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The Portuguese impact ecosystem has seen tremendous growth in the last decade. From a system that was mostly underpinned by charitable organizations, it has evolved to one that creates and diffuses innovation, is host to multiple organizations and pilot initiatives and has permeated the actions and policies of central and local governments. This has been achieved by focusing on three key dimensions: human capital, policy and funding. This report begins by focusing on human capital and how a small but interconnected number of private and public players achieved this transformational change in a very short period of time. In demonstrating the role of cooperation, it underlines how the ecosystem grew by players building something that was bigger than their own individual contributions. Our initial historical overview of the development of human capital will also underline what types of players were key to this growth.

AbstractNowadays, society faces complex social, economic, and environmental problems which the traditional sectors of activity (public, private and third sector) are not able to solve alone. To respond to these challenges, their missions and strategies have been converging, leading to a phenomenon known as the blurring of boundaries between sectors. Together, they give rise to a new and promising sector in society: the fourth sector. The literature on this new sector is still scarce, even though its impact is already being felt all over the world. The concept of the fourth sector is in itself broad and clearly lacking defined borders. In addition, there are three currents in the literature that use this term with different meanings.This paper aims to contribute to the theoretical knowledge on the fourth sector by clarifying its definition and framing its activity. A qualitative methodology was carried out by using the papers featuring the topic "fourth sector", indexed to the Web of Science, to generate a textual corpus that led to a similarity analysis. Subsequently, written interviews were conducted with seven academic specialists on the fourth sector topic, selected through the snowball sampling method, to complete the data obtained through the literature review. These data were added to the initial textual corpus, and a new similarity analysis was generated. It is concluded that the fourth sector as a spectrum of hybrid organizations is currently the most accepted approach, and the existence of an activity that combines a business framework with a social purpose seems to be its main characteristic. So, the main implication is related with significant opportunities that have yet to be fully explored, considering the extensive rise of the fourth sector.

The fourth sector has traditionally been described as encompassing families, households, neighbours, and friends, however, competing definitions have recently begun to emerge. Three different strands can be observed in the fourth-sector literature. The first strand centres on the notion of one-to-one aid. The second strand centres on self-organizing civic activism. The third strand focuses on hybrid organizations. In this paper we will analyse the main commonalities and differences in the understanding of the fourth sector. Our conclusion is that despite differences, there is enough 'family resemblance' between the three different streams of fourth-sector discussion to warrant a synthetic reflection of the governance issues related to this novel phenomenon. As a result of that analysis, we distinguish five specific governance issues that are related to 1) the ability of the public sector to work upon shared values, 2) the empowering nature of self-organizing, 3) the need for new operational rules under the 'sharing economy', 4) the transitory but structuration-oriented nature of fourth-sector processes and 5) the notion that fourth-sector involvement does not necessarily improve the quality of participation.

AbstractThe fourth sector, which is composed of "for‐benefit" enterprises, can play a fundamental and positive role for the community, particularly in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic. It supports public organizations and protects disadvantaged populations. Further research is suggested on the cross‐sectoral collaboration based on non‐profit motivations during the pandemic.

