Why is Landmark Worldwide (formerly Landmark Education) a for-profit company and not a non-profit organization?

It was originally employee owned. They license their content as well. Both factors may have helped with a for profit structure.

My first response is: "Why would it be a non-profit?"  It's a teaching institution that delivers life-changing value to people. My second response is:  While I do not arrogate to speak for Other unless requested, in MY world education is one of THE most valuable commodities.  So the mindset that education (that makes a difference and is brilliantly conceived) should be delivered from a NON-profit seems absurd.   Werner Erhard poured his genius into developing this psychoemotional black box technology.  Landmark Education has nurtured his original work into a global empire that has spawned hundreds of thousands of wonderful personal and professional success stories.  I choose to live in a world where excellence is GENEROUSLY compensated. And my third response is:  Please look at whether or not you, personally, would want to be generously compensated for years of diligent, heart-breaking work... and what part of someone else being compensated similarly might feel unfair to you. Your question is neutral, so you may not feel that Landmark "should" be an NPO.  Yet, if you do, I strongly urge you to look at your own judgments about other people's success. Hope that helps.

Why something exists can be an unanswerable question. However, Landmark and the predecessor organizations were all for-profit. When Erhard sold the technology, it was to a company owned entirely by the staff, through an Employee Stock Option Plan. Landmark does ordinarily make a profit, but it has never declared a dividend, rather all profits are plowed back into operations, apparently. The corporation claims that executives are compensated comparably with other executives in the training industry. Center staff, it's quite true, are not paid much. Forum Leaders are better paid, I suspect, but there is also high turnover, because Forum Leaders can make much more money, apparently, consulting for business. Basically, Landmark acts more like a nonprofit than a for-profit company. My own suspicion is that it remains for-profit in order to keep it honest. Landmark does not go around asking for donations. It does depend heavily on the assisting program, which includes all Leaders short of Forum Leader, i.e., Introduction Leaders, Self-Expression and Leadership Program Leaders, Seminar Leaders, all are volunteers. If not for these volunteers, Forum tuition would have to be much higher, it's obvious. In France, Landmark was ruled governmentally to be violating labor laws there, by not paying "employees." I.e., those in the assisting program. Landmark's response was to pull out of France. They could have done something else: create a nonprofit in France and license the technology to it. I don't know why they didn't go this hybrid route. Maybe Landmark management has a bit of "You can't make me" strong suit running. Some think that if Landmark went nonprofit that the tuition would go down. Very unlikely. If someone believes that the tuition should be lower -- lots of graduates would want to see  that -- then forming a nonprofit to subsidize tuition could easily be done. It hasn't been done, to my knowledge. By the way, this would not be allowed as a Self-Expression and Leadership Program project. They cannot involve Landmark, that's explicit in the rules. SELP projects are generally in the nonprofit arena, lots of nonprofit corporations have been formed this way. But they don't have the name "Landmark" on them. My suspicion is that, at  present, the Forum is a slight loss-leader; the reason I think that is that the Advanced Course is essentially the same, in terms of presentation logistics, but the tuition is higher. By the way, multiplying the number of participants by the tuition will give misleadingly high numbers for Forum gross, because a fair number of Forum participants are either free (Introductions Leaders, for example, are required to take  the Forum every two years, as I recall, and it's free for them; it's also free for full time police and fire personnel, after 9/11/2001 and the New York Landmark Center came down with the World Trade Center), or are reviewers, at about half cost, and there are certain other discounts. A writer here referred to assisting for years and that he would not have done this had he known that this was "making a fabulously profitable company more profitable." Why did this person join the assisting program? Is Landmark "fabulously profitable"? Who is getting the money, then? Who knows the numbers? What I do know is that I have many friends who have been on Staff and they, as owners, would get the financial reports, by legal right, and if Landmark is lying, they, being relatively low-paid, with a high commitment to integrity, would have blown the whistle. It simply doesn't make sense, but obviously this person believes in his story of Something Terribly Wrong. If he assisted for years, nevertheless he missed something. If one looks around, one also finds people who obviously got a great deal out of their participation with Landmark, but then had a negative experience with some leader or staff person or the like, and it soured them on the whole experience. Basically, people are still people, and Landmark does not make anyone perfect. It can get spectacularly close, sometimes!

