For-profit ventures help nonprofits shore up the funding they need to maintain and expand their programs

By Abny Santicola

Still, for many organizations, most of which are unaccustomed to focusing on the bottom line in the same way businesses do, charging market rate fees for services can take some getting used to.

“When your mission is to serve and you try to serve regardless of a family’s ability to pay, and all of a sudden now you are saying we’re not going to serve you unless you pay us and pay us at a competitive rate, it is a culture shift,” says Nobili, who was accustomed to sliding-scale fees before venturing into for-profit territory. “We had to talk about it; the board did, our staff did. But it was done in service of the mission, which helps us get by that and get through that. It’s very hard for us still to turn down school systems that we know could use [our services] but can’t pay.”