A common conceptualization is an important milestone towards measuring the third sector in Europe as there remains a kind of conceptual ambiguity about the manifold types of entities that co-exist in the third sector. The achievement of conceptual clarification is a key objective of the TSI project and the second TSI working paper reports on TSI’s progress toward this objective. It presents a consensus definition of the third sector that builds upon a bottom-up investigation of European experiences with various third sector concepts and a vigorous set of discussions among project partners and outside stakeholders. The resulting conceptualization takes account of a number of critical European particularities and covers both institutional and individual manifestations of the third sector concept while still providing a basis for systematic comparisons among European countries and between them and countries in different regions. The paper is available for download here.
Source: Third Sector Impact
