This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 253, Profit vs. Nonprofit in American Business.
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Hey there, Aubrey. So how are you doing today?
Doing well. I'm all right. How are you, Lindsay?
Good. I'm excited to get into a different kind of business today, right?
A different kind of industry or type of industry.
Now we're answering a listener question today about nonprofit organizations, right?
So you, I heard you were working for a nonprofit before you started working with us here at All Ears English.
Isn't that right? Yes, exactly. I was operations manager for an amazing nonprofit.
I loved it. I miss it. I couldn't do both.
And the schedule wasn't quite as flexible, which is common with a nonprofit.
You have to be where the people need you.
Right. And you're doing a lot of outreach and it's difficult to find something with flexible hours.
Oh, well, we're lucky to get you here, but I'm sure you miss that work.
Right. It's so hard. There are so many tradeoffs in life and moving between jobs. different types of companies and industries so should we just go right into the student question opry oh yeah let's do it do you want to read it for us i'll read the first part and you want to read the second part maybe how about that okay so this is from wyra um wyra yosef and she says i'm so happy to write this email you guys have been my motivation since i got to the states three years ago a loyal listener since then I love the four of you, but I need to confess that Jessica is my favorite.
I love that so much. That's great. I saw this.
I emailed it to Jessica to make sure she saw it. awesome i'm originally from argentina and currently living in oregon with a previous time in miami a huge change i know for good the columbia river gorge is gorgeous okay excellent you want to do the next part aubry yes so moira says getting to the point i am having job interviews lately trying to make a career change moving from a profit to a non-profit organization and i found it hard can be how i found how hard it can be when it comes to speaking the same language Many words that in a profit context are okay, but not in an organization that the ultimate goal is not revenue or making money, such as outreach instead of a target.
I scrolled through the episodes, but I couldn't find one with this topic.
I think maybe it's a good idea if you can dig into the differences.
Wishing you the best, Moira Joseph. Yes, I love this.
This is a whole other industry that, you know, Aubrey, you have some insight.
I don't think I've ever worked, I've worked for a couple of companies NGOs, I guess, but I don't and I guess they must have been nonprofit, but it hasn't been the main focus of my career.
So you've spent more time in this world.
So I'm excited to get into this today. Yes, but I definitely want to share, you know, many of you out there, you may not be working for a nonprofit.
You might not ever, but you have likely volunteered for one or will at some point.
So this is still very useful vocabulary.
And the tips we're going to share are really useful because you should consider all of these things before volunteering or interviewing for a paid position with a nonprofit and be aware of the vocabulary that's related.
Yeah, it is so important to have the right set of vocabulary terms that fit the frame of who you're interviewing with.
Whatever kind of industry you're going into, there are certain unwritten rules about what is said and what's not in terms of what words are used, right?
So we want to shout out Moira just first of all for realizing this, for thinking about this.
Don't go into an interview blind. You want to know a lot about the company.
You want to be able to ask informed questions.
Show that you have looked into what they do and what they're passionate about.
Oh, for sure, for sure. All right, so we have a set of tips.
How many tips do we have today, Aubrey? Three tips and then a few vocab terms, which we're going to start right away by just defining what is a nonprofit organization.
Make sure everyone out there is aware of what we're talking about.
Okay, so what is a nonprofit organization?
It's basically about the purpose of the organization, right?
Exactly right. It's a group that's organized for some type of purpose other than just generating profit.
Right. And so no part of the organization's income is distributed to members or directors or officers.
The goal is not to make money. So there certainly are paid positions, but that's not the purpose of the organization.
Right. So most of their money comes from fundraising, right, which we'll talk about in a second.
And so it really changes the conversation around goals and around so many different aspects of what you're doing there.
So what would be the first tip then, Aubrey, to do well in maybe in an interview or if you're meeting people you might work with?
Yes. Absolutely. The first tip is to know the ultimate goal of a nonprofit.
You want to research before the job interview or before volunteering and become familiar with this nonprofit's ultimate goal.
This is their long-term end goal, right?
That might be a city without homelessness or a world where no child goes hungry.
This is like In a perfect world, if we had done our job, what would the world look like?
Yeah, and of course, you should be passionate about that goal, right?
That's really important. So not just researching what their goal is, but understand where it coincides with your personal goals or your values and what really disturbs you in the world, right?
And find that intersection. between the two.
Exactly. Because more so than for a profit organization, a nonprofit is going to want to hear that you're passionate about this goal in a job interview or even if you're offering to volunteer.
