A nonprofit organization is a business structure formed by a group of people that unite for a specific cause or purpose. A business does not have to be a "charity" to be a nonprofit organization.
Nonprofit organizations can, and do, make profits. How a business raises or earns money, and how it spends that money, is the biggest factor in determining if an organization is being run as a for-profit, or nonprofit business.
Nonprofit organizations are not always tax exempt organizations. You must file an application with the Internal Revenue Service to become a tax-exempt organization. Some individual states also require that you file another set of papers to be exempt from paying state taxes.
There are many types of nonprofit groups, corporations, and organizational structures.
