Crossover Appeal
Inspired by Sean Stannard-Stockton’s comment about mission and meaningful work, I started thinking about the company names he mentioned. The words “Google,” “Apple,” and “Starbucks” don’t usually conjure up images of balance sheets and income statements. Indeed, despite their corporate status, these companies and, importantly, their respective brands inspire a fanatical devotion that includes a very strong emotional component. To look at it another way, these companies have a following that more closely resembles a nonprofit relationship: a mission-oriented connection in which how the organization conducts its business is as important as the product or service it is selling.
Likewise, certain nonprofits are such overwhelming market leaders, as it were, or possess such familiar brands that they transcend the intimate emotional connection that marks the best nonprofit relationships. Their perception approaches corporate status. You don’t need to be a Harvard alumnus or a beneficiary of the Red Cross’s charity efforts to hear those names and instantly be able to gauge their quality and know what they stand for.
All of this is to serve as a gentle reminder that in business, as in life, rarely are their finite points to which things can be neatly attached. Rather, there is a spectrum between those points, and human experience is scattered all along that spectrum. We assign similar characteristics to all nonprofits and to all for-profits at our own risk.
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POSTED IN: For-profit, Mission, Musings
1 opinion for Crossover Appeal
Tactical Philanthropy » links for 2007-11-06
Nov 6, 2007 at 3:27 am
[…] The 501(c) Files: Crossover Appeal Tom Durso discusses how the best for-profit companies have a relationship with their customers that is similar to nonprofits while the best nonprofits interact with their donors like for-profits do. (tags: blog) […]
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