I'm a Certified Financial Planner (with an MBA) so I'll answer this question from the perspective of business structure. The format of your question, "why is it for-profit and not non-profit" suggests that you think it should be non-profit so I'll admit I'm answering from that perspective. Many people really misunderstand the for-profit, non-profit distinction. First: the technicals. Both types of organizations are corporations, the "non-profit" corporations have been granted 501(c) status by the IRS, typically because their activities are one of about 10 types of activities that the tax code was created for. 501(c)(3) is the most common. 501(c) corporations are exempt from federal tax. Any organization that has the following purposes can apply for 501(c) status: charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, public safety, amateur sports, and preventing cruelty to children and animals. 501(c) organizations, for the most part, provide a good or service that they do not charge for. They are funded by donations from their donor base: private citizens and organizations who are interested in furthering their cause. Having worked for several 501(c) organizations, I am intimately familiar with the process. The provision of the good or service is distinct from the relationship the organization has with its donors. The donors influence the provision of the good or service, and the leadership of the 501(c) is, by nature, extremely involved with keeping the donor base happy. The outward appearance (marketing, PR) of the 501(c) organization is that they are primarily accomplishing good for society. In practice, the pressure to please donors, constantly raise money, and demonstrate efficiency is intense. 501(c) organizations often find they must hire highly compensated leadership (often titled Executive Director) because they need someone who has ties to the professional community. The organization depends on the relationship of their leader to other wealthy people to secure donations. They often hire former CEOs, and the compensation paid to these people by the organization has caused lots of bad press in the past. Other corporations (so called "for profit") provide a good or service that they do charge for. Their relationship with their customers is direct. I know I am providing something of value when I deliver it and you pay for it. The primary difference between a 501(c) organization and a regular corporation is where they get their capital. It really is all business, and I don't see that Landmark could provide the same services it currently does were it organized as a 501(c).

My guess would be that the executives of Landmark consider that business model to be the one that best supports the goals of the firm. And Hillary (below) did a great job explaining the technical aspects of that. It sounds like you are asking because the structure of the firm includes so many volunteers and that structure is not like most for-profit companies with which you may be familiar (I'm not familiar with others like that either, but I don't rule out there may be some). The volunteer programs at Landmark were different than other volunteer opportunities I'd had other places. There's an exchange happening - while I volunteer for them, they are giving me a training program. And, not only am I getting training that doesn't exist in very many places, I also get the opportunity to contribute in a material way in people's lives. This is a very potent combination for high value for a volunteer. Landmark gives much of this training away free to volunteers (there are still some aspects for which one might pay).  Landmark gets interested, committed and dedicated people to talk about their programs and help run the local centers; and the volunteers get trained in recognizing and bringing excellence and engagement (and more) to any area of their lives they want.    This is kind of brilliant. Because without the exchange of money, there's the potential for a very different relationship in this volunteer/training exchange. I'm not there as an employee because I have to be, or because my financial survival is dependent on it, I'm there entirely because I want to be and because I said I would - because I'm getting some compelling value from it. Landmark gets my labor and efforts (and frankly, there have been times Landmark has paid a price for using volunteer labor that doesn't always represent them well) toward filling their programs and/or running their business. As long as the volunteer experiences the value he/she is receiving to be equal or greater than the effort they are giving, things are as they were designed. When the balance is off, it may then be time to complete the volunteer agreement and move on.

Rather than worry about why Landmark is 'for profit', like DeVry or Kaplan, or any other educational institution... rather than spend time looking for some sinister use of your $595.00 - Ask yourself a simple question. Studies show that 94% of the people participating regarded the course as having a profound positive impact on their life, even when asked years later.  The question to be asking is this. "Is a profound positive impact on my life worth $595 and three days and an evening?"  Why is any corporation for-profit?  To yield value to the stockholders.  In Landmark's case, the stockholders are the employees.  As to the prior comment regarding 'selling air', the math proposed is wrong.  Landmark leases prime office and meeting space in many places around the world.  They have staff in every location.  They fly leaders around the world every week, month in and month out.  Money is spent on literature, sales materials, and all the other costs associated with running an educational business.

