Nonprofit Manifesto

Nonprofit missions are too important.

Nonprofits go to work every day to make the world a better place. To feed the hungry, to save children, to elevate our spirits, to connect us, to teach us compassion, to save the planet. The world desperately needs their work. Nonprofit work elevates the best of our humanity.

Nonprofit culture must change.

We cannot be charities, we cannot be tree huggers. There is too much at stake. We are changing the world. There isn’t a more important mission.

Nonprofit performance is critical.

The world needs nonprofits to be high-performing and innovative organizations. Anything less endangers our future, fails our present. We cannot afford it, it’s unacceptable.

We need to generate and disseminate more nonprofit knowledge.

Knowledge is the key to elevate the impact of nonprofit work, to increase our capabilities to carry out our missions and make the world a better place.

Visit any university, library, or bookstore, and you will hardly find knowledge on nonprofits, compared to the seemingly unlimited number of business books. For every academic program and degree related to nonprofits you will find many many more for business.

Nonprofits cannot afford to ignore business knowledge.

We have to start somewhere. And there is so much of business knowledge available. What to use, how to use it in a nonprofit, these are good questions. We need to experiment, learn, and generate new knowledge that elevates their work.

Nonprofits are businesses

If a business is an entity that creates and delivers value, then nonprofits are businesses.