I am not so sure. I don't know why it could not have been a for-profit operation. Profit is not a dirty word. I would like to think that a for-profit company would have achieved his goal (of making cheap napkins available to women) faster than NGO approach.
Let me give you an example. In India, many low income people can't afford shampoo bottles. So retail companies came up with a concept of 'shampoo sachet' [http://goo.gl/GUopS] (similar to ketch up sachet) and sold it for a rupee (back in 90s when I was growing up). Without this product, I would have never used a shampoo when I was a kid. It was a HUGE seller and you could find it in remote parts of India. I think it is taught as an example in business schools in India.
As per my other post, he is selling his napkin for 12 rupees for 8 napkins. If he actually decided to manufacture them and retail them on a scale, I am sure he can still keep the same low price and achieve better distribution. His current approach of getting people to install machine and then making napkins is much harder to scale. That's my personal opinion anyway.
I am not so sure a corporation would keep the price low as a non-profit (or subsidized by the government). A lot of people replying to me said manufacturing in bulk would reduce the price there by achieving what a government subsidy cannot. I don't believe that to be true at all. Simply put if there is more money to be made a corporation will do so. A business would never ever reduce the price to bare minimum possible. There is no need for a business to go super cheap and cater to all the available market. That is not how businesses operate. In other words he could sell the same thing for 3 times the price and still sell enough. That is not his objective. I do agree that it probably would have been a sustainable model but cheaper definitely not.
Then to your other points. The shampoo sachets did bring shampoo to the common man not the poor. Businesses had to innovate because back then even the middle class could not afford shampoo. Also I hear many people used (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapindus) before the shampoo with perfectly good results and so compelling them to move away from it required a really good motivation and a really low price was it.
By not profiting, he is kneecapping his ability to spread his invention around, and now both you and he are reduced to "hoping" for support, a word choice more appropriate than you probably realized.
Profit isn't intrinsically evil. Sometimes not profiting is much more evil.
The aspect of profit that is potentially bad is the maximization part. Based on the cost of the machine and some kind of statistical model, let's say that we determine that the inventor can make the most money (per time worked) if he sells his machines for $6000. Moreover, those who buy the machines can run the same kind of rational statistical analysis and sell the produced pads for $0.20 each (instead of $0.03).
Now only 25-50% of rural women are using these sanitary napkins, but the makers are maximizing their profits. How long before another person comes along and designs a similar machine that can narrow the profit margin?
Theoretical capitalism is quite efficient in theory, but in practice there are a lot of difficulties realizing it. In this case, it is admirable that people are willing to forgo maximal profit in an effort to instead look after the health of as many women as possible.
