There are scores of ways that educational nonprofits can serve the public good. An NPO may teach people valuable life skills or provide an alternative means for community education. Not-for-profits may promote arts education or theatre. These organizations may focus their programs on children, adults or seniors, or may tailor their agendas to immigrant or impoverished members of their specific communities.
NPOs that are devoted to research can also aid the local community. A research-oriented nonprofit may work on studying medical devices or they may be apply themselves to improving a technology that can sustain the environment. These are just a few of the many ways that nonprofits impact their communities each day.
Aside from the general guideline of promoting the public good through education or research, there are a number of other allowable enterprises. These include:
- Certain types of amateur athletics
- Promoting the livelihoods of the general public
- Providing education that enhances the public safety
- Encouraging literacy
- Providing opportunities for life-long learning
Training the unemployed to enter into new careers is a perfect example of these categories. Educating the unemployed is one way to people a chance to perfect new job skills that they would otherwise not be accessible to them. Programs that work to give supervision to minors through after-school programs, that provide daytime trips for seniors to hear history lectures, or even research that is focused on safety and education are all examples of promoting the public good.
