Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • September 2016
  • Case
  • HBS Case Collection

Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (A)

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:16
ShareBar

Abstract

Explores strategies to achieve system-level impact for a nonprofit focused on addressing patients' basic social needs through healthcare institutions. Founded in 1996 with a volunteer-staffed help desk at Boston Medical Center connecting low-income patients with basic resources like heating assistance, job training, and childcare programs, the nonprofit had grown to 6 cities and 1,000 volunteers serving over 11,000 patients annually by 2013. At the end of a successful “proof plan” period, Health Leads Co-Founder and CEO Rebecca Onie and her team faced the question of how to make meeting patients’ social needs a standard part of health care in the United States: replicate Health Leads’ proven model or instigate a social care movement?

Keywords

Scaling Social Impact; Nonprofit; Healthcare; Health Care Outcomes; Health Care Reform; Health Care Delivery; Scaling Social Enterprise; Social Enterprise; Health; Nonprofit Organizations; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; United States

Citation

Rangan, V. Kasturi, and Sarah Appleby. "Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (A)." Harvard Business School Case 517-022, September 2016.
  • Educators
  • Purchase

About The Author

V. Kasturi Rangan

Marketing
→More Publications

Related Work

    • September 2016
    • Faculty Research

    Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (B)

    By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
    • February 2020
    • Faculty Research

    Health Leads: Reaching for Impact

    By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Sarah Appleby and Julia Kelley
    • October 2019
    • Faculty Research

    Transformative Social Impact: Health Leads

    By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
    • September 2016
    • Faculty Research

    Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (A)

    By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
    • September 2016
    • Faculty Research

    Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (Abridged)

    By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
    • April 2025
    • Faculty Research

    Transformative Social Impact: Health Leads (B)

    By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
Related Work
  • Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (B) By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
  • Health Leads: Reaching for Impact By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Sarah Appleby and Julia Kelley
  • Transformative Social Impact: Health Leads By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
  • Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (A) By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
  • Health Leads: Reaching for Impact (Abridged) By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
  • Transformative Social Impact: Health Leads (B) By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Sarah Appleby
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.