{"id":965,"date":"2006-10-18T08:49:05","date_gmt":"2006-10-18T15:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2006\/10\/the_lineitem_nonprofit\/"},"modified":"2006-10-18T08:49:05","modified_gmt":"2006-10-18T15:49:05","slug":"the_lineitem_nonprofit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/the_lineitem_nonprofit.php","title":{"rendered":"The line-item nonprofit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Richter is fed up with the nonprofit corporate model<\/a>, and isn’t going to take it any more (in an excerpt from a longer work on the subject<\/a>). He suggests that the time has come for a more market-forces-friendly structure that will bring back profit motive and equity ownership to social-sector challenges. Says he:<\/p>\n


\nWhat’s needed in this country is a new hybrid model for organizations that want to do traditionally “charitable” work–a new type of socially responsible corporation that takes the best that the for-profit world and the nonprofit world can offer. A new structure that allows its owners equity in what they’ve built while maintaining the charitable rating that allows it to fund charitable-purpose programs.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He suggests a line-item nonprofit model, where a for-profit company can request a charitable tax status for specific activities that serve the public good (a nightclub could run a performance art program; Amazon.com could run a literacy and free book initiative). The primary drive of these organizations would remain profit and ownership and self-interest…but the social and public interests of the owners would have a new way to sustain themselves.<\/p>\n

Richter does a great job outlining the internal and external pressures now facing the nonprofit world. But he’s among many that seem to be over-playing the corporate structure as the culprit in our current woes. Fact is, any current nonprofit or for-profit entity can already rethink its structure, and create a hybrid in a dozen different ways. We don’t need a new exemption for commercial enterprise, we need a more nuanced and sophisticated interpretation of the tools already available. (To be fair, Richter is aware of these experiments, and describes them in his longer essay<\/a>. But he believes them to be insufficient for long-term change.)<\/p>\n

Such nuance and sophistication comes only from focused and open discussion. Thanks to Mr. Richter for framing such a productive argument to push against.<\/p>\n


\nThanks to Alexis for the link!
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Richter is fed up with the nonprofit corporate model, and isn’t going to take it any more (in an excerpt from a longer work on the subject). He suggests that the time has come for a more market-forces-friendly structure that will bring back profit motive and equity ownership to social-sector challenges. Says he: What’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}