I can only guess — I recently completed the Introduction Leaders Program, and the only thing that they told us was that Landmark’s leadership considered every possible ownership structure, a few years back when they made the transition from Landmark Education to Landmark Worldwide, and concluded that a for-profit entity was the best vehicle to develop, preserve and spread the work of Landmark.But my guess would be, Landmark’s need to maintain control of the work.(Please be advised, this is only a guess. I wasn’t privy to the discussions, I am not in an official leadership capacity for Landmark nor any kind of official spokesman for them; and I don’t need any Landmartians lecturing me on, that’s my story, that’s my interpretation . . . I know that, and I acknowledge it. But this is my conclusion based on what I have seen and what I do know.)As a private, for-profit entity, Landmark can assert a great deal of control over the content of its technology, and how that technology is presented, and how that technology is used by anyone claiming any sort of official affiliation with Landmark. For example, it is not permitted to lead an Introduction to the Landmark Forum to a non-profit organization: I could not lead an intro at, say, a Jaycees’ meeting. I don’t know why. Shoot, I could have registered just under half of a good-sized local Jaycees chapter into an upcoming Forum. They didn’t tell me why. It’s just Landmark’s policy and they felt no need to justify it.Only Landmark’s employees have any input in content of its technology, and how that technology is presented; and while Landmark is an employee-owned enterprise, I suspect that ultimate control of the technology rests in only a few of those employees.A non-profit corporation cannot be nearly so tightly controlled, and things can get a little fuzzy over who is or isn’t a ‘stakeholder’ and entitled to a say in things.This is important when you consider how Landmark relies upon its Assisting Program even for most of its leadership and event support at the local level — seminar leaders, SELP leaders, communications program leaders, the production team at events, course supervisors, etc. By the way, here’s where I cut in to address directly something else you noticed and mentioned: Landmark doesn’t have ‘volunteers’. The Assisting Program — the participants in which are the people you see at events, who a lot of people think are mere volunteers — is primarily a https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&q=personal+coaching&oq=personal+coaching&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.3904j0j1, the kind that most people who get into personal coaching sign up for and get charged fifty to a hundred bucks per session, often more. http://landmarkpersonalcoaching.com/ When I was assisting, I had two calls a week, in addition to the time I spent on the production team at the seminar doing the work involved in keeping that set up and functioning. This is done at no cost to the assistant, although it might be said you ‘work for it’ a bit.Another, perhaps more accurate way of putting it would be, I spent the Tuesday evenings on which the seminar was held doing the work involved in setting up and creating the space for the seminar, and getting to hang out with the people associated with that, in addition to the two calls. I didn’t mind. I had fun doing it, and got to be part of something that was worth being part of.It’s not a volunteer or public service ‘do-gooder’ gig. Landmark gets away with all the ‘unpaid help’ (‘unpaid’ in the sense that no money changes hands) under the same law that allows large companies — especially media companies — have people working for them in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internship: it’s quite legal under the Fair Labor Standards Act, if the work is primarily for the training and development of the intern . . . and Landmark is a personal growth, training and development company. And I might feel a lot better, or less uncomfortable, about being viewed by you as a champion of the ‘public good’ after you define ‘public good’, and I’m okay with how you define it! . . . Landmark has no political or social agenda to bring to the world: it concerns itself only with supporting individuals in being powerful and effective with what they’re dealing with and what they care about. With that many people involved in the decision-making process of a non-profit, things can get pretty political.The work of Landmark is best preserved by having all decisions as to its content and its presentation made on the basis of what is most appropriate to the work, not on the basis of who can jump in with an agenda and have the biggest following behind them in pressing that agenda.It’s also important when you consider how many Landmark participants — and, particularly, introduction leaders — are into professional personal coaching as a business, or in developing and presenting education programs of their own. All of them have signed off on agreements to protect the proprietary materials of Landmark. Few if any of them would want to do anything to discredit or harm the work of Landmark in any way. I know of no case of anyone violating Landmark’s proprietary materials agreements or of misusing the technology in any way (and , if someone is determined) on any large scale.But it does go to show how many people are out there who are prone to find new applications for the technology, or Landmark’s presentation methods. And it goes to show how many people are capable of creating something new around it, and would certainly want their ideas and concepts — for good or ill — incorporated into the work if they were permitted a say in the development, content, or presentation of it. A non-profit would have people claiming to be stakeholders and thus entitled to a say. A private, commercial entity would be in a better position to assert its ownership rights and say no when it feels the need.As a private, commercial entity, Landmark can also more clearly keep its relationships with participants in the Assisting Program at arm’s length, and there is no gray area wherein the assistants’ participation entitles them to any kind of participation in the decision-making processes of Landmark, as might be the case if Landmark were a non-profit.Landmark also needs to be able, when appropriate, to assert its ownership rights in the event that someone ever attempts any misuse of the technology, and to do so without a current of former participant doing what he or she is doing under claim of right, as could conceivably happen if Landmark were a non-profit.Landmark doesn’t ask for donations or gifts, so there is no need for it to have 501(c)(3) status. So, Landmark doesn’t need to be a non-profit, and it enjoys very real advantages in keeping itself a privately-held, commercial entity.Perhaps I’m relying too much upon my own speculation in making those conclusions, but I can’t imagine any other reason for Landmark to not operate as a non-profit. Landmark isn’t profitable, and doesn’t try to be. Landmark is owned by its employees under an ESOP, no single employee owns more than three percent, Landmark has never paid any dividends, and all of its operating surpluses are reinvested into expanding the availability of what it has to offer. Landmark’s tuition charges for their programs are affordable for most everyone, so I see no reason to begrudge them the money they take in. Their expenses seem to be reasonable. I don’t see anyone connected with Landmark in an official capacity splurging on anything, living large, or having an ostentatiously affluent lifestyle. (I was actually a bit surprised to learn that the Forum Leaders aren’t really that well paid. Given the demands of that accountability, the training that goes into attaining it, and their key role in the lives of every Landmark participant — everyone remembers their Forum Leader, probably for the rest of their lives — you’d think that the Forum Leaders would make a lot more money than they do.) If anything, I think Landmark skimps in some areas where I feel it would be more to their advantage, and better support the spread of the work, for them to invest a little more.So, it doesn’t leave much by way of conceivable explanation other than Landmark’s need — quite respectable, when you think about it — to control and protect its technology, and keep it from ever becoming diluted or corrupted, or used in a way that is harmful or inappropriate.That would probably explain why you don’t see Landmark’s technology incorporated into pricey ‘get rich quick’ seminars, and you don’t attend any Landmark events where some sort of political, religious, or social agenda having little or no relevance to the actual work of Landmark, as it now exists, is made part of it.I participate in Landmark’s programs, and I’m okay with having it that way.

