Recent socio-economic trends, welfare state reform; the emergence of civil society and democracy have highlighted the growing significance of the non-profit sector – a sector between state and market – often associated with concepts such as ‘social economy’, ‘third sector’, ‘voluntary sector’, ‘third system’, ‘independent sector’ and, more recently, ‘social entrepreneurship’. This sector is facing a number of crucial new challenges such as management quality whilst both maintaining the sector's unique social dimension and fostering social innovation. Drawing on contributions from leading experts and academics, this report provides ground-breaking assessment of new trends; reviews the significant non-profit sector developments in EU countries, the US; Canada; Mexico and Australia; and provides tools on how to finance, monitor and evaluate the sector. This book, supported by statistical data, is for policy makers, practitioners, academics and the corporate sector.
