Sense and sensibility in the contemporary generous society: economics and social media communication of the biggest grant-making foundations

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on grant-making foundations, deepening the concepts of sense and sensibility as pillars of social media communication and as drivers of significant economics results. There is a limited amount of academic work focused on the use of social media by non-profit organizations including foundations. Firstly, this paper gives an insight on how the biggest worldwide foundations are using social media to engage key stakeholders and enhance philanthropic culture. In fact, social media and the increased emphasis on stakeholder engagement have changed the non-profit scene, and nowadays foundations have to manage stakeholder perception that are triggered by brand identity and shaped by performance. A cluster analysis of the performance of the 100 biggest grant- making foundations in the world, emphasizes revenue diversification, contribution and grant-making ratios as key results of multiple stakeholder engagement, and profiles foundations with different sense and sensibility.