An Introduction to the Third Sector Network

The month we spent in residence as summer fellows at the RGK Center at the University of Texas at Austin was enlightening and transformational, but we’re all in agreement that we have much unfinished business to address. This blog, we hope, will allow us to continue the discussion.

We are all in agreement that the world is rife with talk and activity of and within the third sector. Our interests are common, but each of us has managed to target something rather unique.

Nonprofit organizations, volunteerism, business associations, public charities, family foundations, art as investment, corporate social responsibility, generation X and Y in the nonprofit workplace, higher education, social enterprise…and the list of topics goes on and on. We are particularly concerned with what makes certain aspects of these topics “nonprofit,” “philanthropic,” or generally socially beneficial. Our common thread is our desire for the development of theory and practice in the third sector, and as our RGK mentor Peter Frumkin put it in his book On Being Nonprofit, the “structural features [that] give these entities a set of unique advantages that position them to perform important societal functions neither government nor the market is able to match.”

However, recent structural changes within some organizations have challenged that ideal…but odds are, one of us is interested in those changes, and we’ll eventually end up discussing it at some point.

We look forward to providing what we hope will be insightful commentary, and we invite you to take part in the discussion.