The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
~Alfred Lord Tennyson
A 2002 article on the ISOPH Institute website highlighted the growing trend that nonprofit professionals are returning to school to get an MBA. The necessity for such business, "for-profit" skills is increasing in demand, especially given the increasing scrutiny over spending and the decreasing sources of funding. I recently attended an American Humanics Management Institute, where several keynote speakers alluded to, even promoted the idea, that the old idea of nonprofits needing only people of passion was outdated. That passion should be pushed aside for candidates with the business acumen needed to drive the nonprofit world.
My recent experience at an interview highlighted this need for greater business acumen, when a question was asked about my ability to obtain funding. The question startled me, especially since nowhere on the job description was this skill mentioned. Perhaps it really startled me since I do not posses that skill. Since that meeting, I have noted that many job advertisements, regardless of the postions' title, request experience in development.
This experience combined with the idea that my passion, which has provided me energy and drive for further understanding of social injustice, is outdated frightens me.
The idea that nonprofits need to compete in a growing nonprofit market, where the number of nonprofits is increasing faster than the funding sources, is not in question. The questions are whether nonprofits should become more business like in order to compete and what for profits models will ask us to sacrifice? In the conclusion of the article on ISOPH the question is asked of whether nonprofits are better off becoming more like "for-profits" or whether they should look more deeply into the concept of what a nonprofit is. By looking more deeply and reevaluating what their mission truly is, a nonprofit may find that the creation of new paradigms for business can be created. They will find that their passion for service can be mastered.
My fear is that if passion is replaced by the perceived necessity to mimic the "for-profit" model, what will the new bottom line for nonprofits be if not to create a better world?
Link to ISOPH article
http://www.isophinstitute.com/sophist_no2_mbas.aspx
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