If you come in just saying, I just got some free time, I'm here to help, they might pass you over for someone who's a little more passionate about their cause.
True, true, true, true. Yeah, absolutely.
So that is the first one. Know the ultimate goal.
What would be number two, Aubrey? Yeah, number two is to know the mission.
And this is different from the ultimate goal.
It might be outreach or providing a specific service.
It's what is the day-to-day. And you also need to be passionate and excited about the mission.
Okay, so the goal is broader. It's like the vision, right, of a world without homelessness.
But then the mission is what they actually do to create that world.
Is that right? Exactly, how we get there.
Right, so the mission for the nonprofit I worked for was to help children's families, individuals living in poverty, to attain a more productive life.
And then by providing, and there were specific things that they did with their mission, providing clothing, shoes, and other support services.
So you can see how that was like the day to day.
We had showers and lockers for homeless individuals.
We provided clothing. So the mission was actually the boots on the ground.
What are we doing every day to help? Yeah.
And that can be very satisfying. That can fulfill the gap between the big vision and how what you're going to do is the things you do every day.
I know at my meditation center, we don't have any kind of we just study Buddhism.
We meditate. But there's one woman who's involved in the group and she collects socks for another organization that she's a part of for homeless people in Denver.
And she always stands up every day. Every time every Sunday and says, you know what I need socks and it's just very practical.
It's wonderful So yes, and she's out there in her regular life like getting the word out helping because she's passionate about that car She's doing outreach.
That's our next term here, right? Yeah, this is an organization's involvement with or the activities that they do in the community Especially when it comes to social welfare, right?
So they are reaching out. We have this verb outreach, anything that they might be educational outreach, homeless outreach, and then it could also be volunteer outreach if they are looking to get the word out when they need volunteers.
Yeah. And I think this is, I wonder if this term outreach is mostly used within that kind of organized nonprofit world or do we use it anywhere else?
Do we use it in the only place I hear it?
Do you hear it anywhere else, Lindsay? I don't really, I feel like that's the main time we hear outreach. is when we're talking about volunteer services trying to get the word out of a cause, like a cause for good that people are going to want to help if they find out about it.
The only other context that I think of, Aubrey, is political, political outreach. so and that you know someone on a political campaign often they're volunteers they have that same sort of mindset like getting the word out anytime you're trying to get the word out about something you could call that outreach right voter outreach that kind of thing and i do think that the word would be different uh within the for-profit world so so that's kind of interesting in this episode we can we can say, does this word also translate into the for-profit world as well?
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Exclusions apply. See details online. Okay, Aubrey, what's next?
All right, our third tip is to make it personal.
When you are working or volunteering for a nonprofit, you can't just be in it for the paycheck, or at least if that comes across in your job interview, that is going to be a red flag for them, right?
You need to personally care about the nonprofit's ultimate goal and the mission and be passionate.
Your heart has to be in it more than for the average for-profit organization where, yes, you need to be a valuable part of the team, you need to care, but it's all right for their goal to be financial growth.
Right. Yeah. Although I would argue that even in the nonprofit world, sometimes it's good to have the passion, but it's also important to have the professional skills, right?
To know what you're doing to be able to organize and have the ability to, I would imagine, to almost treat it like a business.
So then you are making decisions in a more objective way.
And so what do you think, Aubrey? Did you experience people who are so passionate that there was their drama?
Was there things that came up that actually worked against the success of the organization?
You know, the one I worked for was very well run.
It felt like a for-profit organization because they were very careful with the budget.
Any funds that were raised, they were very wise and cautious with how they were spent.
And anyone who was passionate about the cause, they were also business people.
They were also seeking to, especially the board, were all successful business people who were really seeking to make the most of the funds that were given to do the most good in the world.
It was very well organized, lots of meetings.
Other than this sort of ultimate goal not being to make money, other than that, the nonprofit world really feels a lot like the profit world.
Okay, interesting. Because I haven't heard about a lot of people that go from the CEO management track over to the nonprofit world.
But that's good, right? That should be a thing because I think the skills are probably needed across both sectors of work.
Definitely. And that's where it's interesting because at least where I was, the board is unpaid.
They are volunteers. So there were only two paid positions and that was the manager and then the operations manager.
So I'm trying to think what was her role. operations manager and then she was sort of over everything, right?
The director, she was the program director.
Okay. And everyone else volunteers and the board was a volunteer.
They did not receive any kind of distribution of funds at all.
So a lot of them were CEOs during the day and then they were volunteering their time at night or on the weekend to be on this board.
