Non-profits aren’t second-class businesses

Treating them that way limits their ability to deliver value to their team and the people they serve.

I took this photo of two identical but different-sized bottles for this post. I had a good time with the shoot. More photos to appear on Notes.

Much of what we believe about non-profits doesn’t serve the organizations, the teams that run them, or the people they serve. And despite a lot of people pointing that out, these beliefs persist.

Underpinning these beliefs is the assumption that non-profit businesses aren’t real businesses. They’re a subset of softer, less professional, less sophisticated entities staffed by people who need real business people to help them find their way out of a paper bag. 

In the value economy, both for-profit and non-profit businesses exist to deliver value to the people they serve. They both need to deliver value to their team members and secure the resources required to do what they do. They both need to assess if their actions deliver value effectively and make choices to adjust accordingly.

Non-profit businesses will never be treated as real businesses unt…