1.2. What does the sector look like and what does it do?
The third sector consists of “a bewildering array of organisational forms, activities, motivations and ideologies”
Smith et al., 1995
Let’s next look at some relevant dictionary-based definitions:
Charity = an institution or organisation set up to provide help, money, etc, to those in need
Philanthropy = the practice of performing charitable or benevolent actions
Volunteerism = donating time and energy for the benefit of other people in the community as a social responsibility rather than for any financial reward
Non-profit = non-profit making = not yielding a profit
Civil society = the part of society that consists of organisations and institutions that help and look after people, their health, and their rights
Third sector = voluntary sector = the part of the economy that consists of non-profit-making organisations, as opposed to the public and private sectors
There are different definitions and forms of organisations applied in different nations, so these dictionary-based definitions should only be used as a reference point to start considering the sector from.
The voluntary, charity, or non-profit sector is often called the third sector, and the third sector is often also used to mean civil society, for which there are various explanations and definitions too. This course uses the term ‘third sector’ to broadly cover, as per the definition above, organisations and community groups that fall outside of the public and private sector.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
So what kind of organisations does this cover then?
Kendall (2003) provided a useful categorisation (and a sort of formula) of third sector organisations, by separating them into two groups:
-
Broad voluntary sector (BVS) = all nonprofit (minus political parties, religious congregations)
-
Narrow voluntary sector (NVS) = BVS (minus universities, schools, sports and social clubs, trade unions, business associations: traditionally not considered voluntary sector in the UK)
There are two further terminologies or areas of the sector that need to be mentioned:
-
The community sector = that part of the social economy ‘at neighbourhood and district levels where there is a strong sense of local affiliation’ (Pearce, 2003, in Bridge et al., 2009)
-
Social enterprises = a contested term, but they are often businesses that sell products and services in the open market but reinvest profit into the community they are serving or back into the business to fulfil a social purpose (Mazzei & Roy, 2017)
As you’ve probably gathered by now, the ‘third sector’ is a bit of a messy area – as would be expected when you effectively try to push all those organisations and groups that do not neatly fit into the public or private sector into its own small bubble.
​
It would be nice to be able to say that the picture becomes clearer when looking at what organisations there are in the sector and what they do, but this is unlikely the case. The sector is so vast, with organisations playing multitude roles in society.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Source: DJS Research
​
They provide different services for instance through law centres, citizens advice bureaus, nurseries and hospices.
​
There are mutual aid groups, such as informal child-care collectives, transgender support groups, and other ad-hoc organisations that operate without the top-down leadership or charitable funding that most charities depend on.
​
There are organisations that focus on policy advocacy. Oxfam is an example of this. It is a global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice.
There are also advocacy groups that focus on individuals rather than wider policy, such as the mental health organisation MIND that may help individuals with Mental Health Review Tribunals.
There are different councils and centres for the voluntary sector, such as the NCVO focused on England and Wales, and the SCVO focused on Scottish charities. These are like representative bodies for their member organisations. Both are sources for some excellent reference material, such as the annual almanac with the statistics for the sector. Volunteer Scotland is a national centre for volunteering, aiming to help make volunteering easy for everyone.
There are international non-governmental organisations, best known as NGOs, that have international interests (i.e. their activities are not confined to a single country). These include large brand names like the Red Cross, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Save the Children.
And then there are small local groups, such as Yorkhill Green Spaces, Anderston Green Spaces, and G3 Growers, that are entirely volunteer run and focus on the local community they operate in.
There is typically a larger third sector in countries where the public sector is narrow (compare e.g. the UK with the Nordic countries, in the latter the public sector has much broader responsibilities, so there is less ‘need’ for charities). The German comedian Henning Wehn once made a joke on TV about this. He said (loosely quoted) that “in the UK you are so proud of your charities: in Germany, we have the public sector!”.
When you study this course, always consider that what is covered here in large parts applies to the UK third sector, sometime even more narrowly to just the Scottish third sector, but if you want to know how the sector looks like in other countries you’ll need to delve deeper. An excellent source for doing just that, is the Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (1991-2017).
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
“Organisations which are formal, non-profit-distributing, constitutionally independent from the state, self governing and benefiting from voluntarism”
Kendall, 2003
