Non-profits don't really stop any of that. Plenty of non-profits are after perverse incentives to gather as much money as they can to just pay higher ups more money, and use the non-profit status to pay employees less.

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TimTheTinker 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Maybe there's a third way. What about a company owned by a "perpetual purpose trust" - i.e. a trust with a defined purpose that is legally binding. It's the only shareholder, so no extracting value and all profits have to comply with the trust's bylaws in how they are used. Patagonia (US company) is one example of this; it's profits are legally bound to go toward environmental causes.

Bosch and Zeiss in Germany are comparable - they are Verantwortungseigentum (Steward-Ownership).

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buellerbueller an hour ago | parent | next [-]

This is the business model of The Guardian:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited

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chrisweekly 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That sounds kind of like a B-Corp, innit?

	▲	TimTheTinker 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's a third-party certification that can be allowed to lapse, not a legal or legally enforceable status. https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/certification/

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embedding-shape 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Plenty of non-profits are after perverse incentives to gather as much money as they can to just pay higher ups more money

Where is this specifically, in the US? Usually the laws of the country prevent this, since they're you know... Non-profits... But wouldn't surprise me there are a few leftover countries who refuse to join the modern world.

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ecshafer 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The US has this problem. There aren't really rules on paying executives as much as you want, or having bonus structures based on fundraising, as long as the board okays it and considers it as contributing to the mission. It is non-profit because it doesn't pay out profits to investors. This is a large way corruption happens in the US, ie a lot of those "X politician foundations" pay modest amounts of money to some cause, but a large percentage of the donations go to the executive as a salary for running the corp, the executive is the politician. Its a big shell game.

	▲	embedding-shape 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, seemingly a local problem rather than a problem with non-profits, unfortunately :/ Hope things get better over there over time!