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American Non-Profits Have A Branding Problem

A perspective as a Founder and Executive Director

Susan Brearley
Brain Labs
Published in
9 min readJan 20, 2025

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Why are United States organizations that rely on donations, volunteerism and a desire to provide social good to our communities named non-profit organizations? In the rest of the world, they are called NGOs — Non-Governmental Organizations.

This is the current question I ask myself about the business models for these types of businesses. And now that I am the founder and executive director of one, it’s an even more compelling question.

It was at least 25 years ago when I first began researching hybrid business models for non-profit companies. At the time, I was operating a small business, which I nurtured and grew into a very large business — one that would grow to a sizeable six-figure income and sustain a payroll of about 12 people.

I owned a neighborhood vintage and antiques shop. But it didn’t start out that way. My business started out as a bookstore. I was one of the very first third-party sellers on Amazon, back when the only thing Amazon sold was books. Do you remember those days?

This was before Powells, Thriftbooks or Goodwill were selling books there. I had the advantage of being a programmer at IBM, so it was easy for me to learn the…

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Brain Labs
Brain Labs

Published in Brain Labs

Brain Labs is a place for people to write about ideas. Original, thought-provoking ideas. We challenge writers to find patterns and make connections in fresh, logical, vigorous, engaging, and often counter-intuitive ways.

Susan Brearley
Susan Brearley

Written by Susan Brearley

Writing on Medium since 2016. Boost Nominator, EIC (10 publications), Entrepreneur, Coach, IMBA Community Leader, NGO Founder. https://linktr.ee/SusanBrearley

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