Jeffrey L. Bradach is a co-founder and managing partner of the Bridgespan Group, a charitable organization which provides consultation to nonprofit groups. ¹ Before forming Bridgespan with Tom Tierney, both founders worked at managing consulting firm Bain and Company. ²

Career

Bradach attended Stanford University for his undergraduate education. Before graduate school, Bradach worked as a consultant at managing consulting firm Bain and Company. ³ He went to Harvard for his masters in sociology and his doctorate in organizational behavior. While at Harvard, he taught as an associate professor in courses on leadership and organizational behavior. ⁴

In 1999, Bradach stopped teaching at Harvard to found the Bridgespan Group with Tom Tierney and Paul Carttar. Initially, Tierney as Bain’s worldwide managing director had directed some of its teams to research into unmet needs in the nonprofit sector. Tierney reached out to Bradach, a former Bain consultant, to serve as an advisor on the project. The research eventually materialized into a business plan for a Bain-sponsored nonprofit consulting group. ⁵

In 2000, Bridgespan was based in Boston and San Francisco. It billed itself as a firm uniquely able to offer “Bain-like” consultation to organizations in the nonprofit sector, seeing as it was officially sponsored by Bain. In February 2000, the New York Times referred to the Bridgespan-Bain partnership as an “entirely new thing,” as Bain was allowing Bridgespan to have access to its connections, intellectual capital, and infrastructure. ⁶

Bridgespan Group has received financial support and resources from Bain and Company. It has consulted for many major left-of-center nonprofits including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, National Public Radio, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Family Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. ^{7 8}

In 2019, MacKenzie Scott, billionaire ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, pledged to give away most of her wealth. Scott retained Bridgespan group to consult with her in the process. ⁹

In January 2010, Bradach became the chair of the board of Curriculum Associates, an education technology and publishing company for K-12 schools in the United States. He left this position in December 2017, the same year it was purchased by Berkshire Partners. ¹⁰

In October 2017, Bradach became the chair of the board of Independent Sector, a national membership organization based in Washington, D.C., that advocates for left-of-center nonprofit administration policies, such as laws that limit political speech activity by limiting donor privacy. ^{11 12}

Writings and Social Media

Bradach writes and speaks about nonprofit strategy and philanthropy leadership practices on the side; these writings frequently broach charged political topics. His publications include “The Problem with Color-Blind Philanthropy” at the Harvard Business Review in 2020 and “Racial Equity and Philanthropy: Disparities in Funding for Leaders of Color Leave Impact on the Table” for Bridgespan in 2020. ¹³

Jeffrey Bradach has a Twitter account where he occasionally shares his political opinions. On March 5, 2022, Bradach posted that former Trump administration officials Bill Barr, John Bolton, and Mike Pence were “coup-attempt abettors” and “Putin enablers.” ¹⁴

1. “Jeff Bradach.” LinkedIn. Accessed 7 March 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-bradach-42428270/.
2. Kalafatus, John. “The Bridgespan Group.” Harvard Business School. November 1, 2000. https://web.archive.org/web/20131101221210/http://www.bain.com/bainweb/PDFs/cms/Public/HBS_CS_Bridgespan_group.pdf.
3. Kalafatus, John. “The Bridgespan Group.” Harvard Business School. November 1, 2000. https://web.archive.org/web/20131101221210/http://www.bain.com/bainweb/PDFs/cms/Public/HBS_CS_Bridgespan_group.pdf.
4. “Jeff Bradach.” LinkedIn. Accessed 7 March 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-bradach-42428270/.
5. Kalafatus, John. “The Bridgespan Group.” Harvard Business School. November 1, 2000. https://web.archive.org/web/20131101221210/http://www.bain.com/bainweb/PDFs/cms/Public/HBS_CS_Bridgespan_group.pdf.
6. Kalafatus, John. “The Bridgespan Group.” Harvard Business School. November 1, 2000. https://web.archive.org/web/20131101221210/http://www.bain.com/bainweb/PDFs/cms/Public/HBS_CS_Bridgespan_group.pdf.
7. “Our Clients.” The Bridgespan Group. Accessed 7 March 2022. https://www.bridgespan.org/about-us/our-clients.
8. “2019 Bridgespan Client List.” The Bridgespan Group. Accessed 7 March 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20210709143607/https://www.bridgespan.org/about-us/client-lists/2019-bridgespan-client-list.
9. Kulish, Nicholas. “Giving Billions Fast, MacKenzie Scott Upends Philanthropy.” The New York Times. June 15, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/business/mackenzie-scott-philanthropy.html.
10. ^[1] “Jeff Bradach.” LinkedIn. Accessed 7 March 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-bradach-42428270/.
11. “Jeff Bradach.” LinkedIn. Accessed 7 March 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-bradach-42428270/.
12. “About Us” Independent Sector. https://independentsector.org/about-us/.
13. “Jeffrey L. Bradach.” The Bridgespan Group. Accessed 7 March 7, 2022. https://www.bridgespan.org/about-us/team-members/jeffrey-l-bradach.
14.   “Jeffrey Bradach. Twitter, 5 March 2022. Accessed 7 March 2022. https://twitter.com/JeffBradach/status/1500249714838556675?s=20&t=YEaATJiN28qX9s6VtvJ6gA