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No one invests in a non-profit. Investors want ROI and going to mars is pretty capital intensive. EDIT: correct me if I am wrong, but YC doesn't expect to make
by skizm 13y ago
No one invests in a non-profit. Investors want ROI and going to mars is pretty capital intensive.
EDIT: correct me if I am wrong, but YC doesn't expect to make a RIO with Watsi. They just want to make the world a better place. It is a donation not an investment. Most VCs are not that nice.
EDIT: EDIT: Found it: "Since some people were confused when we funded Watsi, I'd better clarify that the money we're putting into the nonprofits will be a charitable donation, rather than an investment in the narrow sense. We won't have any financial interest in them." Link here: http://ycombinator.com/np.html http://ycombinator.com/np.html
- toomuchtodo 13y agoWatsi is the first non-profit Y Combinator is backing. http://ycombinator.com/watsi.html http://ycombinator.com/watsi.html Disclaimer: HUGE Watsi fan.
- bjelkeman-again 13y agoI disagree. We have had a bunch of significant investments in Akvo and we are non-profit. The investments aren't structured for maximum financial ROI, but maximum societal ROI. Nevertheless they are investments. http://Akvo.org/ http://Akvo.org/
- abstractbill 13y agoY Combinator invests in non-profits.
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago> No one invests in a non-profit. I thought that was called a donation.
- wpietri 13y agoLet me introduce you to people who want more than ROI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing There are a variety of ways you could structure things. A non-profit could take loans or sell bonds. I've heard talk of a pay-for-success model for public-good bonds. [1] The non-profit could create a for-profit subsidiary, like Mozilla does. A non-profit could enter into a joint venture (e.g., with an aerospace company). I think the main barrier to approaches like this is attitudes like yours: for-profit people often have a hard time of steering by the public good. And, of course, the mirror attitude, where non-profit people are suspicious of anything that looks like capitalism. But there's no necessary conflict; the whole theory of capitalism is that companies are making the world better. And if you want to make the world better, the best way to do that is sustainably, and for-profit companies have done a lot of great thinking on how to stay in the black. [1] http://nonprofitfinancefund.org/pay-for-success http://nonprofitfinancefund.org/pay-for-success