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Originally Posted by Love  It brings up a question that was first posed to me my last year of college. A bunch of students and I were meeting with a group of people involved with non-profits for some info about the non-profit world. I remember this old guy, who looked at us intently, and asked us why take the non-profit help route instead of going the money first--help second route. He had taken the non-profit route but told us that if we didn't examine both of the paths, then we would be entering in the world without a clear picture of what you were trying to accomplish and how you would do it. |
This either-or mindset is junk -- it's something we definitely have to discard in order to live more consciously. It just isn't well aligned with truth, love, and power. It says that in order to make money, you must sacrifice truth and love to get power. It also says that if you pursue truth and love, you'll be powerless. Both approaches are suboptimal.
It's much better to adopt models that allow you to pursue truth, love, and power simultaneously -- without compromising or sacrificing. It's true these models are more rare (especially in the USA), but they're definitely possible in the real world.
The model I use for my business is a like a self-funding non-profit. It has a clear mission where having a positive impact is a higher priority than making money, so I can justify doing unprofitable things that help people (such as hosting these forums). However, the business also creates and delivers social value in order to generate income so that it can be profitably self-sustaining and fuel its continued growth.
Making lots of money and genuinely helping people aren't incompatible. If you adopt an intelligent business model, these two activities become mutually supportive.