The following article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy was shared with me by a good friend and colleague, Julie Hawkins, Executive Vice President of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.  I found it particularly interesting because it tells of an arts entrepreneur who, after a struggle in the not-for-profit world, chooses to cross over into the commercial one.  I also found it interesting that she mentions, when in the NFP world, problems with donors who want her to shape programs to their whims.  These types of philanthropists are often called “controlling donors.”  I should devote an entire blog entry on this subject, but now I simply want to share this article with you.

Does Nonprofit Status Offer the Best Way to Achieve Your Mission?

By Kristin Giantris

I recently bumped into Debbie Reck, founder and executive director of Writers’ Express, a youth writing program.

Her organization has had real success with its curriculum and has seen increasing demand for its programs from other markets in recent years.

Debbie and I have spoken a few times over the past year about the quality of the group’s programs and how it has been trying to find the right funding partnerships to help it expand.

It had relied on a couple of committed funders and some supportive board members. But it had never connected with significant “equity investors” that could provide the capital necessary to help grow and support its infrastructure. As a result, it hadn’t yet been able to scale up–to replicate its work on a larger scale.

When I had last talked to Debbie at the end of 2009, she told me that she felt caught between funders who were asking her to adjust the Writers’ Express goals to meet their own funding priorities and private-sector companies that saw real value in Writers’ Express programs. These companies were looking to commoditize the organization’s programs for broader distribution.

Debbie’s goal, though, was simply to hold on to the mission of Writers’ Express–to give all students the power to explore their ideas, the skills to communicate them clearly, and the conviction that the world wants to hear them.

So when I saw Debbie earlier this month, I was anxious for an update. She explained that after many years of trying to scrape together philanthropic funding to keep Writers’ Express moving forward, she had decided to take the private-sector route. She sold most of its programs to a national company, Wireless Generation, which provides tools and services to 200,000 teachers and 3 million students.

Debbie had moved with the programs to the new company and when I asked her what the decision meant for her, I was struck by the response.

“It’s great,” she said. “Finally I can focus on mission.”

In the nonprofit world, mission is usually defined as responding to a need that the market has not filled.

In Debbie’s case, she struggled for many years trying to get “our” sector to respond with the appropriate support to meet the need.

Ultimately, the private sector was best able to help Writers’ Express deliver its services with the scope and scale for broad, quality distribution.

When advising nonprofits on how to achieve mission, there is a key question that must be asked: “What’s the best business model for meeting the mission?”

And when answered honestly, the for-profit model may just be the best fit. We shouldn’t miss the opportunity to fulfill our missions because we’re ideologically locked into one structure. Form should follow function.