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It's interesting to compare the differences between the two applications- For Profit - https://gist.github.com/e1ven/6467215 https://gist.github.com/e1ven/6467

by e1ven 13y ago

It's interesting to compare the differences between the two applications- For Profit - https://gist.github.com/e1ven/6467215 https://gist.github.com/e1ven/6467215 Non Profit- https://gist.github.com/e1ven/6467309 https://gist.github.com/e1ven/6467309 Overall, it seems like they've replaced 'company' with 'organization', and dropped a number of questions relating to making money. Interestingly, many of the questions have been dropped without replacement, even when I would imagine the answer would be very interesting to YC! For instance, 'Who are your competitors' has been dropped entirely. Nonprofit companies can certainly compete with one another.. But they also often compete with for-profit companies. Take for example Wikipedia - They're a 501(c)(3) but they've certainly competed with Encyclopedia Britannica, Grolier, Encarta, etc. It might be helpful to keep the questions, but to ask them in a modified way. For instance, "Who is this going to disrupt?" Similarly they dropped "How do or will you make money?", without replacing it with "How do you plan to you raise money?" "How will you get users", and "Was any of your code written by someone who is not one of your founders?" were also dropped. They also haven't (yet) added questions relating to non-profits, such as "Why do you think you will be able to get a 501c(3) classification?" It's a really interesting idea, and it'll be interesting to see where they grow with it. It really reminds me of the first few years of YC where they were making it up as they went along, before they started the current cycle of continuous improvements through validated learning. Watsi was the MVP, now they're ready for Beta ;)

derefr 13y ago
I'd love to see a question that addresses the nonprofit's goals from an Effective Altruism perspective. Maybe something like: "who are your competitors, and what is their average cost-effectiveness in DALYs[1]? If they aren't very cost-effective, what makes you think your process will be better?" [1] http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/additional/DALY http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/additional/D...
- sirclueless 13y ago
  I don't like this question. It's akin to asking a startup, "What is your revenue model, and how will you be cash-flow positive?" Eventually every startup will need to answer that question, but asking it too early is more likely to stunt important and creative ideas that don't come with cookie-cutter business models than it is to reveal a winner. Much better to ask open-ended questions that get at the same thing: What's the potential impact of your idea? Why are you going to succeed where others failed? And if the answer is "We're smart and we have these advantages and everyone seems to like what we do" then it may be OK not to have the cost-effectiveness worked out in detail yet.
  - derefr 13y ago
    There's a nuance to asking about cost-effectiveness for nonprofits that doesn't exist for for-profit corporations -- and that is that a nonprofit can be wildly successful by every metric except helping people. There are charities who take in millions of dollars, keep some, and spend the rest to send bibles to Africa. By every measure, they're "killing it": they have a well-paid staff, a happy donation base, and they send out a heckuva lot of bibles. It's an easy business model to copy, and an almost-guaranteed smash-hit in terms of getting returns on investment. But, here's the rub--do you think there's any evidence that sending people bibles increases their quality-of-life? Basically, I'm hoping here that PG is getting into the nonprofit sector because he wants to help people--not just to become (more) rich by looking like he's helping people.
- Eliezer 13y ago
  I second this question. There are good nonprofits which will find it difficult to answer precisely, e.g. one which focuses on basic science research (which has, over the course of human history, contributed rather a lot to human welfare). But it is certainly a question that nonprofit founders should be thinking about right from the start, and producing vague estimates accordingly, just to get into a quantitative frame of mind; otherwise it is a very bad sign.
pg 13y ago
We don't know yet what will turn out to be the most important questions for nonprofits, so we just kept the subset of questions that seemed to apply to any project whether for profit or not.
- Eliezer 13y ago
  I would suggest that this would be an excellent time for Y Combinator to consult with Holden Karnofsky of Givewell, which has done a large amount of smart investigation into nonprofits. Karnofsky is local to the Bay Area. Caveat: Givewell tends to focus attention on nonprofits with well-validated, very-high-probability, easily-quantifiable effects which is not where one would expect the greatest expected value from daring new attempts to be located. Nonetheless I would expect that talking to Givewell would be very epistemically profitable if you are just venturing out into the nonprofit space.
- 001sky 13y ago
  We don't know yet what will turn out to be the most important questions for nonprofits Evergreen funding source/s is (arguably) the definition of success, for any organization, profit or otherwhise, at least empirically. Competition for scarce resources is thus a key part of the game. The CEO of MOMA (non-profit) has a salary approaching $2MM/yr. This is rationally viewed as a sales comission ($2mm/ on $XXmm in fundraising prowess) by the trustees. There is no other measure of 'productivity' at that order of magnitude for a "non-profit" organization (10x the statuatory salary of POTUS). Similarly, at non-profit universities. Both in the administration and elsewhere (multi-million dollar salaries for NCAA D1 sports linked with television contracts). Comparably, also the Clinton Foundation, per this recent note from the NY Times: Worried that the foundation’s operating revenues depend too heavily on Mr. Clinton’s nonstop fund-raising, the three Clintons are embarking on a drive to raise an endowment of as much as $250 million, with events already scheduled in the Hamptons and London.
  - _delirium 13y ago
    You accurately describe the trends, but I'm not sure those are positive trends. If these CEOs of nonprofits were indeed purely sales agents receiving commissions, fine, it's a rational ROI to employ them in a role like Vice President of Donor Relations. But they happen to also be the CEO, formally in charge of the whole operation, and further tend to set the tone for that operation. Then you have the fundraising tail wagging the mission dog. As a result, some nonprofits (and universities) start to look more like weird corporations that exist to perpetuate themselves and their top staff, with some kind of mumbo jumbo relating to public service being an official goal but nowhere near the top of the priority list. An organization that exists primarily to perpetuate itself and pay its staff well is perfectly fine, but then it doesn't really have any business claiming to be a charity...
joshdance 13y ago
Should definitely leave the "competitors" question. There are way too many non profits as it is. There are 1.5 million non profits and many go after the same causes, and the same donors, preventing any from reaching critical mass.
d0m 13y ago
I think you're over analyzing. PG probably hacked that in 5 minutes, and then got to more important matters.
adcab 13y ago
Good catch. Its a shame, still great news overall tho. Looks like they are being more lenient with non profits, maybe?

