Understanding Challenges In The Third Sector - Essay Example

Understanding Challenges in the Third Sector Understanding Challenges in the Third Sector The third sector, also refered to as the voluntary sector or the not-for-profit sector refers to the line of activities undertaken by non-government organizations that are not for profit making. It is known as the third sector in relation to the private and the public sector and is sometimes seen as an indicator of a good economy in both international and local financial measurements. Peter Drucker argues that the non-profit sector provides an extraordinary outlet for various skills and labor to the society.

This sector though faces its own challenges and problems with regard to providing services to the community.Gettler (2007) suggests that voluntary organizations play a role in increasing public service delivery but the role of developing volunteer skills is a challenge to many of these organizations. Measurement of potential leaders in these organizations lies in the level of education they hold and not the skills they have acquired over time. Nurturing volunteer skills to produce skilled leaders is a good thing since it will make the provision of services to be efficient due to the involvement of highly skilled personnel.

The public should realize that leaders in voluntary organizations do not have to have achieved MBAs to acquire leadership skills.The public has little knowledge on how modern charities work because of the ignorance and assumptions that we create for ourselves. The public should get more information concerning the organizational services offered, the people who work in these organizations and those who are paid and those who are not so as to know the organizational budgets (Gettler, 2007). Reducing the charities’ perception to the public based on warm feelings rather than evidence of good work will help us to understand more on the kind of services provided by the third sector.

According to Gettler (2007) charities have a role to play in the public service delivery but not all public services and people need to have a good understanding of where the charities can deliver better services than the public sector and where it cannot. “It does not matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches the mouse” Deng Xiao Ping (Evers and Laville, 2004). A leaf should be borrowed from this saying to suggest that it does not matter who delivers the service as long as it is effectively delivered.

Growing income and raising funds is one of the major challenges facing the third sector as a whole due to the fact that most organizations want to grow in their incomes since they tend to do more when they have money. Raising money is a challenge to the third sector organizations because different organizations raise money in three different ways; earning the money, getting a grant, and from donations. It is a true account that it is a real challenge to raise capital without suffering from composition fallacies as dictated by the economists of development (Evers and Laville, 2004).

Over the last three decades, the small sized third sector organizations have been struggling to keep up with the growing economy because they have challenges in taking risks due to the fact that they do not have reserves to use in case of wrong turn of events or incase things do not go as planned. Trustees are also uncomfortable thus most funds are restricted to smaller charities but these should not be the case since the size of a third sector should not be measured but instead the type of services they offer to the community and when funds are less there should be government intervention.

In conclusion, the Third sectors face challenges starting with the mixture of definitions and the public has to learn how to critically analyze the challenges according to their weaknesses and strengths and be able to come up with laudable solutions. ReferencesEvers, A., and Laville, J., 2004. The Third Sector in Europe. , Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing.Gettler, L.,2007. The Age: Non-profits can be more accountable, [Online] (updated 31 May 2007) Available at: [Accessed 19 Apr. 2013].