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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

> Moreover 80% of non-profit funding comes from the government, so it’s taxpayer dollars that are paying for people to live in San Francisco.

Really? This astounds me! I would have thought the vast vast majority of non-profit funding would be companies funding non-profit industry publicity bodies and standards bodies and similar.

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Apparently the 80% number includes hospitals and fee-for-service revenues (think Medicare or Medicaid) which isn’t quite what I’m getting at. I’ve edited the able to refer to the 65% of government funding for “human services” non-profits as reported here: https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/sites/default/files/docu...

People instantly think 'non-profit' means 'virtuous charity', but first of all not all charities are doing things you or anyone else would agree are genuinely virtuous, and secondly non-profits aren't necessarily working on any kind of 'charity' as a reasonable person would understand it. People should remember - 'non-profit' is an administrative status, not a comment on the value of what they're doing or their motivations for doing it.

And third, nonprofit doesn't mean you don't make money. Ikea is a nonprofit. A job at a nonprofit, thus, is a job for any other entity.

Right - someone at the Wellcome Trust (respected UK genuine medical research charity) earned £3.2 million last year.

https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/charity-pay-study-2019-highest...

Now not saying they aren't worth it - this person probably bought more money in than that so of course it's obviously worth it on the bottom line, and everyone's entitled to earn as much as they can negotiate, it's nobody's business but their own and the people paying them.

But don't hear 'non-profit' and think 'impoverished monk working on noble goals' as one or both may not be the case.

In Northern VA there are whole neighborhoods with huge houses and nice cars. I know a guy who lived there. I asked where all these people worked, thinking Verizon, AOL or similar. He said pretty much all worked for nonprofits. There is great money in non-profit leadership. A lot of hospitals also are non-profit and pay huge salaries to their management.

“Nonprofit” is a statement about ownership, not labor.

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