Q&A with Jean Case: Providing Opportunity for All
By Jeff Hoffman, Program Director, The Conference Board Global Social Investing Council
Jean Case is co-founder and CEO of the Case Foundation, an organization that creates programs and invests in people and organizations that harness the best impulses of entrepreneurship, innovation, technology and collaboration to drive exponential impact. The foundation is doing a lot to advance the field of impact investing. It supports the impact investing ecosystem and provides opportunities to educate and activate investors, including publishing A Short Guide to Impact Investing: A Primer on How Business Can Drive Social Change. I had the opportunity to sit down with Jean at the University of Southern California Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy’s Distinguished Speakers Series Luncheon last month.
Below is an excerpt of our lively 50 minute conversation, which also touched on millennials, the Giving Pledge, mentoring and more. It was a pleasure to interview Jean and learn from her wisdom. You can watch the entire conversation here.
Q: How did you get into the philanthropy world?
A: The root of it was that I was an early recipient of philanthropy—people’s time and money. I was raised by a single mom, who raised four kids alone and because of this we had some challenges, but we had a wonderful, beautiful, community come around us and lift us up and really create paths of opportunity for me. I was on a full scholarship to a private school, which led me to a mentor who was first a judge, then a mayor and then a congressman. I worked at his office for a while—this would have never happened if there weren’t a lot of generous people in my life.
Opportunity for all is a concept that is important to me as I started out on the other side. We have been fortunate to land on this side of life and there is nothing more that we want do than ensure that we can provide opportunities for others with the resources that we have.
Q: You had a very successful career at AOL that was at the forefront of the internet movement, but then you came back to philanthropy. Why did you pivot?
A: We were very much a mission-driven organization at AOL. Many of us felt at the time that AOL would have been a nonprofit because we were out to democratize access to information, ideas and communication, to really level the playing field of opportunity. Overseeing the AOL Foundation was my responsibility and that was my toe in the water to the official world of philanthropy.
My husband, Steve [Case, founder of AOL], and I knew that when I retired I would turn to philanthropy full time. So, in 1997 we started The Case Foundation. It took me three to five years to learn that the very same things that led to success in business would likely be the things that would lead to success in philanthropy as well.
Q; What is the Case Foundation’s “Be Fearless” campaign and what was the inspiration for it?
We created to Be Fearless campaign in June 2012 to coincide with our 15th anniversary and to ignite a more fearless approach to change-making. It was really a reflection point. We asked: What did we see when we looked back? What have we learned? What are we seeing in the world? What has been done for sometimes hundreds of years trying to tackle problems? What are some of the bright spots? We wanted to go to school on what’s worked and recognizing the bright spots.
As part of the campaign, we developed the five principles of Be Fearless:
- Make Big Bets and Make History Set audacious, not incremental, goals.
- Experiment Early and Often Don’t be afraid to go first.
- Make Failure Matter Failure teaches—learn from it.
- Reach Beyond Your Bubble It’s comfortable to go it alone, but innovation happens at intersections.
- Let Urgency Conquer Fear Don’t overthink and overanalyze—do.
Q: How does risk factor into your work?
A: Risk is important for us. When you receive donations from others to do your programs, you get into protectionist mode and want to ensure that the funds are used successfully. When it’s our own money it’s different—you can experiment early and often.
We have fail tests to get people to open up and be comfortable about taking risks and making mistakes. People share what has gone wrong, why and what they have learned. One of our lessons has been that the people being served must have a seat at the table to express their voice—good luck getting the work right without it.
Q: There are so many different definitions of impact investing. How do you, as one of the prominent impact investors, define it?
A: Mark Andreessen [co-founder of Netscape and Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz], a good friend of Steve and mine, originally thought of it as a houseboat—not a good house, not a good boat! I interpret it as investing in a new class of entrepreneurs that want to build a new class of businesses that will create financial as well as a social returns. At case, some of those investments are in nonprofits and come from the foundation and some are in for-profits and come from Revolution, the company Steve runs.
An example of the for-profit side is Revolution Foods, which provides over one million kid-friendly, chef-inspired, healthy meals to schools. Revolution won that investment, not because it was an impact investment, but because it’s a great company, serving quality product with great results. When we set our budget each year, we focus on what we want to accomplish and we challenge our staff to do the same—the legal entity or tax status is not part of the equation. It is the end result, the social benefit, which is the primary determining factor.
Philanthropy alone is under leveraged. You need to look at everything you bring to the table. What is the big idea and how do we use all of our assets to achieve our goals? I think there are three points that are critical for a good investment: clear intention; a commitment to measure; and transparency.
Q: The Case Foundation is one of the few foundations that is focused on building the philanthropy sector in terms of volunteering and civic engagement. How have you done that?
A: We asked nonprofits what help they needed to change their trajectory with scale and sustainability. They said there were areas in which they are lacking talent, making it difficult to compete with the private sector. The areas include human resources, marketing, finance and technology. In response, we asked corporations to give $1 billion in pro-bono service in the areas that nonprofits need and today there have been more than $5 billion worth of commitments by over 1,000 companies.
I’m so excited about where philanthropy is heading, but I am really excited about something that we can’t even name. The world is disrupted. No matter what role you are in or what sector you come from, nothing is the same as it was, and we know that change is only going to continue to accelerate. What I love about hanging out with young kids in the philanthropy or public sector is that they’re unleashed from traditional siloes. They see a world that is not about whether you’re in government, nonprofits, philanthropy or academia—they just want to go change the world.
If we look around the corner, what I think we might see are whole new classes of governance, maybe not necessarily nonprofit, not necessarily for-profit, maybe hybrids, which is what some of the new social enterprises are. I just think we need to unleash ourselves from how it has been and think about what it needs to be going forward. I am super encouraged. I can’t wait for the future!
About the author:
Jeff Hoffman
Program Director
The Conference Board Global Social Investing Council
Jeff Hoffman is an accomplished corporate executive who has served on the global stage in the areas of corporate social responsibility, philanthropy, human resources, operations, special projects and events. Through board and commission leadership roles, he has a distinguished history working with non-profit, civic and government agencies on strategic direction and innovative programs. Jeff is president of Jeff Hoffman & Associates, a global corporate citizenship, philanthropy and civic engagement firm that enables businesses, organizations and individuals re-imagine a world full of hope, promise and opportunity. He also serves as Program Director for The Conference Board Global Social Investing Council.
