But questions about for-profit operations continue to mount.
There are about two dozen around the country, most of them run as for-profit operations.
That means learning grant-proposal writing, fund-raising and not-for-profit operations and management.
H.M.O.'s are hardly a model of business efficiency, and unlike colleges and universities, they are mostly for-profit operations.
Requiring ever-increasing returns on investments, for-profit operations are far more expensive than public financing through progressive taxation or bonds.
Advocates for public health have argued that for-profit operations would mainly benefit stockholders and investors by cherry-picking patients and procedures, sending the poorest and uninsured patients to other overwhelmed hospitals, and shredding a frayed safety net.
Some of these programmes are run by public-sector agencies of one kind or another – or not-for-profit operations to which the public sector has contracted the job.
COMPANIES involved in e-commerce have always seemed a lot like not-for-profit operations -- constantly on the lookout for new funding and constantly losing money, all the while stressing that profits are not the immediate priority.
I've suggested Vanguard because it specializes in index funds and because, while most fund firms are for-profit operations run for the benefit of shareholders, Vanguard is owned by the people who invest in its products.
Some are even for-profit operations offering no investment and charging a fee.
Today Shelburne is an unusual blend of nonprofit and for-profit operations that brought in $8.1 million in revenue last year.