Intro -- Contents -- Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Fourth Sector -- 1 Consolidation of the Fourth Sector Within the Solidarity Economy -- 2 Best-Practices Case Studies Across the World -- 3 Discussion About Social Innovation and Business Models on the Fourth Sector -- Part I: Consolidation of the Fourth Sector Within the Solidarity Economy -- Humanitarian Social Logistic and the Fourth Sector: Policy Design for Communities Affected by the Disaster -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Humanitarian Social Logistics (HSL) -- 3 Importance of the Fourth Sector for the Design of Public Policies in the Post-disaster Stage -- 4 Research Background -- 5 Methodology -- 6 Results and Discussions -- 7 Conclusions and Remarks (HSL Design) -- References -- Nonprofit Organizations of the Fourth Sector That Promote Education Social Solidarity Economy in the Fourth Industrial Revolut... -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Social and Solidarity Economy -- 2.1 The Capitalist Economy -- 2.1.1 Social or Solidarity Economy -- 2.1.2 The Fourth Sector -- 3 Social and Solidarity Economy in Medellin -- 4 Public Policy in Medellin -- 5 The Fourth Revolution and the Social and Solidarity Economy -- 6 Methodology -- 7 Results -- 8 Discussion and/or Remarks and/or Conclusions -- 9 Conclusions -- References -- Social Innovation, Fourth Sector and the Commodification of the Welfare State: The Portuguese Experience -- 1 Introduction -- 2 What Is Social Innovation? -- 3 The Emerging Fourth Sector: Old Wine in New Bottles? -- 4 The Portuguese Social Sector: An Historical Overview -- 5 Recent Transformations of the Portuguese Social Sector -- 6 Commodification of the Social Sector -- 7 Conclusion -- References -- Part II: Best-Practices Case Studies Across the World -- A Case Study of a Socially Responsible Entrepreneurship: The Local Action Group POEDA -- 1 Introduction.

With stagnating growth rates, increasing inequality and unwavering pollution rates across the developing and developed world, it is clearer than ever that our current economic framework, developed late in the 19th century, is under severe stress. At the current pace, we will not meet the Sustainable Development Goals set in the 2030 Agenda, an agenda which explicitly relies on the commitment of the private sector to succeed. We must all contribute to rethinking the functioning of the market and give it a new purpose. Only thus will we find a new development trajectory. Our current three-sector social and economic model (government, private sector and NGOs) is the place to start. This division seems to imply that businesses cannot have any other purpose than maximizing profit and shareholder value. But, as our study shows, this is not true. A new Fourth Sector of the economy, made up of for-social benefit and purpose-driven companies, is rising both in the world and in our region of Ibero-America; a region where roughly 10 % of the world's population lives. The Fourth Sector represents 6 % of the total economy of the seven countries we have studied (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, México, Portugal and Spain), which, in turn, account for 87 % of total Ibero-American GDP. This new Sector employs almost 10 million workers annually. The reasons behind this rise are manifold, and in the present work many are discussed, including the birth of an innovative regulatory framework in some countries in the region. But we would like to highlight one in particular: the arrival of a new generation of consumers and entrepreneurs who, against all odds, have started to search for purpose beyond revenue. This, the fact that the rise of the Fourth Sector is partly organic, is very encouraging news. However, much more needs to be done. In this study, we set some guidelines of where action should be directed, and what policies should be enacted to make this new ecosystem thrives. Only if we succeed at carrying them forth will we ...

Interest is growing in the role of spontaneous volunteers and emergent citizens groups in safety and security functions. This study connects those actors to the broad concept of the self-organizing fourth sector and analyzes the opinions of more than 200 Finnish representatives of public-and the third-sector organizations gathered through interviews and small group discussion on the tensions related to fourth-sector activity. The study reveals a strong desire to control the fourth sector, a desire that dominates any associated desire to enable it. The tension between enabling and controlling can be tamed by moving the fourth-sector actors under the control of the third sector. However, the role of the fourth sector is then reduced to being merely an extra pair of hands, and its self-organizing and emergent nature is subsumed. The debate over the paradox of spontaneous volunteering needs to be resolved before the fourth sector becomes a normal and acknowledged part of the security and safety functions.

The convergence of profit, public, nonprofit and social organizations constitutes an increasingly important reality that has been labeled the fourth sector. This movement brings together talents, resources, and skills from governmental and non-governmental partners, corporations, and civil society at large to leverage well-being responses and develop new approaches to address social challenges. The diversity and complexity of these problems heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic call for a collective social effort and innovative solutions. Despite the growing importance and initiatives taking ownership of community well-being through fostering partnerships in which different stakeholders share responsibilities to build a better future and common good, this is an under-researched area. This edited book discusses the challenges and opportunities of the emerging fourth sector, and features selected papers from XXI International Congress on Public and Nonprofit Marketing (IAPNM 2022) held at the University of Minho in Braga (Portugal) in July 2022.