The word "non-profit" is not a particularly appealing one. It immediately conjures flaccid images of African refugee camps and half-watched, depressing, late-night infomercials. If you were trying to find a powerful, attractive word that could galvanize millions of people to give, non-profit is not that word. As a culture, we're too geared towards the power and lure of its antithesis, profit.

There is, however, a tremendous amount of tangible, brass-tacks good that comes from non-profit organizations. Again, doing good is nice, but it's not cool. Therein lies the rub for organizations trying to galvanize support and make real, lasting change a permanent thing -- doing good is seldom as sexy (for lack of a better word) as apathy and detached nonchalance.

At some point it became fashionable to not care, which is tantamount to a crime against humanity when the scope of suffering and need is taken into account. While that may be an exaggeration, how else can a lack of action in the face of some much need be characterized? This is why successful non-profits have had to think and act more and more like corporations. That is, they have had to adopt a variant of the corporate model in order to thrive.

Many purists -- who think a non-profit should lack a definitive, hierarchical structure -- are bound to be upset by the adoption of the corporate model, even though it has proven rather effective. To be sure, the amounts of capital some better known non-profits generate rival corporate profits. Case in point: United Way, which posted more than $3 billion in 2009 donations.

The effects of non-profit strategic planning have paid off, so to speak. More donations mean more people are getting the help they need. More donations mean more children are getting services they can't get in their local communities. More donations mean non-profits can hire more and more qualified staff who, in turn, can help more and more people.