What is the role of non-profits in the long tail theory

After our readings and discussions this week I am curious to know what place the non-profit project has in the world of Media 2.0. The internet is a rich source of open-sourcing and is full of people with projects which are not based on dollars and fans. What about art for the sake of creativity? Here, for example, is a great project I ran across this morning:

http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject

The concept is to gather sketchpads into a collective which is then sent on tour, digitalized and recorded for posterity. I imagine that somewhere in the inner workings there is some money, perhaps a grant which funds the project. However, the focus of the project is not on making money (as far as I can tell). The focus seems to be on collective creativity and empowerment of the people. All those folks who didn't go to art school (or haven't yet). I have been around long enough to see the rise of popular and the fall. In the end, is it really all about how much money you make or how many cheap toys you amass? Don't we, as a society, want to make a place for art for its own sake? We can make the internet a vast emporium of cheep t-shirts and toys or a rich library of many voices.