Tri-Sector Innovation Explained
We Live in a World of Abundance
The world is brimming with resources—over $500 trillion worth—built assets, money, services, connections and partnerships, data, and people. So much of what we need to tackle challenges, from the simple to the complex, is already here.
So why, in this world of abundance and human ingenuity, do so many challenges remain unsolved? Often it’s because we’re solving problems in silos, convinced we have limited resources—while trillions of dollars of potential remains untapped or unseen.
If you could unlock just a fraction of those resources in order to innovate, supercharge your organization, or solve a huge societal challenge, you’d be a hero.
The fact is, you can. Tri-Sector Innovation can lead the way.
Resources and the Private, Social, and Public Sectors
The resources on the world’s balance sheet are continually being created by one of three sectors that drive our economy—private sector companies, social sector nonprofits, and public sector governments. Each sector works predominantly from their own sector, creating their own resources for their own projects and building up their own silos.
It’s kind of like each sector largely builds their own bucket of Lego pieces.
The irony is that we, as individuals, don’t interact with these sectors independently. They’re completely intertwined in our everyday lives. Consider your morning coffee: the cup was made by the private sector, the coffee was certified fair trade by the social sector and the water was delivered by the public sector.
These resources came together—not because the sectors planned to make your brew, but because each sector was working with its own resources and priorities. And yet, they came together in your hands. Now imagine applying that principle intentionally and at scale.
This is the core of Tri-Sector Innovation: intentionally aligning and repurposing the unique resources and priorities of all three sectors to innovate and solve pressing challenges. By adopting a tri-sector approach, organizations can transcend sector silos, unlock assets, and provide impactful new solutions that create common benefit. This is simple, common sense idea, but it is NOT yet common practice.
We live in a Tri-Sector world.
We just need to innovate and solve challenges in tri-sector ways.
Unfortunately, heroes ready to solve problems or supercharge organizations often don’t see that useful resources exist across sectors—or that they are within reach. One big barrier is that the depth of the resources available to us can be difficult to see or know.
In addition, we’ve all been trained to focus and specialize. We haven’t been taught to design and innovate using multiple sectors of the economy.
We build with the resources we know, usually from within our own sectors. Consequently, siloed resources and limited thinking lead us to disregard trillions of dollars in untapped potential, resources that could drive meaningful progress for organizations and society alike.
Scaling Faster, Better, and Cheaper with Tri-Sector Innovation
Most organizations focus on what they’re doing—building a product, running a program, or solving a problem with the resources they already know. It works, but it’s often limited by working inside fixed silos.
Tri-Sector Innovation adds a fresh perspective: the “how.” With the help of innovation tools and targeted questions about resources across all three sectors, you can unlock new opportunities to strengthen what you’re already doing by reimagining how a few of those resources can be repurposed in compelling ways to strengthen your business or address your challenges.
This isn’t just the tired idea that “silos are bad.” Tri-Sector Innovation represents a fundamental mindset shift, moving from focusing solely on the “what” you’re doing, to leveraging the “how” to drive better outcomes. This shift allows you to move faster, innovate with greater purpose, and tackle challenges more effectively—whether you’re scaling a company or solving a complex problem.
So how do you unlock and use those resources to innovate better and scale faster?
When you’re building a business or working a problem, Tri-Sector Innovation tools give you permission pour all the Lego pieces from each sector’s bucket out onto the table. By looking through all the resources available and asking better questions, you can uncover powerful insights into what’s out there and how you might use it.
As you look at all the resources and consider how they might help with your project, several things can happen.
Sometimes you’ll find a resource you need that’s already been built, meaning you don’t have to invest in building it yourself. That’s a big win.
Other times, you’ll discover find an existing resource that can be repurposed in a way that hadn’t imagined before, a way that completely redefines and supercharges your business model. This is where Tri-Sector Innovation becomes truly transformative.
That’s when you unlock entirely new possibilities.
With all the Lego pieces on the table, you’re no longer constrained by locked silos, sector limitations, or the narrow scope of “public-private partnerships.” Instead, you’re free to select the best pieces, regardless of sector, and assemble them in strategic and unexpected ways that may go well beyond their original purpose.
The real power of Tri-Sector Innovation isn’t just finding pieces you need, it’s in questions you ask and how you reimagine what those pieces can do. This pushes the boundaries of what’s possible.
