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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Oxfam's Future of Business Initiative advances a portfolio of projects supporting for-benefit enterprises—businesses that prioritize social aims and put the interests of workers, farmers, communities and consumers alongside those of investors. Oxfam will help for-benefit businesses to access finance, work with global companies on how they can include such businesses in their supply chains, and investigate how for-benefit businesses can contribute towards tackling global inequality.

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.

CARE Enterprises Announces Plans to Deploy $30 Million through Investment Structures and Collaboration with World Economic Forum’s Fourth Sector Development Initiative

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.

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.

The Fund is will leverage their world-class research, due diligence, and capacity building expertise to develop a system for identifying, funding, and strengthening the most impactful initiatives. It will focus on efforts of strategic significance to the expansion of the fourth sector as a whole, employing collaborative funding guidelines, inclusive outreach to the field, transparent governance, and accountable day-to-day management.