A business model is the operating model, or plan, for an organization. It is short-hand to describe all aspects of operations, including the revenue streams, customers or clients, products, and financing or fundraising. Government agencies and programs, non-profits, and companies all have business models.

A tri-sector business model is when each sector - public, private, social - contributes to and benefits from a business model. For example, in Propel's business model, the public sector contributes to the business model via the SNAP program and benefits from the business model by running a more effective and efficient program for its users without having to change their operations. Learn more about tri-sector business models. 

Tri-sector business models can take many different forms and there is a spectrum of how closely the organizations from each sector work together to both give to the model and get resources from the model. But, many business models do not require formalized contracts, agreements or any connection with the owner of these resources.

For example, Coinstar did not ask the federal government for permission to create their machines and did not have contracts or licenses with the government. They used the market and assets (coins) created by the federal government to create their business. As the business grew, Coinstar developed a close working relationship with the Fed, as the Fed saw the value in in Coinstar’s service. In other cases, when resources are not freely available, a more close relationship may be required to create the business model.​ 

 We are a Seattle-based 501c3 nonprofit organization. To date, NewImpactWiki databases have been developed for several cities and regions, including Seattle, Detroit, Chicago, Newark and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as for the country of Costa Rica. We support innovators across the United States and globally.

There are three ways NewImpact currently operates. Please contact us if you have an interest in working with us.

1. We are creating a public good, the NewImpact Toolkit. Contact us if you would like to support further development of the Toolkit or have it created for your region.  We are currently fundraising to develop an open, publicly available, online NewImpact Toolkit.

2. We support tri-sector analysis and business model innovation. We conduct consulting projects directly to augment a company, government, or nonprofit business model with tri-sector strategies.

3. We drive investment to powerful, tri-sector models.