I’ll be honest: I wrestled with the idea of making Fair Ground a non-profit for a long time. It felt like the “correct” thing to do. If you’re preaching about community sustainability and accessibility, the 501(c)(3) badge is usually the uniform you’re expected to wear. It’s the gold standard for “doing good.”
So, I did what I always do, I went down a research rabbit hole. With a little help from my AI assistants (shoutout to Claude for making the deep-dive 10x faster), I started looking at the heavy hitters who are already out there doing the incredible, grueling work.
Learning from the Giants
I spent a lot of time looking at organizations like Colloqate in New Orleans, who use “Design Justice” to dismantle power structures through the architectural process, and RestoreOKC, which focuses on community-led transformation through urban farming and restorative justice.
These organizations are masters of their craft. But as I researched, my brain did that annoying, competitive thing. I started asking, “How can I do this better?”
That felt wrong. It felt less like a mission and more like someone prioritizing “winning” over actual impact. I realized I was falling into a trap of thinking I had to compete with the very people I admired. Why was I trying to reinvent a wheel that was already spinning beautifully?
The Beauty (and the Burden) of the Non-Profit
The more I looked at the landscape, the more I saw how many amazing organizations are already in the ring, groups like The Thurgood Marshall College Fund, Covenant House, and Feeding America, plus the thousands of tiny, grassroots teams that are often overlooked.
Non-profits are the backbone of our communities, providing vital services like emergency housing and food security. But they also face a massive hurdle: the “funding fatigue” cycle. Most non-profits spend a staggering amount of time chasing grants and donors just to keep the lights on.
I realized that if I added another name to the “non-profit population,” I’d be competing for the same limited pool of grant money as the organizations I wanted to support. I didn’t want to take a slice of their pie; I wanted to bake a whole new one.
Why the For-Profit Engine Works for Us
This is where the pivot happened. I realized that by staying a for-profit entity, we could actually be more helpful to the ecosystem.
When you’re a for-profit with a soul, you aren’t waiting for a check to arrive to start a project. You create your own capital. It gives us a level of agility and independence that is hard to find elsewhere. We don’t have to pivot our mission to match a donor’s whim; we answer directly to the community members and customers we serve.
For-profit sustainability means we aren’t just “giving back”, we are building an economic engine that fuels itself. It allows us to be a partner to the non-profit world rather than another competitor for their resources.
Introducing: Fair Play
Instead of picking a side between “business” and “charity,” we built a bridge. We created Fair Play, the community-focused arm of Fair Ground. Think of it as our heart, funded by our hustle.
Here’s how we’re making it work:
- 20% for the People: Fair Play is primarily funded by Fair Ground. 20% of every single project goes directly into Fair Play. This creates a consistent, reliable stream of capital that is re-invested back into the community.
- The “Joy” Fund: While many non-profits have to focus on survival (food, shelter), Fair Play focuses on thriving. We back smaller community projects built around joy such ad art, gatherings, and creative spaces.
- Supporting the Grassroots: We use our resources to lift up those smaller, overlooked organizations and community leaders who are doing the work but don’t have the “big name” visibility yet.
- A Different Kind of Scholarship: We’ve launched scholarships that ignore GPA and academic records. We know that schools vary wildly in resources, and a student’s potential shouldn’t be defined by the zip code they were born in.
The Bottom Line
Choosing to be a for-profit wasn’t about moving away from the mission, it was about securing it. By building Fair Ground this way, we stay lean, fast, and sustainable. It allows us to keep our doors open and our resources accessible to everyone.
We’re not here to replace the non-profits doing the work; we’re here to provide the extra fuel they deserve. It’s about building a system where success and impact aren’t at odds—they’re the same thing.
Let’s get to work.
Truly inspiring!!