A Nonprofit is a Businesswith Alan Harrison
[caption id="attachment_1275" align="alignleft" width="200"]     Alan Harrison, CDCF[/caption]
Alan Harrisonis a nonprofit executive with over 25 years of for-profit and nonprofit experience in a diverse set of roles. Born in Pennsylvania, Harrison holds a B.S. degree in Biology from Geneva College and an M.S. degree in Biology (specializing in Ecology) from Lehigh University.
There is a pervading view that nonprofits are somehow less serious than for-profits. I have run across this several times in many situations. Some people think that somehow the money just rolls in and work is a big party every day. There is also a view that everyone works for a pittance and you couldn’t really support yourself or a family working for a nonprofit. These views could not be further from the truth.
After many years of experience in nonprofit I have learned that a nonprofit is a business, just a different kind of business. For-profit businesses make goods or services in pursuit of money for shareholders or owners. This is the “profit” piece. Nonprofit businesses also make goods or services. The difference is that the nonprofit business is not in it to make money for an owner or shareholder, they are there to make good of some sort for a group of people that will benefit from the good or service. In simplified terms I like to think of nonprofits as business that make good not money.
Nonprofits businesses are not a party. Everyone who works at a nonprofit goes to work every day and works just like anyone else. If you do your job you keep it and succeed, if you don’t do it you get disciplined and eventually lose it. Nonprofit businesses have all the same functions as for-profit businesses. There are finance, HR and IT people. Someone cleans the offices and takes out the trash. Any function you can associate with a for-profit business is there with a nonprofit business. It may look a little different, but it is there. The fundraisers are analogous to the sales people in a for-profit business.
Read the Interview Transcript Hugh Ballou: Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. It’s Hugh Ballou and Russell Dennis. It’s kind of an interesting day here in central western Virginia. We’re expecting some snow tonight and a storm on the weekend. How is it in the Rocky Mountain high of Colorado?
Russell Dennis: Well, it’s actually sunny today. It’s a bit chilly, but it’s very sunny. We’re just going through a typical Colorado winter. I don’t worry about it. If I don’t like it, it will be different in five or ten minutes.
Hugh: It may make people feel cool because they might be listening to this podcast in the heat of summer. Think about how cool it is. I got a little hair standing up here. Russell, you don’t have that problem. You can’t see him on the podcast, but he’s a smart man – he doesn’t waste any energy growing hair.
Russell: I haven’t had a bad hair day in a long time.
Hugh: I’m thinking you haven’t had a bad day. It’s always a good day with Russell David Dennis. We have a person who is in the space of philosophy and practice that we are, Russell. It’s Alan Harrison. We met on LinkedIn and had some conversations. He said he’d like to share his wisdom with nonprofit leaders. Alan, welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange.
Alan Harrison: Thank you, Hugh, and thank you, Russell for having me here. I’m very excited to be here and looking forward to today.
Hugh: Tell people a little bit about who Alan Harrison is.
Alan: I’ve been in the nonprofit space for over 15 years now. Before that, I was in the for-profit space for almost that long. I spent a lot of time in the water treatment industry. I have a Masters degree in biology. Toward the end of that part of my career, I wanted to make a change and moved into the nonprofit space. I moved from technology into operations. Most of my nonprofit career has been spent in administration, HR. I have been vice president of administration. I have been CEO of a small nonprofit, runni