The Nut & Bolts of Tri-Sector Innovation
It’s important to understand: this isn’t about grabbing resources for one-time use. Tri-Sector Innovation is built on a deliberate give-and-get between sectors, creating lasting value for all involved.
Three core principles animate every Tri-Sector solution:
Repurpose existing resources from ALL three sectors. Unlock new value and multiply the impact of existing resources. This approach opens the door to fundamentally new business models and accelerates progress.
Align self-interests. Ensure that every organization gains something valuable by contributing its resources. This creates mutually beneficial, sustainable solutions.
Design to help your organization and society thrive. Embed societal impact into every solution while ensuring your organization grows and endures.
Coinstar kiosk
Tri-Sector Innovation Isn’t Just a Theory
It worked at Coinstar. It took something simple—helping people redeem their loose change—and aligned the interests of governments, retailers, and nonprofits.
The result?
An unexpectedly powerful new business model that recycled coins, saving the government billions of dollars.
Retailers saw increased foot traffic and sales.
And hundreds of millions of dollars were channeled into charitable giving.
Alignment of self-interest and access to existing resources for novel uses proved to be their engine for success.
Propel logo
It worked at Propel, too. A smart, fast-growing fintech company on its way to unicorn status, Propel used Tri-Sector Innovation to help more than 6 million SNAP households increase their spending power, access fresh food, find jobs, and connect to vital resources. By partnering with supermarkets, government programs, and nonprofits, Propel saved families millions.
In each of these cases, and many others we’ve worked on, looking at resources from other sectors in new ways utterly transformed the business model. It’s kind of like when you add an atom to a molecule: its entire function changes.
As a Society, We Can Do More
The ultimate goal of the Tri-Sector Mindset is to create strategies and business models that generate mutual benefit for all involved—businesses, nonprofits, governments, and society. It’s a formula that aligns the private sector’s profit motive, the social sector’s mission, and public sector’s duty, creating a powerful synergy that makes progress possible and, we believe, inevitable.
If every organization harnessed this holistic approach, business profits would soar, nonprofit effectiveness would expand, and governments at all levels would deliver more powerful solutions at scale.
Most importantly, people and the planet would benefit. Think about what we could accomplish as a society if we were able to draw from and build on all those trillions of dollars of untapped potential sitting on the world’s balance sheet.
Join the Tri-Sector Journey
NewImpact was founded as a nonprofit to help innovators and organizations build smarter, more impactful solutions. We do this in three ways:
Advance & promote the tri-sector mindset & approach
Create and share free impact & innovation public-good tools
Advise & coach organizations to thrive and have impact by tri-sectorizing.
We engage with:
Accelerators and Incubators: Supporting early-stage startups with strategies to build stronger business models, scale their efforts, and attract more funding from investors.
Entrepreneurs and Innovators: Offering tailored support for business model ideation and refinement at varying levels of depth.
Community Stakeholders: Partnering with nonprofits, governments, and community leaders to identify local needs and promote tri-sector strategies.
Universities: Teaching the next generation of leaders by providing faculty with resources to integrate Tri-Sector Innovation into their courses—and occasionally engaging directly through guest lectures or workshops.
Investors: Helping investors recognize tri-sector business models as opportunities to create competitive advantage, achieve greater returns, and access a robust pipeline of new deals.
Getting Started with Tri-Sector Innovation
The challenges we face aren’t waiting—and neither can we. For too long, we’ve have stuck to familiar silos, reworking the same tools and approaches while opportunities slip by. Meanwhile, buried within the sector silos, resources already exist that, when reimagined and aligned, can create solutions that scale, sustain, and transform.
This is more than just problem-solving—it’s about designing a future where your organization thrives, communities grow stronger, and impact extends further than ever before. The first step is simple: explore what’s possible. Our Getting Started with TSI page is a great place to begin. Here’s what you’ll find::
Free innovation tools to help you identify resources and opportunities, ideate creative solutions, and build transformative business models.
Learning resources like videos, case studies, and projects to show how TSI works in real-world projects and inspire new possibilities.
As you explore, consider these three guiding questions to start shaping your approach:
What is your private sector strategy? How might businesses or corporations contribute resources, expertise, or innovation to your efforts?
What is your social sector strategy? How could nonprofits, advocacy groups, or community organizations help amplify your impact or engage key stakeholders?
What is your public sector strategy? What opportunities exist to collaborate with governments, access public resources, or align with policy goals?
Ready to start? The tools are here. The resources are waiting. The time is now to unlock your organization’s full potential and create solutions that truly matter.