TSI’s Lester Salamon promoted TSI’s definition of the third sector in a workshop organised by the Luxemburg Union on Social and Solidarity Economy (ULESS) on 13 October, discussing how to establish satellite accounts on the social economy of a country.

The social and solidarity economy are important topics Luxemburg wants to focus on during its presidency of the European Council. ULESS conducted a study of Luxemburg’s social enterprise sector for which it used a definition that embraces any and all entities delivering any social or human services, such as education, health care, elderly care, and many more, thus being able to point out significant growth of such entities in recent years.  What they were really revealing was the expansion of for-profit entities into fields once dominated by nonprofits, a phenomenon we have observed in many other countries.

Against this backdrop, TSI’s definition of the third sector offers a more careful delineation of the dividing line between in-scope and out-of-scope cooperatives, mutual, and social enterprises on the basis of meaningful limitations on their distribution of profit garnered important support.

Read the agenda.