Boston’s Experiment: Harvard Business Review’s Lessons

In Harvard Business Review’s Lessons from Boston’s Experiment with The One Fund, Mitchell discusses lessons that anyone can learn from his experience with fund distribution to the victims of the Boston bombing. What stands out about Mitchell’s opinion piece is his entrepreneurial approach to charity. Many of the lessons described in the article would also help grow an ordinary business. The author demonstrates that a not-for-profit organization that seeks to meet higher ends can employ the same techniques of brand awareness, customer attraction, and business development as for-profit ventures. Probably, the most important lesson for me was “Move fast”: when it comes to charity, there is a need to seize the moment when people still care about what happened. Sadly enough, today’s world is so overwhelmed with information that consumers swiftly move from one tragedy to the next. Victims and victims’ families, on the other hand, cannot afford a fast recovery: they need actual help, which was delivered promptly and properly in the case with The One Fund.