1. Third Sector Impact (TSI)
Project under EU-FP7 Theme[SSH: The impact of the third
sector in Europe]
Bernard Enjolras
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Objectives of the project
1. To clarify the concept of the third sector in its
European manifestations ;
2. To identify the major contours of the sector so
defined—its size, structure, composition, sources
of support, and recent trends;
3. To identify the impacts of this sector, its
contributions to European economic
development, innovation, citizen well-being, civic
engagement, and human development;
4. To identify barriers (both internal to organizations
and external to them) that might be impeding their
ability to contribute to European socio-economic
development, and suggest ways these barriers
might be overcome;
5. To forge a partnership between the research
community focused on the European Third Sector
and European Third Sector practitioners

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Objective 1: Conceptual
Clarification
∙ Background: conceptual ambiguity
about the “manifold types of entities
that co-exist in the third sector”;
∙ 4 distinct “clusters” of Third Sector
organizational types:
· Associations and foundations (“nonprofit
institutions,” or NPIs )
· Cooperatives, mutuals, and social enterprises
(social economy)
· Social enterprises or social ventures
· Social movements (“the public sphere,” or,
“civil society”)

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Objective 1: Conceptual
Clarification
∙ Central objective: to find common ground
around a consensus “working definition” of
the third sector in the context of Europe.
∙ Such a definition must meet five key criteria:
1. sufficient breadth to encompass diversity ;
2. clarity in order to differentiate the third sector from
government agencies, private for-profit businesses,
and families or tribes;
3. sensitivity to accommodate the varied social, legal,
and religious traditions and histories of different
countries;
4. ability to be operationalized into meaningful
measures
5. consistence with existing official international
statistical usage.

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Objective 2: Determining the Scale
of the Third Sector
∙ Goal: to establish the scope and scale of the
European Third Sector.
· Not only measures focusing on the number of entities
but also of the human resources that these
organizations engage (paid staff and volunteers).
· Not only third-sector aggregates but also cross-
national and sub-regional variations in size,
composition, financing, and staffing of the third sector
(distinctive sub-regional patterns).
· Ability to differentiate the various components of the
European third sector, in terms of fields of activity and
of institutional type (e.g., associations, foundations,
cooperatives, mutuals, social enterprises).
· Use of standard international activity classifications in
order to facilitate the integration of the measurement
into existing European statistical systems.

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Objective 3: The Impact of the
Third Sector
∙ Focus on two broad sets of potential third-
sector impacts:
· societal impacts (“macro-perspective”) i.e., the
impacts that the third sector has on beneficiaries and
society at large;
· personal impacts (“micro-perspective”) i.e., the
impacts that the third sector has on its own personnel,
including both paid staff and volunteers.
∙ Strategic approach in three steps:
1. Design of a conceptual framework for identifying
the types of impacts of the third sector about which
it will be important to generate improved data;
2. Review of existing knowledge about impacts and
how they have been assessed;
3. Development of methods and subsequent
implementation (on a limited scale) of impact
evaluation methods

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Objective 3: The Impact of
the Third Sector
∙ Focus 5 areas of impacts of the
third sector:
· Well-being and quality of life
· Innovation
· Civic engagement, empowerment,
advocacy, community building
· Economic impacts
· Human resource impacts

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Objective 3: The Impact of the Third
Sector
∙ Existing knowledge about the micro impact of
the third sector and volunteering is fragmented
(in terms of the dimensions that are
investigated and of methodologies);
∙ Most of the existing studies do not address the
direction of causality issue;
∙ Need to synthetize existing knowledge and
address the causality (identification) issue.
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Objective 3: The Impact of the Third
Sector
∙ At the macro and cross-national levels existing
studies allow the assessment of certain kinds of
impacts and for a limited number of countries.
∙ Need to develop improved indicators of third
sector impacts at the macro level.
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Objective 4: Identifying and
overcoming barriers
∙ Two broad sets of barriers:
· those internal to the organizations that comprise the third
sector (e.g., human resource capabilities, organizational
structure and procedures);
· those relating to the political, economic, legal, and social
environment within which the organizations and
volunteering operate.
∙ Internal Factors:
· Leadership
· Organizational and governance structure
· Human resources
· Finance
· Institutional Facilities and Support Systems (equipment,
facilities, personnel, strategic planning, and training facing all
organizations)
· Inter-organizational linkages

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Objective 4: Identifying and
overcoming barriers
∙ Environmental Factors:
· Legal Environment
· Public Attitudes
· Financing Mechanisms
· Accessibility of Policy Institutions to TSOs
· Sector and Sub-sector Infrastructure and
Intermediary Institutions

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Objective 5: Stakeholder
Engagement
∙ Goal: integration of stakeholders
into all aspects of the analytical
process.
∙ Method: outcomes-oriented
collaboration between researchers
and practitioners and co-building
of understanding of problems and
solutions.