Deborah - my most recent blog post is my 2 cents on this topic.

Oh, you've hit a nerve! I'm procrastinating, too, so my nerves are a tad raw. Noooo. Or yes. But for the sake of the flying spaghetti monster ... what do businesses know that non-profits don't?

When I first started going to the Round Up (ah, the Round Up), this was all the talk -- this non profits should be more like businesses as though either term described a homogeneous enough group that statements like that were anything but gibberish.

I'm planning to read The Revolution Will Not Be Funded real soon now, which tells another story about relationships between foundations and non profits and all the strange compromises and redefined work that goes along with program based grants and defining metrics, but until then, I think the answer is really just a dull "huh?"

Just how are businesses run?

Seriously. Should non profits be run like Enron? Maybe not so much. A friend of mine, who is more of a casual acquantance but who I'm always alluding to on the internets (and she always finds it) started (and eventually sold) a business importing clothing and furniture from India. She was working with workers collectives and looking for ways to address deep inequities in the amount of money that acutally makes it to laborers when an embroidered shawl sells for $600 in a Manahattan Boutique.

The business was mission driven, in that sense, but in some senses, she'd always wanted to own a shop that would allow her to travel regularly to India. It was a business, first and foremost. A business, formed by a woman who had an idea, values, vision for the world she wanted to see and she built what she hoped would be a sustainable business around those pieces. The selling it part is a red herring, mostly her life changed in great ways and she left New York. No biggie.

What I think is that more businesses should be run by non-profits. More businesses should prioritize contributing to building the world that you want to see. A good business is sustainable while paying a living wage and asking questions about where raw materials come from and whether anyone is exploited along the way, by asking questions about where waste ends up and who it impacts and running your business in a way that is consistent with your values. Not giving into self-serving excuses like "well I know this is important but I'm trying to run a business here and I just can't afford to ..."

Non profits do the same thing all the time and it is no more or less unconscionable.

I'm rambling a little, so I'll hush.