Why a nonprofit 501c3 organization?
Woolley hired a consultant in 2004 who helped him decide it would be very difficult to make a profit or return shareholder value to investors if he and Morgan would have set it up as a for-profit. He believed that, like public broadcasters, a nonprofit charter would allow the news service created to focus on a mission. He also believed that, as a nonprofit, it would actually be open to far more sources of revenue than any of the news models that were around in 2004. A nonprofit can get donor and corporate support. It can sell services and receive foundation support. This variety would ultimately provide strength, the board of directors believed. That doesn’t mean it’s not run like a business. We must keep a strict eye on expenses, be innovative and work hard to raise money from a variety of sources — and we must respond to market forces. It just means that any “profit” is being reinvested into the operation and its mission rather than distributed to shareholders. And it means that we m
