Cohousing-L Mailing List: Cohousing vs Nextdoor

[William New (wnew]

> On Jan 5, 2016, at 9:14 AM, Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> what is their business model? How do they make money?
> Because if they are for-profit, they have to make money *somehow*.

The same can be said for co-housing, non-profit enterprises, schools, academic 
research, and every other on-going economic activity that needs to pay their 
bills (including interest on debt or comparable return to at-risk equity 
contributors) in order to sustainably survive:  one needs to “make” money 
somehow, either by receiving grants, charging tuition, collecting 
contributions, or — yes — selling a product/service to a customer who believes 
that what they receive is more valuable than the money they have in their 
pocket, so for the seller there is something (“profit”) left over to invest 
back in this business or into another.  In the non-profit world we call the 
“something left over” by the name “retained surplus”.

All of these organizations can be fully truthful and well run (and most are), 
and any of these could be sneaky or abusive.  For-profits are no more guilty of 
exploitation than the others, with egregious examples in every category.

Full disclosure is the key to making a buyer/customer decision as to whether 
one should participate.  Caveat emptor is an eternal verity, regardless of the 
business model, be it for-profit, non-profit, academia or any other enterprise 
that exchanges goods/services for money.

Amen.

=== Bill (thoughts after 60+ years personal involvement in all of these 
economic structures)

William New
StillCreek Commons
94062-0951