by KYW's Dr. Marciene Mattleman

Recently, in a New York Times article, I was delighted to learn that Mozilla, the company that makes my web browser, is one of those  being referred to as a new style  “hybrid” organization, a social enterprise generating  revenue so that non profits need not rely on philanthropists.

TechSoup, another such company, started twenty years ago to connect technology experts with non profit groups. It now distributes commercial software to non profits in 14 countries from 12 commercial companies including Cisco, Microsoft and Symantec reaching approximately 50,000 organizations a year.

Both companies employ hundreds of employees and each has revenue of over $50 million annually.They’re self-sufficient enterprises that are reinvesting their profits.

Debra Dunn, an associate professor at Stanford University is quoted as saying that for decades business was thought of as “evil and sustainability was irrelevant.” Now she believes that some entrepreneurs are saying they have enough money and that they care.

As the nation is still trying to forget Enron, it’s good to learn that a few big tech businesses have a social mission.