Not everyone who's got it likes to flaunt it. And not everyone who's got it likes to give it away. But Steve and Jean Case are an exception. Since 1997, Steve, one of the original co-founders of AOL, and his wife, Jean, a former top AOL executive for 10 years (and before that, a marketer for GE), have spent a lot of their time and money on the Case Foundation. The only thing they don't like to do is talk about it. After some persuasion, however, the couple sat down with me on a Monday in early October to discuss what it's like to shift from pro-profit to pro bono. "AOL, for us, was always a business," says Steve, "but it was also a mission. The people who were attracted to it early on, including Jean, really believed in the possibilities of this new interactive medium, this new frontier. And though it was for-profit, these [same] people were also attracted by the mission because they were trying to answer the questions, Is there a bigger idea out there, is there a better way? Sometimes that better way is through a for-profit prism, sometimes through a philanthropic prism and sometimes by some hybrid in the middle. I hate to sound corny, but what we're asking is, Can we make the world a better place?"

Nonetheless, says Jean, "It was a learning curve for us to go from business to effective non-profit. There aren't the disciplines in the non-profit sector that we had grown used to in business, things like measurement of outcome." Another surprise was discovering collaboration doesn't exist in the same way that it does in business. "We like to use the example that while Microsoft was our chief competitor, when we had to we could cooperate with them. We didn't see that in the non-profit sector."

Steve recalls that 10 or 15 years ago, "co-opetition" was a big word in business. It meant, he says, that even among vicious competitors "sometimes you compete and sometimes you cooperate. But in the non-profit world there's too much competition and not enough collaboration, which is bizarre. There's a lot of politics and little fiefdoms. One of the things that Jean is leading is the charge on hunger, especially in the D.C. area. There are a lot of initiatives here, which is terrific, but if they were knitted together they'd be a lot more effective." The Case Foundation is one of the initial sponsors of D.C. Hunger, a multi-member coalition that has a 10-year plan to end childhood hunger in the capital.

Structurally, the Case Foundation has a three-part purpose: fostering collaboration, supporting successful leaders and fostering entrepreneurism in the non-profit sector. The foundation has put its financial weight behind and seal of approval on different leaders, including Bill Shore, founder and executive director of Share Our Strength, one of the nation's leading anti-hunger and anti-poverty organizations, and John M. Fahey Jr., president and CEO of the National Geographic Society.

Instead of tackling complex social problems on its own, the Case Foundation partners with well-established groups such as Habitat for Humanity and the Special Olympics, either on a one-time basis or through continuing relationships similar to those it enjoys with Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2); City Year, a service and leadership program for 17- to 24-year-olds that trades full-time community service for help with college tuitions; and America's Promise. (ABC2, an entrepreneurial approach to funding brain cancer research, was launched in 2001 by Steve, his brother Dan and their wives when Dan was diagnosed with the disease that took his life one year later.)

Still speaking of collaboration, Jean says, "Internet safety for kids is one place where everyone came together as partners, especially on the issue of the 'digital divide,'" the gap between homes and schools with access to computers and the Internet, and those without. "One of our earliest initiatives was PowerUp, a collaborative partnership of companies in the non-profit sector. By 2000 we had set up nearly 1,000 after-school technology centers across the country."

Now that they have experience earning money and giving it away, which is harder?

"It's probably harder to do good," Steve says. Jean interjects, "We've spent most of the last two years trying to get some of the organizations that we support to develop a sustainable revenue stream, which many of them don't see as a possibility because they started out as non-profits." As a prime example of an organization that "gets it," Steve cites the National Geographic Society. "While always a non-profit organization, in recent years it has added for-profit divisions, such as its cable television channel and the magazine. But at the end of the year, whatever profits they've generated they dispense as grants."

Jean spends most of her time on the Case Foundation, which she serves as chief executive officer. Her husband, who still sits on the Time Warner board of directors, is deeply involved as chairman and CEO of Revolution, which he launched in April 2005. Revolution focuses on three areas: resorts, living and health. Revolution Health Group's strategy is to acquire controlling interests in innovative health care companies and to build them for long-term growth, with an emphasis on shifting control to the consumer. In each area, Steve says, consumers will call the shots, not some absentee owner. "We are not investors," he explains. "We are business builders."

According to BusinessWeek, Steve Case has committed up to $500 million (of his reported net worth of $900 million) to doing well by doing good through Revolution. But, when the Time Warner deal imploded, wasn't he tempted to go home and do nothing more strenuous than count his money?

"Could've... never would've," laughs Jean.

"We both could have," adds Steve, "but I'm still curious. I still feel I can make a contribution by picking areas that are ripe for change and could use some out-of-the-box thinking—health care being a good example—the kind of thing where you can essentially do well and do good. Opportunities that are still on the periphery but should be at the epicenter intrigue me.

"I don't view it as there being a right way and a wrong way—just a lot of different approaches. The pure philanthropic approach makes sense in a lot of instances, and the pure for-profit approach makes sense in a lot of instances. But what I'd really like to see develop over the next 20 years is something in the middle."

And then, perhaps, retirement? Jean and Steve Case look at each and smile. "Why," she asks, "would we want to do that?"