Non-Profit Organizations: “No Profits” Is No Excuse

Abstract

So far, non-profit organizations have been able to just kick back and enjoy a good read, assuming that all of these considerations about profitable growth had nothing to do with them. But they’d be way off base to do so: Non-profits have no excuse not to grow; in fact, the meaning of “profitable growth” as it is understood in this book can be seen especially clearly in the case of non-profit organizations (NPOs). Profitable growth is more than just purely profit-driven thinking in the sense of maximizing the last entry on your profit-and-loss statement. It is multi-dimensional in nature and needs to be recognized as such. Though NPOs also have to do business in a professional manner just like anyone else, qualitative aspects are especially important.

This chapter is especially relevant for those senior leaders that are in the non profit business, therefore we focus on National and multinational NGOs, National NPOs, Professional and trade associations, Hospitals and clinics, and Public administrative bodies. But, of course, readers that are running profit making companies can also learn a lot from NPO’s best practices since NPOs are consistently under pressure to save money and streamline processes.