Event Details

7 December 2015
10 am – 3 pm
Faculté d’Economie et de Gestion
Rue Puvis de Chavannes
Marseille

Event Description

TSI France researchers Francesca Petrella and Nadine Richez-Battesti met with third sector stakeholders in Marseille on December 7, 2015, to present the main results of the French study on barriers to the development of third sector organizations. Research consisted of a literature review, interviews with key actors from third sector umbrella organisations and in-depth case studies in three areas of third sector activity: social welfare, leisure, and culture.

Despite the large diversity of activity fields, a lot of common barriers have been observed during our study, reflected in the discussion during the meeting with stakeholders:

Governance and composition of the board
There is some disagreement on the role of boards. Is the board a place to manage organizational structures in a competent way or is it a place of democratic participation of stakeholders?

Financing
Increasing the share of fees for services is a frequent recommendation but it has some limits since in the three selected fields, there is a strong objective of accessibility of the services provided. In addition, to raise revenues from business activities may increase the difficulties to mobilize sponsorship and volunteers.

Impact measurement
While it is deemed important to measure the contribution by volunteers, stakeholders raise the concern that the value of immaterial resources should also be taken into account.

Organizational model
How do we build coherence in an environment uncertain in terms of financing and markets?

Infrastructure
Effort should be made to develop digital technologies that could be necessary to adapt to the shorter duration of projects and to build new collaborative platforms and partnership with a larger diversity of stakeholders.

Structuration of the field
Stakeholders reminded that one model does not fit all, as different models and values are implicitly conveyed. Each sector can have different structuration models or dynamics adapted to their specificities (for a more horizontal field structuration in the cultural field for instance).

 

Participants

Philippe Oswald, La Plateforme (participation and cooperation)
Sam Khebizi, Les Têtes de l’Art, artistic and cultural mediation association
Thomas Guérin, CRESS PACA et Observatoire de l’ESS
Nicolas Meunier, member of the TSI team (and member of a associative newspaper)
Julien Maisonnasse, member of the TSI team, Aix-Marseille University
Nadine Richez-Battesti, member of the TSI team, Aix-Marseille University
Francesca Petrella, member of the TSI team, Aix-Marseille University

15 other organizations have reacted by mail and phone.