When you donate to a non-profit organisation, you expect your money to be used to help the people the non-profit serves. You want your money to help a pre-schooler, a homeless person or someone with a disease. But what about the non-profit itself? Are donors interested in investing in the growth of a non-profit, so that it can develop a sustainable business model and serve more people over time? Clara Miller and George Overholser think so.

Miller founded Nonprofit Finance Fund in 1980 to lend money to non-profits so they could invest in more energy-efficient light fixtures and equipment. The resulting lower energy bills reduced costs and allowed the non-profits to repay the loan and end up with a permanently lowered cost structure.