The social sector consists of all organizations fundamentally driven by a social purpose. This sector has also been referred to as the non-profit sector or NGO-sector, the citizen sector, or the third sector. They can be non-governmental or non-profit organizations (NGOs or NPOs), private and corporate philanthropic foundations, government agencies (such as USAID), inter-governmental organizations and agencies (such as UNICEF and UNDP), and even private for-profit companies with an overriding social mission (referred to as social enterprises).

All of these various organizations can be an integral part of adaptive blueprinting and scaling-out strategies. Innovative blueprints for social change are usually created by NGOs, but foundations can catalyze and facilitate the adaptive blueprinting process and government agencies and IGOs often become instrumental partners due to their extensive reach and available resources. Social enterprises are perhaps more of a fit for social franchising strategies as opposed to adaptive blueprinting, however, they too can offer significant value to a network of partners committed to scaling-out rather than up.