The Bridgespan Group was launched in 2000 by management consulting group Bain & Company as a nonprofit focused on strategy consulting for nonprofits and philanthropists. Over the next eight years, Bridgespan expanded its services to include executive search, knowledge sharing, and a web-based job matching service. While its growth was welcome, Bridgespan's leaders and board wanted to strengthen Bridgespan's positive impact on the nonprofit sector as a whole.

Year Up, a nonprofit job-skills training program for low-income, urban youth has run four successful programs in four cities for the past seven years. Now, after an ambitious capital campaign, the organization is poised to grow into a national program in an attempt to reach the 4.3 million disconnected youth in the United States, but will the organization be able to maintain high-quality results as it goes to scale?

This note introduces students to the current state of the nonprofit sector around the world. It also provides insight into the sector's origin and purpose as well as the identifying important current trends. The note draws on numerous sources to provide a single resource for readers to gain understanding of this complex sector. The intended audience includes students, prospective professional leaders, those considering joining a board, consultants to the sector, or anyone wishing to learn more about the field.