by Adriano Izzo, Civil Lawyer and President of the Gennaro Santilli Foundation,
During the ceremony marking his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, Michael Jordan concluded his speech with these words:
“One day, you might look up and see me playing at 50.”
The audience laughed.
MJ, who had anticipated this reaction (because he had anticipated it—there’s no doubt about that; you don’t become MJ by chance), ended with a final statement that encapsulates his mindset and essence:
“Never say never, because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion.”
For MJ, these inspirational words are not just a slogan.
They represent the essence of an extraordinary, iconic career built on dedication, courage, and sacrifice. They embody a competitive mindset bordering on obsession, one that worked on overcoming its own limits and evolved through meditation to become a winning philosophy—globally dominant. Triumphing over everyone and despite everything.
MJ’s words serve as an opportunity to reflect on the efforts of non-profit organizations in achieving their goals. The comparison might seem far-fetched or inappropriate, but there is no doubt that the non-profit world is one of the most complex landscapes to navigate.
Legal, bureaucratic, economic, and cultural limitations often become insurmountable walls, turning every project into a Herculean task not everyone can undertake. These are real limits, unfortunately—not illusory ones—that foster a culture of timidity, shortsightedness, and dependency. Among these challenges are systemic shortages of funding and skilled professionals—not to mention the traps of public grants and funding processes.
And yet, there is a “however” that grows in significance and has the power to change what might seem like a predictable outcome. It can reverse the narrative.
The non-profit world has a powerful, rebellious, courageous, revolutionary, and unconventional spirit. It is embodied by the people who work in this extraordinary sector, often personally connected to the needs they seek to address, usually working alone and underappreciated. Yet they remain active and enthusiastic, despite everything.
This leads us back to MJ’s words: a paradoxical situation where individuals or organizations with extraordinary potential, willing to do anything to help others, are stifled by a system of limits and obstacles so tangible and real that they prevent growth.
In a reverse logic to that described by MJ, there is a desire to achieve great things and surpass one’s limits, but progress stalls when stepping out of one’s own reality into the external world. In other words, while the right mindset is there, the system often lacks the means to embrace and implement it.
Let’s think about resources—a critical issue.
Many organizations (particularly in the Italian context) struggle to make ends meet. They turn to public institutions, but the procedures to access funding would discourage even the most dedicated philanthropist. And when resources finally arrive—if they arrive—they are insufficient to cover the full lifecycle of a project. These funds are insensitive to the possibility of failure, which is often an essential part of the process, sometimes necessary to refine the model and ultimately achieve success.
Equally delicate is the issue of training. There is no adequate professionalization of the roles within the non-profit sector. Managers, notaries, lawyers, accountants, and tax experts with specific training to address the technical complexities of this sector are sorely lacking.
And then, let’s admit it: the non-profit world lacks a genuine entrepreneurial culture. There is a widespread and mistaken belief that non-profit is synonymous with volunteering, whereas it actually means non-distribution of profits, which can and should still be generated. What is truly devastating, however, is the absence of a culture of entrepreneurship for social purposes. As long as this gap persists, the entire non-profit system will remain marginalized, viewed with unnecessary goodwill and unspoken pity.
We must ask ourselves what can be done to overcome this situation. Appropriate and innovative answers could come from foundations and for-profit companies. Foundations, in particular, must not only act as funding bodies but also experiment with new intervention methods.
In every non-profit organization, there is undoubtedly someone with MJ’s mindset. Every non-profit organization has the potential to become an unbeatable team, like the Chicago Bulls of the ’90s. The challenge is to create the conditions for them to act. The true challenge of the future, alongside the fight against climate change, is precisely this.
