This paper reports on early research findings from the Northern Rock Foundation Third Sector Trends study. The first phase of work involved exploration of the relationship between the Third Sector, the public sector and the communities and beneficiaries it serves through a series of interviews with chief officers in infrastructure organisations. The second phase, now underway, is focusing on the way that individual Third Sector Organisations negotiate their way through social, political and economic change over a period of seven years.

At a conceptual level, the research has raised a number of questions about defining the Third Sector in cultural terms and is exploring how people who work or volunteer in the sector construct a sense of occupational and professional identity. In the paper we present three analogies to help explain how people within and outside the sector make sense of what the sector is, what it does and who benefits from its activity.

Our purpose is to show that sector boundaries and objectives are contested - especially so by outsiders who seek to impose their own views of what the sector should be. Internally, we show, the sector is characterised by its ability to accommodate multiple realities and identities whilst preserving a sense of cohesion. This cohesion, we tentatively suggest, is largely defined by what the sector is not, however, not just by what it is.

Internal arguments (which are sometimes held outside the private domain) about the purpose and boundaries of the Third Sector can encourage some ‘outsiders’ to conceive the sector as fragmented and chaotic, its internal politics as conflicted, and its practices as amateurish or unprofessional. A consequence of this can be the development of a view that the Third Sector may be too troublesome to work with. We conclude the paper by assessing some of the consequences of such misconceptions for the development and impact of the third sector at a local level.

Information sharing and group processes are dominated by words - spoken and written words. This session will explore how different methods can be used to stimulate ideas, encourage participation and discussion and lead to awareness. Karen will draw on and present material from a large four-university project to discuss the roles that different kinds of creative methods might play in contributing to community cohesion in the context of partnership working. Each of the methods discussed emerged from a project in which staff from four Universities were required to collaborate in working on projects in collaboration with – and driven by – community groups. Karen will consider the innovative methods as a creative means of engaging community members; as a method of recording data; as an intervention to resolve a tension in the community; and as a means of dissemination.

Participants in the presentation include university staff working on the projects; people from different migrant groups; people living in areas of urban regeneration. Through discussion of the techniques used we hope to identify the power of visual and creative methods versus the written word; as means of developing awareness or ‘conscientisation’; and the limitations of taking such an approach when working across different communities.