Rethink NonProfit

Hi frens,

I’ve been wondering what defines a nonprofit organization, and why people donate to it.

I mean, what defines “for-profit”? After dedicating more than half a year to an open source and open parliament app, at what point does my earnings—be it 1,000 USD, 2,000 USD, 10,000 USD or more—qualify as “for-profit”?

Why do nonprofits depend on donations, or sell products at unreasonably high prices that include a donation, which might look like for-profit?

Nonprofit often works on public goods. If we include politicians as “nonprofit”, excessive spending for election campaign has been notoriously covered by political donations. That looks like for-profit as well?

Here’s my speculative theory: Capitalism dominates human’s desire. Most folks are okay with doing things just to make money. Some other people focus on long-term values that don’t fit regular business. They call themselves “not for-profit” to receive donations. Some nonprofits become enemies of capitalism. Some nonprofits engage in deceptive practices as it proves challenging to substantiate that all donations are well spent for the long term values. Nowadays, we probably have far more regulations on the concept of “nonprofits”, compared with regular business. Capitalism is often short-sighted, and however, it does work to simply make a product that sells.

If a business model is allowed for a wide range of possibilities, why shouldn’t the same flexibility be extended to nonprofits??

A radical idea came to me: We should establish nonprofits on the blockchain for transparent financial accounting. This approach eliminates restrictions on how nonprofits use and raise funds, or how nonprofits sell products to “make a profit.”

Why should we have a binary definition of “for-profits” and “nonprofits”, ever?

This is certainly not a novel concept. Many DAOs have been exploring in this domain. And I would like to experiment the idea within the projects I’ve been deeply engaged in: Voice of Legislative Yuan, Web3Matters Weekly, and Green Sofa (GreenPill Taiwan).

In the future, we might adopt a different classification for organizations: transparent and non-transparent.

Your friend,

Denken