Third-Sector Development: Making Up for the Market

Nonprofit corporations, cooperatives, and credit unions constitute an alternative avenue of hope and action for communities that have come up short in the normal operation of the market economy. These organizations comprise the third sector, which accounts for approximately 10 percent of U.S. economic activity. As part of the fastest growing sector in the economy, these dynamic organizations play an increasing role in strengthening local economies. In the United States, they help to compensate for a state that is, in Gunn's view, relatively disengaged from meeting basic human needs. This book helps move thinking about the third sector beyond traditional nonprofits centered on education, health care, and charity, and into the realm of often smaller, dynamic organizations that engage in collective entrepreneurship. Throughout, Gunn illustrates how organizations founded with little in the way of financial resources have made substantial contributions to economic development and general well-being in the communities they serve and from which they arise. After explaining why local development is a problem in such a wealthy and resource-rich country as the United States, Christopher Gunn profiles more than two dozen organizations ranging from child-care cooperatives to retirement communities, from co-housing "villages" to financial institutions. He also investigates public-policy changes that could strengthen this alternative sector's contribution to economic development.

About the Author :
Christopher Gunn is Professor of Economics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He is the author of Workers'Self-Management in the United States, coauthor of Reclaiming Capital, both from Cornell, and coeditor of Alternatives to Economic Orthodoxy.

Review :
"Perhaps the greatest achievement of Christopher Gunn's Third-Sector Development is to take seriously the economic contribution and potential of the independent sector. Not only does he remind us that we are talking about 10 percent of the current economy but he proceeds to sketch the dimensions of the sector's qualitative contributions. In a series of penetrating case studies accompanied by hardheaded analysis, he gives color and depth to arguably the most creative undertakings in today's economy. If indeed mainstream private-sector growth seems increasingly unable to solve social deficits (and may, in fact, be exacerbating them) while public-sector efforts shrink in the face of yawning economic deficits, we would be well advised to look more carefully to where Gunn points: the socio-frontier of third-sector development."-Robert Friedman, Chair, Corporation for Enterprise Development "Christopher Gunn illuminates one of the hidden recesses of our nation's vast nonprofit subcontinent and uncovers a mother lode of innovative organizations effectively mobilizing nonmarket impulses to offset some of the structural shortcomings of our market system. The result is a fascinating account of how third-sector organizations bring hope and progress to those left behind in the march of globalization."-Lester M. Salamon, Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies and author of The Resilient Sector: The State of Nonprofit America "Christopher Gunn's Third-Sector Development highlights an engine for prosperity long overlooked by economists inside and outside of government. Gunn meticulously describes the contours, mission, and evolution of the nation's nonprofits and cooperatives-which together make up the fastest-growing sector in the economy-and then provides two dozen engaging case studies. Rich in data, stories, and insight, Third-Sector Development should be in the hands of the nation's expanding army of do-gooders as proof of the claim that they are the real foundation for America's economic future."-Michael H. Shuman, author of Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age