First, a disclaimer: I know next to nothing about non-profits. The fact that you know even less should give you a pause. If you're serious about this, do some (or even a lot of) research before asking the most basic questions.
A non-profit status is not about making revenue or not. It's a legal categorization of your company. So first, you need a company. Then you have to apply for a non-profit status with the government.
How do you apply for non-profit status? I don't know, you'll probably need to hire a lawyer specialized in non-profit registration to guide you through that process. It's also not a one-time thing: in order to maintain your non-profit status, you have to convince the government every year that you still are a non-profit.
You're confusing the means with the goal. You don't need non-profit to be benevolent. You can have crazy profits by day and spend those profits on benevolent activities by night. You can build wells in Ethiopia, send vaccines to Nigeria or any other thing that non-profits do without being a registered non-profit. You can think of non-profits as a way for rich people to do benevolent things (via donations) without spending time actually doing those things (i.e. rich person signs a check, a non-profit does the work of sending a malaria net to africa).
So why people register for non-profit status? First because it gives them a preferential treatment from government in terms of lower taxes (?), ability to fund-raise money that is tax-deductible for the donor etc. I'm sure few google searches will direct you to a much more extensive information.
Given preferential treatment why won't every company register as a non-profit? Because government doesn't give that treatment to just anybody. There is a checklist of things that a non-profit can and cannot do. If you're Locke, you won't like being a non-profit.
That partially answers your "fundraising vs. investment" question. I'm guessing that "investment" is not even on the table for non-profits due to government rules so they can either earn their money or do fundraising. If you think, however, that fundraising is easier than making money, then you're probably wrong, but that's a whole new topic.
A non-profit status is not about making revenue or not. It's a legal categorization of your company. So first, you need a company. Then you have to apply for a non-profit status with the government.
How do you apply for non-profit status? I don't know, you'll probably need to hire a lawyer specialized in non-profit registration to guide you through that process. It's also not a one-time thing: in order to maintain your non-profit status, you have to convince the government every year that you still are a non-profit.
You're confusing the means with the goal. You don't need non-profit to be benevolent. You can have crazy profits by day and spend those profits on benevolent activities by night. You can build wells in Ethiopia, send vaccines to Nigeria or any other thing that non-profits do without being a registered non-profit. You can think of non-profits as a way for rich people to do benevolent things (via donations) without spending time actually doing those things (i.e. rich person signs a check, a non-profit does the work of sending a malaria net to africa).
So why people register for non-profit status? First because it gives them a preferential treatment from government in terms of lower taxes (?), ability to fund-raise money that is tax-deductible for the donor etc. I'm sure few google searches will direct you to a much more extensive information.
Given preferential treatment why won't every company register as a non-profit? Because government doesn't give that treatment to just anybody. There is a checklist of things that a non-profit can and cannot do. If you're Locke, you won't like being a non-profit.
That partially answers your "fundraising vs. investment" question. I'm guessing that "investment" is not even on the table for non-profits due to government rules so they can either earn their money or do fundraising. If you think, however, that fundraising is easier than making money, then you're probably wrong, but that's a whole new topic.