
ADVANCE POLICY
Shape policy environments conducive to the growth of for-benefits while ensuring their accountability.
Advance Policy
Policy and regulatory environments are critical to the ecosystem’s development and scaling. For-benefits need a comprehensive policy regime consistent with the depth and breadth of the policy environments that enable the other sectors.
This includes legal recognition and formalization as a distinct class of entity, appropriate tax treatment, transparency requirements, accountability standards, regulation of investments, and much more.
While fourth sector policy will vary according to the unique requirements and concerns of each country and region, certain principles of social equity and environmental sustainability will need to remain consistent with global norms.
Enhance Knowledge
Advance Policy
Raise Awareness
Connect Stakeholders
Educate & Train
Mobilize Resources
Initiatives Advancing Policy on the 4SG Platform:

Global Alliance for Life Economies Research and Innovation (GALERI)
Catalyzing knowledge, innovation, and coordinated action to scale Life Economy solutions worldwide.
First envisioned in 2022 during the G20 Indonesia and formally launched in 2023 under the G20 India, the Global Alliance for Life Economies Research and Innovation (GALERI) fosters engagement, coordination, and collaboration among governments, think tanks, academia, international organizations, philanthropy, business, civil society, and other actors to accelerate the growth of inclusive and sustainable economies. GALERI aims to create a wide space for collaborations to effectively support policymaking in G20 countries, guide global processes in developing norms, and create global public goods, particularly in research and innovation.
Contributes to:
Advancing Policy, Connecting Stakeholders, Enhancing Knowledge, Raising Awareness, Mobilizing Resources, Educating & Training

Scaling Philanthropy’s Role in Transforming Economic Systems (SPRITES)
Building a global collaborative platform that helps philanthropic leaders coordinate capital, learning, and strategic action to upgrade economic systems and support purpose-driven enterprises and ecosystem infrastructure to scale.
The SPRITES initiative is a global, multi-stakeholder collaboration designed to strengthen philanthropy’s contribution to systemic economic transformation. It provides a coordinated platform where funders, practitioners, policymakers, and ecosystem partners work together to accelerate investment, knowledge, and action toward economic systems that deliver equitable, regenerative, and sustainable outcomes for people and planet.
Contributes to:
Advancing Policy, Enhancing Knowledge, Mobilizing Resources, Connecting Stakeholders

The Fourth Sector in Ibero-America Project
Fostering social & sustainable economy in Ibero-America
The Fourth Sector in Ibero-America Project is a multi-stakeholder initiative led by the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), that seeks to facilitate the creation of a more prosperous, socially fair and environmentally sustainable economy in the 22 countries of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, by advancing the development of a new ecosystem for benefit-driven enterprises.
Contributes to:
Advancing Policy, Raising Awareness, Connecting Stakeholders, Enhancing Knowledge

COVID-19 Fourth Sector Response
Building Better: Social and economic recovery through fourth sector development
COVID-19 Fourth Sector Response is a collaborative, multi-stakeholder effort to rise to the challenge of the COVID-19 crisis by harnessing the fourth sector of the economy to build a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable future.
Contributes to:
Enhancing Knowledge, Educating & Training, Advancing Policy, Raising Awareness, Connecting Stakeholders, Mobilizing Resources

Fourth Sector Development Initiative
Global Future Council on International Governance, Public-Private Cooperation and Sustainable Development
The Fourth Sector Development Initiative (FSDI) is a collaboration of public, private, and philanthropic institutions committed to accelerating sustainable, inclusive development by catalysing trillions of dollars of fourth sector growth globally by 2030.
Contributes to:
Enhancing Knowledge, Advancing Policy, Raising Awareness, Connecting Stakeholders, Educating & Training, Mobilizing Resources

B4B Coalition
The Buy For-Benefit Coalition, which aims to leverage the trillion spent in procurement dollars to transform global value chains and advance an economy that benefits all stakeholders, launched at the World Economic Forum 2020 Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
The rules for business are changing rapidly. Leading any organization today is more complex and uncertain than ever. Corporate managers are increasingly asked to do more than deliver financial results or quality goods and services; they are being tasked with tackling massive environmental and societal challenges, operationalizing purpose, and meeting the demands of multiple stakeholders, while navigating an environment of rapid change.
Contributes to:
Enhancing Knowledge, Raising Awareness, Connecting Stakeholders, Educating & Training, Mobilizing Resources, Advancing Policy

Fourth Sector Mapping Initiative (FSMI)
The Fourth Sector Mapping Initiative is a global, multi-stakeholder collaborative effort to shed light on the emerging fourth sector of the economy.
Led by a 180+ member Advisory Council of diverse experts, FSMI is developing a rigorous taxonomy of for-benefit organizations and conducting a global census of these entities and their supportive ecosystems.
Contributes to:
Raising Awareness, Connecting Stakeholders, Advancing Policy, Enhancing Knowledge

Fourth Sector 2030
FS 2030 aims to accelerate the development of an enabling ecosystem for purpose-driven, for-benefit businesses — the emerging fourth sector of the economy.
In collaboration with a range of partners, and with support from the UK Department for International Development (DFID), we are engaging stakeholders from the private sector, governments, inter-governmental organizations, communities, academia, civil society, philanthropy, and the fourth sector to establish a growing reservoir of knowledge, tools, and approaches for releasing the potential of for-benefit enterprise to deliver solutions across the entire range of SDGs.
Contributes to:
Educating & Training, Enhancing Knowledge, Advancing Policy, Connecting Stakeholders, Raising Awareness

Fourth Sector Data Commons
An open, freely accessible, interactive online database of for-benefit organizations and fourth sector support organizations.
To meet the global demand for better data and understanding about for-benefit organizations, the goal of the Fourth Sector Data Commons is to create a comprehensive, worldwide source of information on the scale, scope and performance of for-benefit organizations, their supporting ecosystem, and other closely aligned organizations. It will be an open, freely accessible, participatory, cloud-based platform that enables users to pool and access existing sources of relevant data; gather, update, expand, and deepen data on ongoing basis; and perform business, impact, and policy analysis and research.
A component of the Fourth Sector Mapping Initiative, the Data Commons will be developed and stewarded for the benefit of public agencies, practitioners, researchers, consumers, economic developers and other members of the fourth sector community.
Contributes to:
Raising Awareness, Advancing Policy, Educating & Training, Connecting Stakeholders, Enhancing Knowledge

Fourth Sector Policy Initiative
A comprehensive fourth sector policy framework
A global, multi-stakeholder collaboration to develop and promulgate a comprehensive fourth sector policy framework, including model laws that could be adopted at the national, state and local levels around the world. To inform the work, the Fourth Sector Policy Initiative is undertaking a research effort in collaboration with DLA Piper and other partners to examine recent legal and regulatory reforms which have been adopted around the world to recognize and support for-benefit organizations.
Contributes to:
Advancing Policy, Raising Awareness, Enhancing Knowledge

Fourth Sector Taxonomy Framework
A global, multi-stakeholder collaborative effort to shed light on the emerging fourth sector of the economy.
The Fourth Sector Taxonomy Framework serves as the first step toward creating a classification system of for-benefit organizations, and it provides guidance to businesses, investors, policymakers, academics, and others interested in understanding entities that make up the emerging fourth sector of the economy and its supportive ecosystem. The elements of the Taxonomy Framework are not meant to be prescriptive, but rather to describe the various attributes of such organizations.
Contributes to:
Advancing Policy, Educating & Training, Enhancing Knowledge
