Philanthropist Eddie Phillips has considered the entrepreneurial model of sustainability, and he likes it. But he thinks it would be challenging for nonprofits such as the Worldwide Orphans Foundation. In the past, the organization has held art shows displaying works created by some of the orphans that founder and pediatrician Jane Aronson has treated. This type of sideline for-profit venture, like the gift shops attached to nearly every large museum in the world, can be useful, but too much emphasis on selling can sap the energy from a charity’s primary mission.

Adlai Wertman’s strategy is decidedly different. He gave up a Wall Street career to join a nonprofit aimed at helping people at the bottom of society earn money, so generating income is an important part of his charity’s overall mission. Chrysalis has an annual budget of about $8 million. Forty percent of the budget comes from donations, while the other 60 percent is earned through contracts with local business-improvement districts and companies that pay Chrysalis to supply staff to sweep streets, prune gardens or remove graffiti from buildings. Wertman can market his company as one that rehabilitates people; most Chrysalis workers are formerly homeless, some spent time in prison and all lack the skills to reenter the labor force without help. But running a charitable business is "unbelievably hard," Wertman admits. He is forced to budget for additional staff to compensate for inefficient workers. Simultaneously, he must compete in pricing and service with for-profit maintenance contractors. "We go out and sell our customers on participating in a social mission," he says, "but we’re only going to be hired by our customers if we have the lowest price and the best services."

He has, however, received a charitable helping hand from Alan Long, president of the Southern California division of Sotheby’s International Realty and a Chrysalis board member, who wanted to help ensure the charity’s sustainability. In 2002, Long devised a program that involved eventually asking the 700 brokers who worked for him if they would care to donate $95 from each of their commissions to Chrysalis. The idea took off, and began generating as much as $100,000 annually. When Long sold his firm, DBL Realtors, to Sotheby’s four years ago, he set aside $1.6 million for Chrysalis, which it used to buy a building in Santa Monica. Over the long term, his contribution will save the nonprofit approximately $120,000 each year in rental or mortgage payments.

Elizabeth Harris is a staff writer for Worth.

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