Balancing Money and Mission

Comments about money and independent education made by a trustee at a recent board retreat reminded me anew that many in the school world are deeply conflicted about finance. The trustee in question expressed concern that the conversation not be "too much" about financial sustainability for fear it would ignore the softer, more compassionate aspects of elementary education. We have heard this before!
There seem to be two world . One view is that the nonprofit sector in general and schools in particular should be refuges from the commercial world. I suspect that some faculty and staff--maybe even an occasional administrator--are propelled into the independent school world seeking just such a refuge. The second view is that schools should acknowledge their nature as businesses and engage in better customer relations, financial management, and market analyses; in short, run like a real business.
Both positions are valid, but in the real world they seem to polarize with each pushing the other farther away. A unifying framework would be the "Triple Bottom Line" concept, wherein "people, planet and profits" are three ways of gauging organizational outcomes. For the nonprofit, profits would be replaced by "results", meaning the organization's degree of fulfillment on its mission of social change. In reality, money and mission aren't even two sides of the same coin; rather, they are inextricably linked and interdependent aspects of institutional life.