The Truth About Profit in the Non-Profit Sector: Staying Focused on Mission at Thompson Island Outward Bound, Boston, MA

The purpose of this capstone research is to understand how a non-profit organization can maintain focus on its core mission when it uses a form of social enterprise business strategy to sustain itself financially. The following is a case study of one organization in Boston, Massachusetts that adopted a social enterprise business strategy. By analyzing four years of financial data, participation numbers and interviews with staff, the researcher’s conclusions are complex. Social enterprise strategy complicates the effective implementation of an organization’s core social mission. The additional financial viability of the mission-supporting enterprise business can have a positive or negative effect. A balance must be created between the priorities of social and financial missions. Staff must understand, appreciate and support the strategy to avoid unnecessary conflicts. The balance is possible and the research that follows is an example of the challenges and benefits that an organization faces when it ventures into an earned-income strategy to maintain fiscal viability