Lean together with Toyota shocked the world when it came out. It turned a devastated company into the top car manufacturer. Ever since, the concept of lean has been implemented in companies outside of Toyota, industries outside of the car manufacturing industry and even in the public sector. The non-profit sector suffers problems of inexperienced leaders and economic problems according to theory which is hoped to be solved using lean. It has yet to be properly been introduced into non-profit organizations which this study aims to do.

Previous research regarding an implementation of lean in an NPO is almost non-existing. Few instances where specific problems were solved using lean exist but nothing more. Implementing lean as it currently is does not fit well with the nature of non-profit organizations. Therefore, lean must be translated. To make up for a lack of previous research, the study collected qualitative data in the form of semi-structured interviews of eleven people within NPOs. Information regarding lean was gathered through a literature review.

The study discovered that the problem regarding uneducated leaders was existent in most interviewed organizations while the economic problems wasn’t equally apparent. NPOs struggled with wastes due to lack of standardization since unpaid employees mostly help out during their spare time and leaders did not feel they could implement standardization and demands upon them. This and other conclusions constitute the answer to the research question with hopes to be a stepping stone to future research. Further research should focus on how to implement standardization while motivating unpaid employees.