Non Profit Business

Business and charity do not mix.  It is either a business, or a charity.  If you wish to help people, do well in business, and then share the profits.  Plenty in business do just that.

My visceral reaction is negative: if it is non-profit to help a targeted group, then the orientation is off, and all market signals are missing.  How can you possibly ever improve the product and grow without customer-focus?  Your supplier will be distressed to learn you are not directly customer-focussed.  It is extremely unlikely he will be interested in supporting a charity with his business operations, (although he may be a prodigious contributor to charity from his profits).

Now I believe profits are just another business expense, something left over after all other expenses, and not particularly important to the entrepreneur (lifestyle is what motivates the entrepreneur.)  So to designate an enterprise "non-profit" is uninformative, except for negative connotations.

Here is another counterintuitive point:  rarely do we see a nonprofit wherein the leaders do not draw an exceptional wage for their services (Salvation Army excepted).  Sure, all excess funds are plowed back into the org, but if excess is too consistent, goodness, that ends up as wages to the leader and staff of the nonprofit.  We are told that these exceptional wages are required to attract the exceptional people who lead such organizations.  I doubt it.

Are you thinking "if we do poorly, we can seek another grant..."?

Is it just another way to avoid serving customers, he scariest part of being in business?

Is it a sort of emotional blackmail as a marketing plan?  (It's for the children!)

Far better to make a strictly business enterprise, and direct the profits to your favorite charity.

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