So they were able to lend their expertise from the profit world to make sure this nonprofit was well run.
All right. Love it. Good examples. That's a successful nonprofit, right?
Love it. Love it. So what would be another term our listeners need to know for the nonprofit world?
Yeah. So we're talking about volunteers a little bit.
This is anyone who voluntarily undertakes or expresses a willingness to undertake a service.
So this is just good to know. You maybe are already familiar with this term, but I could see some people getting in trouble if they are, you know, the same as like with an internship, not realizing that a position is unpaid.
So volunteer, this means it's an unpaid position, which is the same for a lot of interns.
Yeah. And then fundraise, that is how the money comes in to a nonprofit, right?
Because the money that goes out is going into the cause, I suppose, right?
Exactly. And this is, it's a very organized, usually it's like an event that's planned, maybe a gala. where people are coming and they're buying a table and you're creating this event to fundraise rather than just expecting people to donate money.
Right. And there are people that dedicate their entire position at these companies to grant writing, right?
That is what they do. That is a specialty.
Exactly. And so a grant is money that is given by a government or an organization for a particular purpose.
So yes, they're writing grants. And there's also, that's the noun, a grant.
The verb grant means to give, to allow something that has been requested.
So the government grants money, and then we call that a grant.
We have received a grant. Okay. Oh, wow.
Anything else we need to know here, Aubrey?
We've given our listeners some really good vocabulary to talk the talk, as we say, of the nonprofit world.
Anything else? Anecdotally, we should know about this kind of environment versus the corporate world or the, I mean, there are different, right?
So there's the corporate world, there's nonprofit, there's startup environments.
There are many different environments, even within for-profit, right?
Definitely. For sure. I think one thing to keep in mind is nonprofits are often more limited in the budget they have in the room for growth.
So as far as getting promotions, you know, salaries being higher one day, that might be more limited.
So be sure you're aware of that ahead of time too.
If you're interviewing for a nonprofit, that might be a good thing to keep in mind.
They might not have the ability to grant you, you know, more funds than they're stating in the job listings.
This is the amount that we have to work with.
Right. And when you were in the nonprofit world, Aubrey, year to year, was it the scenario that people were sure things would go on?
Was it already an established nonprofit?
You said it was doing well financially. I wonder if sometimes there's uncertainty as to whether the company will have funding in the next year, the year after that, if that happens.
I'm sure that can happen because they're relying on grants and fundraising, but I think because it was so well run and it had been around for 20 years, it had an excellent reputation, it had a lot of donors that were regular donors, and there are a lot of things in the United States that are set up to help as well.
There's Giving Tuesday, which is right after Cyber Monday.
A lot of people make donations to nonprofits.
So even through, I worked there through COVID and we still had volunteers coming in.
We had homeless services. So we were exempt from closing.
We had to stay open to continue helping.
And we never felt there was never a worry that we wouldn't be able to stay open because that really helps there when it's managed well, then there are funds available for what they're trying to accomplish.
I love that. You're right. Our system is set up somewhat.
Also, I think there are, you know, for, for, people who are at a certain income level making donations as it provides a tax write-off, right?
Making donations to these nonprofits, massive tax write-offs for them.
So there are government setups to help these nonprofits survive and run and run well, right?
Yes, but we were also quite reliant on generous individuals, you know, people who would bring like your friend, just tons of socks, and they were just like your friend going to yoga class and asking people to donate socks, and then they would bring everything to us.
So without, you know, people who are service oriented and generous, a lot of nonprofits wouldn't be able to make it.
So a little bit of a plug to to be, you know, involved in your community aware of how you can help. yeah and i think the takeaway for today is thank you to our listener uh for asking that question and i think the key is talking the talk of the industry that you're moving into or trying to get into right we could do another episode just like this but within the startup community let's say like angel angel round startup companies what do they say and then what do super fortune 500 companies say and what do There's lots of sectors, healthcare sector.
We could go into these if this is something you guys are interested in.
Right, Aubrey? Yeah, let us know. We'll have to have a poll about that.
Come back to Spotify to check out the poll.
And yeah, we definitely want to be making episodes that you're interested in that will help you.
But I love that. And I love, again, just Moira that she's thinking about, I want to know everything I can before I go into this interview.
That's a good takeaway as well. Follow her example, right, before you have a job interview.
Get informed. Go in with as much information as you can about that company.
All right. Good stuff. Thanks for bringing us to the show today, Aubrey.
I'll talk to you soon. Awesome. Thanks, Lindsay.
All right. Bye. Thank you. Tap the link in the show notes.
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