Third Sector: What It Is and What Role It Plays

What the Third Sector Is

“Third sector” is the name Italian law gives to a field of economic and social activity that stands apart from both government and the market: private organizations that, without seeking profit, pursue goals of collective benefit. Since 2017, Italy’s Third Sector Code, Legislative Decree no. 117, has gathered into one law a set of rules that used to be scattered across separate statutes for each type of organization. Article 1 of the Code ties this reorganization directly to the Constitution, including Article 118, fourth paragraph, on horizontal subsidiarity: the principle that citizens, including through associations, can carry out activities of general interest on their own, and public institutions support that autonomous initiative (the same idea comes up in the Recap on the structure of the Italian Constitution).

Types of Third-Sector Organizations

Article 4, paragraph 1, of the Code lists by name who can be called a third-sector organization: volunteer organizations, social promotion associations, philanthropic entities, social enterprises (including social cooperatives), associative networks, mutual aid societies, recognized or unrecognized associations, foundations, and other private entities that aren’t companies. What they share is the absence of a profit motive, activities of general interest carried out as their sole or main purpose, and registration with the national third-sector register.

In practice: a social cooperative running a group home for minors and a neighborhood association offering free after-school tutoring are both third-sector organizations, even though their legal form and business model differ: one sells a service, the other runs on its members’ contributions.

Volunteering is one of the ways the Code allows an organization to carry out its activities, alongside providing money, goods or services for free and mutual or market exchange: Article 4 lists it as one possible route, not the only one. A volunteer organization is built around this model; a social enterprise, by contrast, can operate with paid staff.

What Isn’t the Third Sector

Article 4, paragraph 2, explicitly excludes from the third sector (with an exception for civil protection bodies):

• public administrations;
• political parties and political movements;
• trade unions;
• professional and trade associations;
• employer associations.

The line is a sharp one, tied to what the organization does: the Code’s scope covers activities of general interest for the wider community, while representing group interests or exercising public authority falls outside that definition.

The RUNTS, One Register Instead of Many

Before the reform, checking whether a volunteer organization or a social promotion association was properly established meant consulting different registers, often kept at the regional level, plus a separate roll for Onlus entities. Article 45 of the Third Sector Code established the National Register of the Third Sector (RUNTS), which has been operating since November 23, 2021. According to Italy’s Ministry of Labor and Social Policies, the RUNTS replaces the older registers for ODVs and APSs and the Onlus roll required under previous rules: organizations already listed in those registers flow into it; social enterprises and social cooperatives are added to it; anyone not yet registered anywhere can apply exclusively through the dedicated online portal. Being registered with the RUNTS is the legal condition for being recognized as a third-sector organization, with all the benefits and obligations that come with it. The RUNTS exists because of a legislative decree, a legal norm with the same force as an ordinary law, which is why it can require registration from anyone who wants to be called a third-sector organization; an association’s own internal rulebook has no such reach.

The Economic and Social Role

According to ISTAT, as of December 31, 2023, Italy had 368,367 active nonprofit institutions, up 2.3% from 2022 (up 0.6% once statistical refinements are stripped out). That same year, these institutions employed 949,200 people, up 3.2% from 2022: a workforce that in scale and momentum sits alongside the broader trends of the labor market. By legal form, the association remains by far the most common choice, at 85.3% of organizations in 2023, followed by other legal forms (8.4%), social cooperatives (3.9%) and foundations (2.4%). Geographically, the North is home to 49.7% of nonprofit institutions, the Center 22.0%, the South 18.8% and the Islands 9.5%. By field of activity, about one nonprofit institution in three worked in sport in 2023: the single most represented field, ahead of culture, social assistance and the other areas covered by third-sector organizations.