Yesterday I wrote a post asking if Baptist Hospital or Novant should be considered non-profits.  Jim Caserta left a good thought provoking comment to which I replied and in the process had my memory tickled.  I remembered writing something a while back about good non-profits behaving more like a business than an organization that exists merely to do good.  Here’s what I wrote in May ’06:

As you may know I do most of my work with non-profits and here is what
I can tell you about them: the good ones behave just like well-run,
for-profit companies.  If they think of themselves as existing for a
"higher purpose" and justify their existence in that light then they
are doomed.  If, on the other hand, they view their members or
constituents as customers and view their existence as serving those
customers then they are most likely going to succeed.

So it looks like I might be talking from both sides of my mouth, or maybe I’m a hypocrite for writing what I did about Novant and Baptist.  Really, I think I just wrote poorly last year.  I do believe the non-profits that are run by zealots who believe that they will succeed simply because their cause is righteous are doomed to failure.  You do need to take a business like approach to your efforts; pay attention to your budget, balance your books regularly, live within your means which probably means you can’t do everything you want, regularly audit your operations, etc. 

On the other hand non-profits are also defined by their missions.  Unlike a business their success is measured in part by how they fulfill their missions and how they serve their communities.  While I see no evidence that Baptist or Novant provides sub-standard health services it does seem to me that they could do a better job serving everyone in their communities.  In other words they could stand to be a little more zealous.