by e1ven 13y ago

derefr 13y ago

I'd love to see a question that addresses the nonprofit's goals from an Effective Altruism perspective. Maybe something like: "who are your competitors, and what is their average cost-effectiveness in DALYs[1]? If they aren't very cost-effective, what makes you think your process will be better?" [1] http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/additional/DALY http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/additional/D...

sirclueless 13y ago
I don't like this question. It's akin to asking a startup, "What is your revenue model, and how will you be cash-flow positive?" Eventually every startup will need to answer that question, but asking it too early is more likely to stunt important and creative ideas that don't come with cookie-cutter business models than it is to reveal a winner. Much better to ask open-ended questions that get at the same thing: What's the potential impact of your idea? Why are you going to succeed where others failed? And if the answer is "We're smart and we have these advantages and everyone seems to like what we do" then it may be OK not to have the cost-effectiveness worked out in detail yet.
- derefr 13y ago
  There's a nuance to asking about cost-effectiveness for nonprofits that doesn't exist for for-profit corporations -- and that is that a nonprofit can be wildly successful by every metric except helping people. There are charities who take in millions of dollars, keep some, and spend the rest to send bibles to Africa. By every measure, they're "killing it": they have a well-paid staff, a happy donation base, and they send out a heckuva lot of bibles. It's an easy business model to copy, and an almost-guaranteed smash-hit in terms of getting returns on investment. But, here's the rub--do you think there's any evidence that sending people bibles increases their quality-of-life? Basically, I'm hoping here that PG is getting into the nonprofit sector because he wants to help people--not just to become (more) rich by looking like he's helping people.
Eliezer 13y ago
I second this question. There are good nonprofits which will find it difficult to answer precisely, e.g. one which focuses on basic science research (which has, over the course of human history, contributed rather a lot to human welfare). But it is certainly a question that nonprofit founders should be thinking about right from the start, and producing vague estimates accordingly, just to get into a quantitative frame of mind; otherwise it is a very bad sign.

pg 13y ago

We don't know yet what will turn out to be the most important questions for nonprofits, so we just kept the subset of questions that seemed to apply to any project whether for profit or not.

Eliezer 13y ago
I would suggest that this would be an excellent time for Y Combinator to consult with Holden Karnofsky of Givewell, which has done a large amount of smart investigation into nonprofits. Karnofsky is local to the Bay Area. Caveat: Givewell tends to focus attention on nonprofits with well-validated, very-high-probability, easily-quantifiable effects which is not where one would expect the greatest expected value from daring new attempts to be located. Nonetheless I would expect that talking to Givewell would be very epistemically profitable if you are just venturing out into the nonprofit space.
001sky 13y ago
We don't know yet what will turn out to be the most important questions for nonprofits Evergreen funding source/s is (arguably) the definition of success, for any organization, profit or otherwhise, at least empirically. Competition for scarce resources is thus a key part of the game. The CEO of MOMA (non-profit) has a salary approaching $2MM/yr. This is rationally viewed as a sales comission ($2mm/ on $XXmm in fundraising prowess) by the trustees. There is no other measure of 'productivity' at that order of magnitude for a "non-profit" organization (10x the statuatory salary of POTUS). Similarly, at non-profit universities. Both in the administration and elsewhere (multi-million dollar salaries for NCAA D1 sports linked with television contracts). Comparably, also the Clinton Foundation, per this recent note from the NY Times: Worried that the foundation’s operating revenues depend too heavily on Mr. Clinton’s nonstop fund-raising, the three Clintons are embarking on a drive to raise an endowment of as much as $250 million, with events already scheduled in the Hamptons and London.
- _delirium 13y ago
  You accurately describe the trends, but I'm not sure those are positive trends. If these CEOs of nonprofits were indeed purely sales agents receiving commissions, fine, it's a rational ROI to employ them in a role like Vice President of Donor Relations. But they happen to also be the CEO, formally in charge of the whole operation, and further tend to set the tone for that operation. Then you have the fundraising tail wagging the mission dog. As a result, some nonprofits (and universities) start to look more like weird corporations that exist to perpetuate themselves and their top staff, with some kind of mumbo jumbo relating to public service being an official goal but nowhere near the top of the priority list. An organization that exists primarily to perpetuate itself and pay its staff well is perfectly fine, but then it doesn't really have any business claiming to be a charity...

joshdance 13y ago

Should definitely leave the "competitors" question. There are way too many non profits as it is. There are 1.5 million non profits and many go after the same causes, and the same donors, preventing any from reaching critical mass.

d0m 13y ago

I think you're over analyzing. PG probably hacked that in 5 minutes, and then got to more important matters.

adcab 13y ago

Good catch. Its a shame, still great news overall tho. Looks like they are being more lenient with non profits, maybe?