“For Impact Corportations”

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2017/06/01/nonprofit-institution-impact-varner/102408450/

This article talked about how we think of nonprofits and proposes that since they are actually making money (and putting it back into the community), they should instead be thought of as For Impact Corporations. I thought this was really interesting because I would eventually like to work for a nonprofit and have been working on a budget for my project at Focus: HOPE. For this project, Focus: HOPE doesn’t have a budget but we are getting money not only from sponsors (aka donations), but we are also making a lot of money through letting new businesses to vend at our location for a small fee. A small portion of this fee goes towards getting tables and chairs for the vendors, but a large portion can be used for park activities. Our goal is to eventually make it self-sufficient and I see the many layers of value this park programming could give back to this community.

The article says “The word suggests that such organizations don’t add value and are not required to be profitable” and then continues to break down this idea arguing for all of the value that is added because of non-profits. Over these past couple of weeks, I have gotten to hear about a lot of Detroit non-profit partnerships Focus: HOPE has, non-profits that other people in the cohort work at, and attended conferences where I learned about even more. I am sure that these non-profits only begin to scratch the surface of the great number of non-profits Detroit really has. I am excited to keep learning more about all of the non-profits and ingenious things they are doing to work with their communities. No matter what we are calling them, I am truly impressed by all of these organizations and the great change they bring.