tech-company, business-model, revenue, non-profitI am looking for a revenue model that is applicable to high-tech non-profit organizations. How do non profit technology ventures generate revenue?
Broadly, non-profits get income four ways.
First, they may ask for donations from supporters. This is probably what most of us think of first, especially for non-profits that have genuinely and explicitly charitable purposes. This kind of non-profit scales its operations according to donations.
Second, they may get income from assets held for that purpose. In my jurisdiction, most non-profits (numerically) have this as their sole or primary source of income. Such a nonprofit will probably have relatively stable income year by year, which may be modest (as for instance when the assets were given centuries ago), or substantial (some museums, for instance).
Third, they may contract with third parties to deliver services. Many nonprofits that exist to benefit particular groups - for instance people with a particular medical condition - become involved in service delivery where some or all of the funding comes from governments, NGOs and others.
Fourth, they may carry out “profitable” activities. “Profitable” gets the quote marks because, depending on the jurisdiction, such activities may fall outside what is allowed of non-profits. So you will often find legal entities that exist to plug the gap. So a non-profit may have an associated for-profit company that donates profits. Some jurisdictions have hybrid corporate forms to help smaller organizations avoid the administrative and cost burden.
Grants and fundraising are how most non-profits raise funds.
Note: Providing a generic answer, since you’ve failed to respond to my comment to your question. Please feel free to update your question and then comment on this answer to review your updates and respond with an update in my answer.
I’m consider non-profit in your case those companies who provide services / product for free for some cause, then
Mozilla (sort of) follows advertisment model having Google as primary search now Yahoo. They paid 6Billion because of “the reach to target audience” FireFox has.
Ubuntu used to sell support for their servers.
Wikipedia and other non-profit go about with the help of awesome people donating to the cause.
The business models can get really complicated if dug deep into them but this should answer your question if keeping things simple.
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