The For-Benefit Enterprise

摘要

WE are in A new era. For-profit businesses are tackling social and environmental issues, nonprofits are developing sustainable business models, and governments are forging market-based approaches to service delivery. Out of this blurring of traditional boundaries, a different model of enterprise is emerging, driven by entrepreneurs who are motivated by social aims.When these entrepreneurs begin to create an entity to carry out their ideas, they often face a crippling and seemingly arbitrary question: whether to be a for-profit or a nonprofit. To some readers the distinction may seem straightforward, but a growing number of entrepreneurs chafe under those classifications. How, for example, would you label the commercial car-sharing service I-GO in Chicago, which is structured as a nonprofit? What about China's Qifang, an online platform dedicated to giving low-income students a way to pay for their education, which is structured as a for-profit?