Hahaha me too! I worked for NFPs for 10 years and Germans couldn’t understand why my job was needed. No good translation of nonprofit either. “Ehrenamtlich” = you’re a volunteer. “Wohltätigkeitsorganisation” implies some philanthropic spirit. I usually say “like the Red Cross”. How do you do it?

There’s a famous oceanographic institution called @whoi.bsky.social in the US that is set up as a nonprofit, so eventually I give up and say it’s like them.