A not-for-profit company does not distribute profit (or losses) to its shareholders, but maintains a Board of Directors that for the most part are volunteers.  This Board, and its elected executive team, may hire specialists such as instructors or teachers, but if there's a profit at the end of the year, it doesn't flow back to anybody.   A company that's set up as a corporation has shareholders (possibly employees, possibly other people) who are paid dividends or a share of the profits if any are available.  Now, Landmark has hit upon an ingenious way to use volunteer labor to generate income for the corporation.  As long as the volunteers are OK with it, and believe they are being intangibly compensated somehow, it's fine by me.   Most corporations like to present themselves as champions for the public good.  The image doesn't necessarily have to have a basis in fact.  In fact, it's generally a load of hype.

Historically from EST onward thru Landmark the businesses have made enormous profits.  The business are low overhead, at least in the past they paid their staff very poorly, and most of the work is done by volunteers.  Werner Erhard had an absolutely incredible tax advisor, Harry Margolis, who helped tax "shelter" the income such that the profits were not visible on the US balance sheets.  The IRS eventually caught on, Werner paid a settlement to the IRS, Harry Margolis died during the investigations, and life goes on. Whether it was "tax sheltering" or "tax fraud", well, the case is closed. Google Harry Margolis if you want to know more. Next, do the math - estimate how many students take each course per month, multiply by the tuition, make some estimates of the number of staff and their salaries and see how the numbers look. As a former financial adviser to Landmark told me "Think about it. They are selling air. No manufacturing cost, no inventory, no cost of good sold. No advertising. Just some plane tickets, some hotel rooms, and a lot of conference calls." It is for profit because that is what the business is about - its about making money.  It has always been about making money.  The employees are measured by how many sales (enrollments) they make, not how many lives they change. Landmark is a business, and it does what businesses do - develop products, sell products and deliver.. Because it has a good product, and repeat customers, and a functional business model, it continues to be out there finding students, putting them into chairs, delivering the product and cashing the checks. IMHO the product is pretty good, which is one of the reasons it has been a profitable business. It also seems, in the balance, to make the world a better place. Having said that, during the years I was a volunteer, I would not have contributed my time so freely had I known what I was doing was making a fabulously profitable company more profitable. I wonder if today the volunteers know about the profitability of the firm?  This is one of those points on which I've always felt that there was a clear lack of integrity in these businesses.