Definitions of the UK voluntary sector

This paper has been prepared for the Independent Sector Spring Forum, The Nonprofit Sector in the United States and Abroad: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Boston, 15-16 March 1990. Funding support from the UK Department of Health is gratefully acknowledged.

The paper examines alternative routes to a definition for the voluntary sector, settling on a definition developed from first principles. The merits of the different definitional approaches are examined, and the components of the chosen principles discussed. By relaxing each principle in turn, broader definitions of the sector are obtained. The discussion is predominantly couched in the British context, although the paper is stimulated by the start, in Spring 1990, of an international comparative study of the voluntary sector.