From the course: Nonprofit Management Foundations

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Earning revenue through services and products

Earning revenue through services and products

From the course: Nonprofit Management Foundations

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Earning revenue through services and products

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- Launching a for profit business inside a nonprofit can seem like a contradiction in terms. You might ask isn't the main reason to start a nonprofit because your cause won't support earning profits in the first place? But in reality, there're a lot of ways nonprofits can generate revenues and earn a profit. And many kinds of nonprofits have been doing this for a long time. Take the Girl Scouts, for instance. They've been selling their famous cookies for nearly a century. The first troop in Oklahoma baked cookies and sold them at its high school cafeteria as early as 1917. Today, cookie sales are a booming $700 million enterprise that generates the lion's share of this nonprofit's revenue. Another example is Goodwill Industries, which has built a multi-billion enterprise around thrift shop stores. More recently, companies are building social purpose into their business models, particularly in emerging markets. One enterprise I love is Husk Power Systems. Launched in India, which…

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