As I have been attempting to push a fundraiser for the Nonprofit I volunteer for, I find myself more and more taken aback at the Nonprofit Model. Here we are, a small organization attempting to do humanitarian work having to beg for money from a community that is already primarily low-income. Our other option is to beg money from very rich donors and asking that they scoop down and help us, as sort of philanthropic saviors. When really, I think the idea of being "rich" is already giving into a system that I disagree with.
Here is why, and for the first time I am beginning to fully understand my very basic socialist ideas. We say that we wouldn't mind being "wealthy" or "rich", because we could finally use our money for "good" and not "evil". Yet, the very act of acquiring wealth and then giving it to those who don't have is an act of "salvation" and feeding into a "savior" complex, which I think, although can create some good, is in the long run destructive. Why? It still gives into a hierarchy that says "I (the rich person) am on top and you (the poor person) am below". A rich person may not idealistically agree with the hierarchy concept, but systematically, it is impossible to get rid of that hierarchy, and so, although personal ideologies of rich people may be good-natured, the very fact that they are rich and other people are not will always be a system of socioeconomic injustice.
What this has to do with Nonprofits? Nonprofits in America can only survive and be sustained off of large donations from rich people. Which means, nonprofits (although doing tons of good in the world) are still feeding into a system of socioeconomic injustice.
I know I am probably missing lots of arguments for working in the here and now with the system we have, but at the same time, I am really questioning my adherence to such a system that even allows there to be a difference to be profit and nonprofit. Why? Just the nature of profit vs. nonprofit fits into a capitalist mold that I don't agree with. Rather, I think all organizations should be not-for-fiscal-profit but for-humanitarian-profit. Our work, whatever we do, should always be for the benefit of humanity. Serving coffee and providing food at a grocery store should never be about how much money we can get or "profit" we should accumulate but about how best we can provide and serve our fellow humans. Of course, this would only be okay though in a system where people are paid living wages for the work that they do and not in such a competitive environment that forces "service" jobs to be unsustainable.
