Time To Get Rid of the Term "Non-Profit?"

Is it time to get rid of the term “non-profit?”

That’s what my friend Mike Duerksen asks in a post on his website.

For Mike, a savvy marketer and communicator based in Manitoba, the phrase sounds negative.

It doesn’t describe what he does for a living, or how he also—like someone in business—seeks to maximize the return from every dollar his organization is given, how he rigorously measures impact, sets goals and holds himself accountable.

While businesspeople answer to shareholders looking for the highest return, he answers to “donors looking for the greatest impact for their philanthropic dollar.”

By using the word “non-profit,” he says, “we are defining ourselves by what we are not.”

Just because non-profit is a legal structure “doesn’t mean it should define us,” he says. “It strips our work of its value—and it’s just plain bad marketing.”

As for what might be used instead, he proffers a few ideas such as “for-purpose” or “for-impact.”

Mike has a point. By using “non-profit” we define ourselves by what we don’t make—a profit. But the case could be made that we do make a lot of “profit.” But our “profits” aren’t the kind that can be counted the way a business counts profit.

Our profit isn't money, but lives saved and changed, health improved, people fed and educated, the environment preserved, water cleaned, and more.

Which is a pretty amazing bottom line, when you think of it.

What do you think? Is “non-profit” a good or bad way to describe our sector? Is there a better word? Would the public be more interested in donating to our groups if they viewed it not as charity, but as investment?

It sounds like a worthwhile conversation to me.