The term “Third Sector” tries to make sense of a difficult area, where names change almost every time the government changes. It embraces the voluntary sector, community sector, not-for-profits, etc and so a lot of organisations can be a part of it.
This raises a many issues. For example, why are local businesses thought of as private sector, even though they may be a focus for community development? Whilst at the same time huge professional voluntary sector groups are in the same sector as small community groups?
It’s to do with the funding of groups and as I explain in the post The Scope of Third Sector Organisations. Further posts, What is the Third Sector? and Anatomy of the Third Sector, explore this from different perspectives. The first looks at some of the names given to the sector and the second describes the main types of organisation that make up the sector.
I’ve written a few posts about the main types of organisation that make up the sector. I shall develop these further in the future.
- Churches in the Third Sector
- Two posts cover Community Groups: What Community Groups Do and How Community Groups Work
- And these posts cover Voluntary Sector groups: What is a Volunteer and The Genesis of Voluntary Groups
- Community Business and Community Enterprise is a post that explains the differences between the two types of organisation. The term social enterprise possibly covers both but need not be based in a single neighbourhood. This post covers some of the issues raised by this term: Is Social Enterprise an Undisputed Good? (The answer is “No!”)
- It could be argued mutuals are a part of the private sector and perhaps that is right. I argue in my post Why Mutuals? the same innovation found in the Third Sector, can be found in the history of UK mutuals. I illustrate this in a post about Co-operative Principles and go on to suggest Self-Interest is the essential ethic underlying mutuals.
- Experimental Projects in the Economy continue into the present day and I review a few in this post.