Minnesota Institute of Public Health

This is a time of year when most organizations take stock. They look at their year-end results and assess indicators and levels of success, or lack of same.

For-profit businesses do many things essential to our way of life but their major goal is to make money. A little secret is, nonprofits need to make a margin to grow. Just paying the bills is existing, not growing or reaching mission and organizational potential to be helpful in this world. In our world, they call it margin, instead of profit. The IRS and MIPH’s own sense of business ethics are very clear about what margin is, how it’s attained, and mostly, how its invested exclusively back into the nonprofit’s capacity to achieve its stated mission.

MIPH is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, but like other successful nonprofits, we know people have come to depend upon us to be there. We can’t be one missed grant away from closing our doors. Many nonprofits believe a noble mission is enough, and that the management of resources will just somehow happen. That usually is just not true. As is said, “God gives every bird its food, but He does NOT throw it into the nest!” We need to continuously do great current work, successfully bid new work, properly leverage opportunities and where it makes sense, proactively create opportunities to serve.

To be a strong and reliable nonprofit, you have to be good manages of resources. That is good planning, and good civics. Nonprofits need to be strong, and stay true to mission.

MIPH is proud of how we do business, but sometimes it takes explanation. A government client needs to be sure if we had a margin that we didn’t somehow do something conniving (a common and unfair misperception about successful 501c3’s), and other private funders need to have comfort and confidence we will be here for the long term and are therefore deserving of the support we get to do our designated, important work. So at the end of the day, we have served the community well, done ourselves proud toward realizing our mission, and perhaps have a few more nickels coming in than going out. Our economic strategy is simple arithmetic.

In short, we need to “do good” and “do well”. And apologize for neither.

How do YOU grow? And in these economically tough times, how do you sustain?

- JJ