Founded in 1997 by the Harbus News Corporation, the mission of the entirely student-run Harbus Foundation is to provide grants to support education, literacy and journalism projects in the Boston area, and in the process, instruct Harvard Business School students in the management and operation of a grant-making foundation. With the start of the new semester, we are seeking the committed involvement of interested RC and EC students.
The Foundation is particularly focused on community-based programs and projects that use innovative or non-traditional approaches to solve local problems. To that end, we often support initiatives that are under-funded by other philanthropic sources. Special consideration is given to organizations located in and serving the Allston-Brighton community, where Harvard Business School students live and learn.
Financial support for grant making comes from the Foundation’s endowment of over $700,000, from revenues from various on-campus publications (including The Harbus newspaper) and the HBS community.
Students can get involved in two ways. First, you can volunteer to help run the grant-making process, which involves soliciting, screening and evaluating grant proposals from several dozen organizations each year and funding between four to 10 programs with grants of up to $10,000 apiece. This gives students the opportunity to get a good sense of the diversity of non-profits working in the local community, and imparts a practical understanding of how grant-making works.
Second, this year the Harbus Foundation is also offering two teams of students the chance to get involved in its venture philanthropy initiative, which aims to test new methods of charitable giving. This will combine grant-making with a more hands-on approach, closer to a venture capital model where each team will carry out a field study advising the organization on its growth and sustainability. In addition to ECs seeking field study opportunities, the involvement of RCs on a not-for-credit basis is encouraged. Supported by a faculty advisor and the Harbus Foundation management team, this is a rare and exciting opportunity to get actively involved in the operations and strategic planning of an established non-profit, and to help to deploy a substantial grant from the Harbus Foundation.
We welcome your interest and would love you to join us! We’ll have an informational kick-off session on Thursday, October 9 in the Morris Lounge from 6 – 7 p.m.
Sincerely,
Eric Chan (OF)
Jill Strassburger (OI)
Dave Trulio (OC)
The Harbus Foundation
Harvard Business School
Gallatin Hall E
Boston, MA 02163
info@HarbusFoundation.org
www.harbusfoundation.org
