I work for a non-profit, so I've always thought of my work as being apart from and unlike the business world. But lately I've been spending free time on Hacker News, a sort of moderated Reddit social bookmarking/news site sponsored by a venture capitalist firm. There are a lot of technical links, but also a bunch of links relating to tech startups.
A non-profit is actually just like a startup, but with a lot of the details changed. Pull back and look at the big picture. Non-profits start with somebody's great idea for changing the world, just like startups. You work within severe budget constraints so you have to be scrappy. My organization is pretty small so there's room to change and switch gears and shake things up. Non-profits aren't chasing VC money, but in a way they do the same thing when they court donors to fund the next year or the next project. And finally, they never have an IPO but with the right mega-donor or enough saving they can sometimes develop an endowment. <!-- SUMMARY_END -->