate as well as our research and the ideas our faculty members generate and disseminate. By continuing to strengthen our academic programs, developing new research and engagement platforms, and actively pursuing strategic priorities, including leveraging our unique assets to help organizations navigate digital transformation, we are equipping leaders with the knowledge and skills they will need today and in the future.

We are deeply grateful for your commitment to HBS.

Thank You.

This report recognizes and celebrates alumni and friends who made gifts in fiscal year 2023 (July 1, 2022–June 30, 2023). Every gift makes a difference.

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Fiscal Year Highlights

9,837

Total donors

136M

Total gifts & pledges

Average portion of HBS's total revenue provided by philanthropy (FY13–FY22)

589

First-time donors

7,251

Consistent donors
(gave at least 4 of the last 5 years)

5,825

Gifts under $1K totaling $1.2M

HBS Fund Gifts in Action

Annual gifts to the HBS Fund provide flexible funding that can be used immediately to advance key priorities, pilot novel programs and activities, and launch new initiatives. The following are examples of recent efforts made possible by the HBS Fund.

Retraining Workers for the Digital Age

The Digital Reskilling Lab, led by faculty members Raffaella Sadun and Jorge Tamayo, aims to help organizations retrain their employees and prepare them for the increasingly digital future of work. Sadun, Tamayo, and other researchers affiliated with the lab are studying major retraining initiatives within firms to understand their effectiveness in terms of productivity and profits. They are also partnering with organizations to ensure that reskilling efforts reach the workers who will benefit from them. The lab is one of a dozen in the Digital, Data, and Design Institute at Harvard, which is leveraging a lab-based model to accelerate research on how rapid technological change is affecting business practice.

Reputable Investors Help Startups Shine

Attracting high-caliber talent is a challenge for any young firm, and new research from Professor Shai Bernstein has led to meaningful insights for founders, startup managers, and venture capital investors as they undertake hiring efforts. Bernstein, a member of HBS’s Entrepreneurial Management Unit, finds that simply publicizing a well-known VC firm as a funding source boosts a nascent company’s ability to draw more job applicants. “Who you take money from has broader implications beyond just the capitalization of the company,” explains Bernstein. “It also holds reputation consequences. We show that it affects your ability to attract talent.” He speculates that a reputable VC’s endorsement may also help interest more customers and suppliers in the startup.

Immersive Learning Around the World

As part of the required FIELD Global Immersion course, all first-year MBA students spent a week in May in one of 15 cities on five continents. Working in small teams with a global partner company and leveraging interviews with company representatives and potential customers, they developed a proposal for a new product or service, drawing on skills, tools, and frameworks they had studied over the past year. Additionally, in January, 300 second-year students participated in elective Immersive Field Courses in eight global locations on topics ranging from decarbonization in Northern Europe to the past, present, and future of capitalism in Italy. Complementing the case method, these hands-on learning experiences are designed to build students' global intelligence.

Read about an immersion in Argentina

Triple-Degree Student Aims to Improve Health Care in the US

Growing up in a low-income community in Southern California, David Velasquez (MBA/MPP 2023, MD 2024) dreamed of becoming a doctor and creating a more “accessible, effective, and equitable” health care system in the United States. After arriving at Harvard Medical School, he realized that he could further that dream by gaining expertise in business and public health, but affording one degree was already a challenge. Generous financial aid from HBS ultimately convinced him he could do it. Velasquez is one of the talented students benefiting from HBS’s expanded commitment to affordability, which now includes offering full-tuition scholarships to students with the greatest financial need.

MBA Students Explore Business’s Role in Addressing Societal Issues

The Social Purpose of the Firm, a new module in the Required Curriculum, asks students to consider business’s role and responsibility in modern society. It features five new cases on companies including Microsoft and Swedish electric battery maker Northvolt. “This material is hard, it's interdisciplinary, and it forces both faculty and students to grapple with questions that don't really have clear answers,” says Professor Debora Spar. The module was developed by HBS’s new Institute for Business in Global Society, which explores how capitalism is functioning today and how the power of business can be harnessed to make it work better.

3 Technologies That Will Change the World

A course developed by Professor Shikhar Ghosh, 3 Technologies That Will Change the World, examines advancements that are on track to fundamentally alter business practice over the next decade—such as AI, blockchain, and synthetic biology. It focuses on the skills needed to be an entrepreneurial leader and aims to prepare students for the commercial and ethical choices they will face as these technologies become widely adopted. Through hands-on exercises, students experience the power of these new approaches, and through case discussions, they contemplate the effect on customers, managers, leaders, investors, and citizens. Professor Ghosh also engaged alumni in this topic through a lifelong learning session last spring.

Read the course description

Learning from a Fintech Platform Advancing Economic Inclusion

A new case, "Esusu: Solving Homelessness Backwards," is one of many bringing the topic of financial inclusion into the MBA classroom. Written by HBS faculty members Marco Di Maggio and Emily Williams, this case highlights how the US financial system is inaccessible to a large segment of the population and looks at one startup's innovative solution. Esusu, a fintech platform, has developed a rent reporting tool that enables tenants to improve their credit scores while also encouraging on-time rent payments. The Esusu case is one example of faculty research exploring opportunities for business to play an active role in creating a more equitable and inclusive society.

Listen to Emily Williams discuss the case on the Cold Call podcast

HBS Fund Highlights

44M

Total HBS Fund gifts & pledges

Average portion of the School’s annual research budget that depends on HBS Fund gifts and other unrestricted revenue (FY13–FY22)

5.3M

Average amount of fellowships covered by the HBS Fund and other unrestricted revenue (FY13–FY22)

HBS Fund Investors Society

The HBS Fund Investors Society recognizes alumni and friends who make annual leadership gifts to the HBS Fund. Member support represents nearly 90 percent of HBS Fund revenues each year.

HBS Fund Volunteers & Leadership Donors

HBS is grateful for the generosity and dedication of HBS Fund volunteers and leadership donors, and we are pleased to recognize these individuals in the donor lists. Through their time and expertise, HBS Fund Council members, HBS Fund Investors Society class agents, and MBA class volunteers help raise the resources that enable HBS to deliver on its mission. Through their annual leadership gifts, HBS Fund Investors Society members fuel innovation and strengthen the School’s core activities.

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