When is Earned Income Right for a Nonprofit?

Here are some questions to get you started in thinking about earned income. If you answer yes to a majority of these, you might consider earned income as potential new revenue source for your organization:

• Are we in a fairly stable financial situation?
• Do we have core assets that could be transformed into saleable products or services?
• Is there a potential market with a willingness and ability to pay for these products/services?
• Would the sale of these products/services be a compliment to, not a distraction from, our mission?
• Is our staff and board, for the most part, open to risk and experimentation?
• Do we have access to funders who could potentially provide some startup capital for an earned income venture?

Once a nonprofit decides to explore earned income, there is a multi-phased process to undertake which includes: