Life Changers

I have always been a fan of management guru Peter Drucker, but since
he passed away late last year I have taken to perusing through some of
the books he wrote over his long and productive career. Almost every
page, I find myself astounded at the freshness of his insights,
especially given that he wrote them anywhere from fifteen to fifty
years ago.

Here's one, for example, almost a throwaway paragraph from the preface
to his book, "Managing the Non-Profit Organization":

It is not that these institutions are "non-profit," that is, that they
are not businesses. It is also not that they are "non-governmental."
It is that they do something very different from either business or
government. Business supplies, either goods or services. Government
controls. A business has discharged its task when the customer buys
the product, pays for it, and is satisfied with it. Government has
discharged its function when its policies are effective. The
"non-profit" institution neither supplies goods or services nor
controls. Its "product" is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective
regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit
institutions are human-change agents. Their "product" is a cured
patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a
self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether.

Would that those who work for non-profits – in hospitals and schools
and social service agencies – apply the best of the business world and
the best of the government world, and yet at the same time understand
that their main job is not to sell a product or enforce a regulation
but to change a life.