Social Profit

Next week, I have the distinct honor of attending a Stanford Graduate School of Business seminar; Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations.  In preparation for the course we are assigned homework (something I tried not to do that much of in school let alone now that I have a real job), and the homework consists of several books, articles, and case studies all exploring the concepts of strategy and its multiple parts.  As I create industry analyses and study productivity frontiers I am struck by the concept of profit; I find myself asking, what is profit for a community organization and what strategy works best in creating profit?  When I ask myself what it means to be profitable in my organizaiton and the organizations that I volunteer with I find myself thinking about the realities that these organizations exist within.  There is the reality that in any given industry when there is a shortage of resources there is competition, there is the reality that the more resources an organization has the more freedom it has to make change the way it wants to, and there is the reality that there are always multiple ways to make change and multiple sectors who need change agents on their side.  All of these realities create a tension for me between financial profit and social profit.  Now, in an ideal world these two types of profit work together to make sustainable change in the community - in reality, the two often compete for priority in an organization.  I guess this blog (or rant depending on how you take it ;) is intended to ask the question, "How can the non-profit sector best leverage its social profit for greater financial growth as well as leveraging its financial growth for more social profit?" Wow - chicken or the egg one might ask!?!  But I think there are real questions here about offering ways for funders to get involved and how to market what you do so that more people get interested.  I think sometimes organizations chase money to avoid losing a program or cut programs due to their cost.  How do we inspire a culture of social profit?  If individuals valued social profit as much as they valued financial profit what would our society look like?  Does the term non-profit hurt us?  How do we engender a spirit of social value that makes relevant issues accessible without compromising their integrity?  Just some questions for the group ......