Friday, January 11, 2008

I am not a businessperson

So, a board member of my organization asked me today whether or not the activities I was planning for the upcoming months had enough potential for revenue generation and fundraising. I think I gave some BS answer about "still working to understand how we use our projects that way," but the real answer is that I never think about our activities that way, not at all. I'm beginning to think that an MBA is what I need after all, because I obviously lack any sort of business orientation in my thinking, and that has to change if I want to run a viable organization.

I think there's this dichotomy in my mind between doing business and doing good, even though I know that a non-profit corporation is still a business. I feel like planning for revenue streams distracts me from the "real" work of helping people. But when done conscientiously, it's that business planning that actually enables my organization to help people; without it, we're mostly good intentions without much action to back them up.

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