Don't Judge an Organization by it's Structure.

Just because an organization utilizes a not-for-profit structure does not make it good.
 
Just because an organization is for-profit, does not make it bad.
 
But these are the assumptions that permeate much of the way we interact with and think about organizations in our communities.
 
Maybe this is why the term ‘social enterprising’ has become so widely used. 
 
‘Business = Bad’ is a common belief and so organizations that utilize commercial strategies to accomplish something that they believe is ‘good’, try to distance themselves from ‘business’ by calling their business a social enterprise.
 
The bias against a for-profit model has a huge impact on all of us. 
 
Years and years ago I had my first child. And one day, as I was changing a diaper, I thought that it seemed pretty wasteful to buy something just to throw it in the garbage. Over and over and over again.
 
And so began my interest in cloth diapers. Back in those days, it was almost impossible to find a cloth diaper for sale anywhere, and even more difficult to find someone who knew what to do with a cloth diaper. And the internet was so young.
 
I persevered, found a mom-based online industry (while making snacks between dial-up wait times) and learned all about the incredible variety of modern cloth diapers.
 
As is my nature, I wanted to share what I had discovered with other people.
 
First, my idea was to help people choose the products that they would buy online. For free.
 
Then, because online shopping was still so new and untrusted, I thought I could help broker the purchases for people. For free.
 
Then, I realized that the simplest and most effective way to promote cloth diapers would be to make them available for sale locally.
 
And Valley Cloth Diaper Company was born. 
 
Using cloth diapers was so uncommon at that time, and the modern diapers were so unfamiliar, that I began hosting ‘how-to’ workshops so that people could understand their options and choices. I created an extensive research document that compared costs and environmental impacts.
 
People who were attending public health prenatal groups began suggesting that I come to their groups and show all the pregnant people what their options were. It sounded like a good idea to me, and my first-born was still so young that I knew the public health nurses who ran the prenatal groups.
 
I was a bit shocked and disappointed when my offer to provide this information was turned down.
 
I wanted other parents to understand how to use cloth diapers and not have to do the months of research and guessing that I had gone through.
 
But, the public health nurses would not allow me to be a presenter for their prenatal groups.
 
Because Valley Cloth Diaper Company was a for-profit business.
 
As I chewed on my rejection, I noticed something that seemed ironic. 
 
I wasn’t permitted to address the prenatal group with information because I ran a for-profit business, but nurses could hand out disposable diapers to every woman who birthed a child in the hospital.
 
Doesn’t handing out disposable diapers imply an endorsement?
 
And I certainly understood that I might benefit financially if any of those parents decided to choose cloth diapers. But didn’t the nurses get paid to be there? Didn’t they also benefit financially?
 
And who else, besides me (at that time), had the skill set and wanted to promote cloth diapers? By keeping me out, they kept cloth diapers out. Cloth diapers didn’t have another advocate or representative.
 
Sometimes there would be events that were for not-for-profit organizations and everything about the event would seem like I should be there, but as a for-profit business, I did not qualify.
 
But really, what is the difference between a for-profit business and a not-for-profit organization?
 
People can make hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary working for a not-for-profit, and business owners can struggle to take home minimum wage wage. 
 
A not-for-profit can have an operating budget in the millions, and a for-profit business can be just squeaking by.
 
The difference in organizational structure between a for-profit and a not-for-profit does not guarantee that one has better morals or ethics than the other.
 
When I converted Valley Cloth Diaper Company into Priority Kids Training Programs, I knew the risk of running a ‘good’ program with a business model.
 
But I also knew the risk of running it as a not-for-profit. A not-for-profit requires a board of directors. And the board of directors have roles and responsibilities. Someone has to create the board and someone has to supervise it.
 
My goal is to protect children from sexual abuse and I decided that I did not want to create and manage a board of directors. I’ve done that before and it is a lot of work.
 
I want to train adults to keep kids safe from sexual abuse. The simplest and most effective way for me to do that is to operate as a for-profit business. 
 
The profit is what makes us sustainable. 
 
As a for-profit organization, we can’t apply for grants that government agencies distribute to not-for profit organizations.
 
Instead, we rely on organizations to hire us to deliver training to their staff and volunteers. And if those organizations are not-for-profits, then they can apply for grants to cover the cost of our training.
 
The logistics behind the scenes, the organizational structures governing a business or a not-for-profit do not determine whether or not a product or service is good.
 
We have to decide that for ourselves. And then we choose whether or not that product or service is important enough to utilize it.
 
Long ago, the public health nurses decided that the risk of allowing a business owner to explain cloth diapers to expectant parents outweighed the benefits. It might have been a policy that they were following. It might have been someone's personal bias.
 
Either way, the result was that the prenatal class provided no information about cloth diapers to expectant parents.
 
Today, I hear an occasional grumble that our training, that keeps kids safe from sexual abuse, should be free. 
 
And sometimes that bias causes people to say ‘no’ to the benefits of training adults to protect kids. No, because it should be free.
 
I disagree.
 
It can’t be free. There is a cost to create the training, a cost to gain mastery of delivering it, and a cost to advocate for it. It can’t be free. Even a not-for-profit model can’t make it be free.
 
There is a real cost to train adults to protect children from sexual abuse.

But I promise you, the cost of NOT training adults to protect children is EXPONENTIALLY greater. It is costing children their childhood, it is costing us our health and wellbeing, it is costing us everything.

We have to make some changes to our societal ‘norms’ to keep kids safe. 
 
Reconsidering our bias against business might be one of the ‘norms’ that need attention.

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