Third Sector in Europe – Measuring the Size and its Impact

On 13 October, Tanja Hafner Ademi, Executive Director of BCSDN participated to the mid-term seminar of the FP7 project Third Sector Impact dealing with the conceptualization, measurement and impact of the civil society in Europe. The seminar included presentation of so far work, including the working definition of the third sector, on which discussion is currently evolved around on how to capture the forms such as social enterprises and ventures. Discussions on the measuring the sector evolved around work with relevant public institutions and data in EU Member States. The project is currently engaged with EUROSTAT to see how further improvements could be made to extract the specific data on the sector that exist but are not collected. The impact aspect of the project discussed was focused on the review of different aspects of impact and has included a presentation of a survey of civil society in EU MS, including Germany which show growing bureaucratization and funding downsize for the sector. While formally the Enlargement countries are not covered in the scope of this project, BCSDN has established cooperation with the project to exchange information and facilitate knowledge-sharing, especially on the measuring of the sector which is currently on of the activities undertaken by the network and its partners. More information on the TSI project is available here.