This piece is lightning with a capital L. Hats off to your insight and clarity. I spent ~20 years in branding (marketing communications) and ~20 years in nonprofits (grant writing).

There is indeed a branding problem as you say. (There are other problems that exacerbate the branding problem, but that's not the discussion we're having now.)

The term "nonprofit" comes from the IRS. As you say, nonprofits are not about money. "NGO" has perhaps a similar problem. NGO says we're not about power. Two iconic questions in marketing are "are you selling sushi or raw fish?" and "Is it a dessert topping or floor wax?"

The first thing that comes to mind now is "we are a *movement* and we want you to join us, because you and us, we care about the world."

"Movement" has been misused and perhaps many movements have had disappointing results But "movement" puts the focus on people, which for some of us transcends money and power.

Even foundations are money-driven in their thinking. For some reason people/organizations with money give to people/organizations with money. They trust people/orgs with money to "handle it wisely."

And they have a point. Many EDs I've worked with are frightened by money. And they are frightened by risk and commitment.

Too often the people willing to make serious commitments and stand by them go into business or government, instead of making people's lives better. How can we change that? (Where are the iron-willed caregivers?)

The above is all explicit or implicit in your piece. How can we redirect funds? It feels like the rebranding you speak of ultimately needs to rebrand money and power too. Money and power need to be tightly linked with doing good, instead of ends in themselves.