Cases

Milestone or Misstep? Corruption, Development, and Democracy After Brazil’s Lava Jato Probe

Publication Date: October 3, 2024

This case explores Brazil’s Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato in Portuguese), the largest public corruption investigation in history, which led to indictments and convictions of some 359 business executives, government officials, and...

Getting Out the (Missing) Vote: Ohio Organizers Experiment with 'Relational' Contacts

Publication Date: April 8, 2024

In the first two decades of the 21st century, community organizers were increasingly enlisted by progressive foundations to help increase voter turnout among the “low propensity” voters in their communities, especially people of...

Paying to Improve Girls’ Education: India’s First Development Impact Bond

Publication Date: April 8, 2019

In 2013, Educate Girls (an Indian nonprofit working to increase the number of girls enrolled and learning in school), partnered with Instiglio, a startup specializing in financial instruments for social programs in developing countries to create...

Building a Community Organizing Organization: Serbia on the Move

Publication Date: August 23, 2017

In Serbia, citizens are reluctant to become politically active but young leaders Babović and Stojicic, the case protagonists, are determined to prod their peers into taking a stronger role in the country’s government. Using community...

Cracking the Monolith: California’s Child Welfare Services Disrupts Technology Procurement (A)

Publication Date: July 10, 2017

In October 2015, two senior California officials: Marybel Batjer, Secretary for Government Operations, and Michael Wilkening, Undersecretary for the Health and Human Services Agency, seized on an idea that had the potential to turn the...

6 Minutes: Community Organizing in Amman, Jordan

Publication Date: July 28, 2016

This case describes how community leaders in Amman, Jordan used a community organizing framework to launch and manage a major campaign, 6 Minutes, to encourage residents to commit time to reading for pleasure. Using Marshall Ganz’s...

"Reinventing" the Command: General Janet Wolfenbarger's Values-Based Leadership Drives Change at the United States Air Force

Publication Date: May 12, 2016

Due to proposed long-term cuts in the United States Department of Defense (DOD) budget, the DOD prioritized improving efficiencies, reducing overhead, and eliminating redundancies within its many commands. Accordingly, the Commander of Air Force...