Final Project Info Assignment

  So many of us in our lifetime have in some way or another supported a nonprofit organization, but very few of us actually know what a nonprofit is or how exactly they are run. Since I hope many of you will continue or start supporting one or many in the future, it is important for us to understand in many of the managerial ways nonprofits are similar to for profits. Non-profits must cover many of the similar business expense, such as overhead, cost of goods sold, and personnel. However, they are extremely limited in what they can charge and often provide their goods and services from little to nothing. This is not to say that non-profits don’t make money. Any surplus of funds is redistributed back into the goals of its mission, rather than becoming profits for the owners. This is the main distinction from a for-profit. Non-profits are driven solely on their purpose to serve the public or some specific cause, typically, through awareness or fundraising. Because it is not the intention of a non-profit to incur a profit for individual benefit of the owners, the success of the organization is largely driven by the passion of the people providing those services. Being passionate and truly believing in the mission of an organization is key to the success of any non-profit organization, but a lot of other legal and organizational planning also goes into the continual success of the organization. Unfortunately, a lot of paperwork goes into filing for non-profit status. Every non-profit organization must file a 501c3 status, which is tax-exempt non-profit corporation. The 501c3 is just a small aspect of all the technical work behind running a non-profit organization and while I can’t say its easy, there certainly are a lot of benefits that outweigh some of the more tedious dull paperwork. 

2 Questions to Expert:

1.    As a not-for-profit business organization, how do you balance maximizing the services rendered with break-even margins?

2.     What are the most difficult aspects of running a non-profit?

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