Non profit organisations trying to remain relevant (or just survive) behave this way because they arent much different from companies operating in a market for profit.
Their leadership is often not that much different, with similar people working in similar jobs educated in the same institutions and walking in the same social circles, producing the same solutions to the existential problem of organisational survival.
As the downcycle lingers on everyone’s doorsteps a lot of non profits that do incredible work are losing funding as the investors back out from commitments they confidently put forward when things were going well. It quickly shutters the non profits. It makes me sad tbh.
Can’t say this is the same thing that happens at Mozilla but you are very right in that a lot of nonprofits seem to be lead by those bring the same operational decision making experience and solutions that you see in publicly traded companies. There are plenty of non-profits that are indistinguishable from public companies in how the board is composed of an inner circle of wealthy unsavory people.
I think this because nonprofits are subject to a similar market discipline as companies: they compete for funding, relevance, market share etc.
And their board composition converges similarly as those same people are relied upon for their connections to fundraise, hire, etc. They don’t want to be seen taking an unusual strategy as it would be perceived as risky and jeopardising precious donated funds, so the same groupthink emerges.
Even if someone outside these circles was hired, they’d be knocked down with the smallest misstep, with the veiled criticism they weren’t suitable for the position (ie someone with better connections should have been chosen), so even they will fall into line.
Genuine independence is almost impossible at this size, because you need a strong internal discipline to only rely on small donors, and not bend your organisation’s mission to keep larger donors
Their leadership is often not that much different, with similar people working in similar jobs educated in the same institutions and walking in the same social circles, producing the same solutions to the existential problem of organisational survival.