“Fantastic” beats “efficient”

We made the decision, very early, to not charge schools for these visits unless they offered to pay us. Even though Nebraska is doing much better than most states, economy-wise, most school districts are still facing a huge funding shortfall, and can't afford our rates.

Simultaneously, we decided that we need to pay our poets, as it's not reasonable to force someone to choose between teaching a sweet poetry workshop and being able to pay rent (for those artists of ours who are in school or who channel their excess funds to their own creative projects).

It's been a real struggle finding ways to expand our programming while still having enough money to pay everyone, and it's meant that I've done a few workshops pro bono (as has my executive director). Thankfully, my board of directors is on board with this philosophy, and is moving very proactively toward helping to close our current budget gap. Meanwhile, students who attend money-strapped schools still get to hear and see and write poetry that does not suck. My only regret is that we have more interested schools than we have the people or capacity to serve them all, which is the best regret to have.

TL;DR: My non-profit, in a similar philosophical vein to this article, tries as hard as it can to not charge for services, knowing full well that many of our clients can't afford them. This doesn't translate to business, but further reinforces the point that sometimes it's worth a bit of inefficiency.