The .ORG domain is at a crossroads: What will it be? A simple registry offering domain names for organizations, individuals and others? Or something bigger, as Ethos Capital and the Public Internet Registry propose? Will proposed changes make .ORG better? Or worse?

There are valid points on both sides, but as an Internet safety advocate who for two decades has worked to teach children how to be safe online, stop the next young girl from being sex trafficked, and created an Internet curriculum to be taught in schools, I know one thing: we all, including .ORG, have to evolve if we want to stay relevant and help society.

The challenge for successful organizations is to find a way to grow and adapt to a changing world while retaining their core principles and culture. I’m sure the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the main opponent of the .ORG sale, has evolved since its founding thirty years ago.

The challenge for .ORG, as it modernizes, will be to effectively balance the non-profit principles it adopted in 2003 with a for-profit mentality that enables it to expand overseas and develop new services for non-profits such as isafe.org, the website for the organization I founded in 1998.

ISAFE, in fact, is a good example of a hybrid organization that combines non-profit work with for-profit services. The services we offer that help organizations comply with statutory regulations guarding child privacy and technology solutions to enable identity management help fund programs that teach kids how to be safe online. It’s not an unusual construct: many Fortune 500 companies have charitable foundations, for example, funded by their for-profit revenues.

That’s not to say I don’t understand the concern of non-profits and others who are worried about what will happen when .ORG is in the hands of a for-profit company. The community has raised concerns about price increases and censorship. It’s up to each member of the .ORG community to decide whether what Ethos has done—commit to price controls and a Stewardship Council with veto powers over key decision-making—is enough to ease those concerns.

There are powerful voices on each side of the .ORG debate. Vint Cert, of the founders of the Internet and architects of its governance as ICANN chairman, has come out in support of the sale. Marc Rotenberg, who helped found PIR in 2003, has come out against it. Ultimately, each non-profit, organization and individual has to consider what they want .ORG to be.

But it does strike me as strange that those in the Internet, so closely associated with innovation, reinvention and change, would be so resistant to change in its own backyard.

Esther Dyson, one of this generation’s leading thinkers on innovation, put it best: “Change means that what was before wasn’t perfect. People want things to be better.” Are those who oppose the .ORG sale, ironically including Dyson, saying it can’t be better?

I think .ORG can be better for non-profits such as ISAFE if Ethos follows through on its promises to invest in its expansion around the globe and offer new services, especially for small organizations that need help with regulatory compliance or fundraising. The proof will be in how Ethos and PIR spend the $10 million it’s committed toward social causes and who gets named to the Stewardship Council that is chartered with helping guide .ORG’s future.

For me, it comes back to this: No business can be static. It must grow, evolve and modernize; especially in today’s global market. If not, businesses will lose the essential energy that makes it a dynamic force for good. .ORG must evolve and grow, one way or another. The .ORG community deserves growth and modernization in order to build prosperity for all.