I'm calling it as I've seen it from my experience. I think I made that pretty clear.

I'm not trying to make a general case that there is some specific quality of non-profits that makes it impossible for them to be functional.

As I said pretty clearly above, the wikimedia story sounds typical, based on my interactions with non-profits.

My experience agrees with yours.

I've worked at two companies whose clients have all been non-profits - this has put me in a position to witness the state of dozens of them. I've also spent just as much time in the private sector, which has lent some contrast.

While there are definitely some very well-run non-profits, they are (in my experience) more the exception than the rule. Having said that, I wouldn't say the majority of private sector companies are well-run either.

But in general, the level of flakiness, obsessive behaviour, and eccentricness bordering on insanity was much, much higher at the non-profits. I don't necessarily think that it translated into poor performance as a rule, but at the very least it isn't pretty.

The office parties are a hell of a lot more fun, however, and for my part I'd prefer the company of someone at a non-profit. I have a theory that there's just as much crazy behaviour at for-profits, it's just less tolerated and therefore better hidden (rather than absent).

Well, we've had vastly different experiences, then.

But to state that one isn't aware of the existence of large, decades-old, indisputably functioning non-profit organizations (like e.g. Médecins Sans Frontières) seems, well... disconnected from reality.

Your experience, though, does not meet the reality that there are many fine non-profit success stories. There are a lot of non-functional ones, but I think all folks are pointing out is that it isn't as dire as you have seen.

Success is not the same as functional. One could argue that wikimedia has been very successful in its mission and it is at the same time also disfunctional.

I wouldn't call any of the non-profits I've worked at failures.

Hell, many people have described companies like Microsoft as badly disfunctional, but it would be hard to argue that they are not successful.

If I stepped on anyone's toes with my post, I apologize. I was not trying to take a swipe at any one or any type of organization. I'm still involved with a number of organizations and admire and respect the work that they do.

No, I didn't mean to imply your experiences aren't valuable. I am the one who should apologise.

This kind of civil and thoughtful disagreement on the internet is rare, bravo.

By the criteria you're using, I'm struggling to think of many fully 'functional' for profits that I've worked for.

Wouldn't you need to know of OPs experience to know whether it is hyperbole? You're pushing your own experience as more canonical, and putting the difference down to a 'drama queen' label attributed to OP.