Before business school students set out to master capitalism, Stanford University lecturer Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen teaches them how to master philanthropy.

Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen, the wife of tech entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen and daughter of Silicon Valley property developer John Arrillaga, teaches four philanthropy courses at Stanford, including one at its business school. She also leads the recently founded Marc and Laura Andreessen Foundation and serves as a director of the Arrillaga Foundation, which focuses on Silicon Valley community projects.

To spread her message beyond Palo Alto, Calif., on Thursday Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen will release online all of her teaching notes and syllabi, along with a library of 26 case studies on philanthropy-a move that she hopes will enable more schools to bring philanthropy education into their course catalogs.

Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen, 42 years old, spoke with The Wall Street Journal about what makes a philanthropist-and what most donors get wrong. Edited excerpts:

WSJ: How do you define a philanthropist?

Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen: A philanthropist is anyone who gives time, money, experience, skills, networks [or] passion. The only thing that you need is generosity.

For example, [recently] after class I counseled a young computer science student who wanted to talk about how he could play a role in changing how engineering is taught globally. So we started developing a strategy for how he could start blogging, email professors, networking with other Stanford engineering alumni, and create some momentum through his own actions that have nothing to do with money, but rather have to do with his time, his intellect and his social capital.

Technology is disrupting the way we communicate, connect, create and consume, and philanthropy is no exception. Take [nonprofit lending platform] Kiva, which was actually co-founded by one of my former business school students, Jessica Jackley. We're talking about the rise of the $10 philanthropist, the $25 philanthropist.

Philanthropy is now accessible to anyone of any age, of any financial resources, in any geographic location.

WSJ: Why do people need more instruction in philanthropy?

Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen:Almost $300 billion was given by individuals, foundations and corporations [last year]. Individuals made up 82% of those gifts. Unfortunately, 65% of individual philanthropists give based purely on emotion, without any research behind their gifts.

I see this as massively untapped potential. Imagine the possibilities if tens of millions of givers were touching and transforming individual lives in a more meaningful way.

Extract a bit of the emotion and replace it with a bit of learning. If you don't understand how your generosity is translating into social good, your philanthropy will not be meaningful to you.

WSJ: You currently teach an elite group of Stanford students. Why start Giving 2.0 Project U, in which you'll post all your course materials online, for free?

Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen: There are somewhere between 125 and 150 university courses about philanthropy. I have the privilege of teaching about 450 students, but that's less than a fraction of 1% of the total college population who could benefit from philanthropy education. I want philanthropy to one day be a required course for every college student. Any educator can take any piece [of my materials] and develop whatever they think students are most hungry for.

WSJ: What do people get wrong about giving?

Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen: Individuals give sympathetically instead of strategically. They have no idea what success will look like for their gift, no idea how their generosity will translate into the world being a better place in a specific way, in a specific location, for a specific population.

Foundations typically exist in silos. They do not share knowledge. And they do not typically have formal mechanisms to understand what it is they want to accomplish, what it takes to get there and how they are going to course-correct along the way.

Corporations have extraordinaryintellectual capital, extraordinary R&D, and for the most part they keep that internal as opposed to integrating it into social good that, in turn, will make the company more successful in terms of brand equity and product sales.

WSJ: Are any companies doing that?