In relation to public services, the voluntary sector is the realm of social activity undertaken by non-governmental, not for profit organizations.
[5] A formal economic theory of the voluntary, nonprofit sector and its role was developed by Burton Weisbrod in the 1970s,[6][7] and subsequent decade.
This enabled calculation of the value of voluntary labor in the United States, which is a factor now considered in the analysis of efficiency wage.
[9] Rob Macmillan observed that the nature of this sector is "a hugely contested domain", with issues raised over "whether there is a coherent 'sector' at all, and if so what it should be called".
[10] The presence of a large non-profit sector is sometimes seen as an indicator of a healthy economy in local and national financial measurements.
[12] Peter Drucker suggests that the nonprofit sector provides an excellent outlet for a variety of society's labor and skills.
Pauperism, child welfare, juvenile justice, sanitation, tuberculosis, and other health issues were emergent problems for new and existing agencies.
[21] In addition however, the not-for-personal-profit sector is also considered to include social firms (such as cooperatives and mutuals) and more recently governmental institutions (such as Housing Associations) that have been spun off from government, although still operating fundamentally as public service delivery organizations.
These other types of institutions may be considered to be quasi-private or quasi-public sectors rather than stemming from direct community benefit motivations.
[24] Development of the third sector, it is argued, is linked to the restructuring of the welfare state and further globalization of that process through neo-liberal strategies of the Washington consensus.
[25] In a 2013 New York Times op-ed and radio podcast, The Charitable-Industrial Complex, Peter Buffett uses the terms "philanthropic colonialism" and "conscience laundering", and describes his insights into "searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left" rather than systemic change.