Several years ago, I spoke to 40 Australian business leaders in Melbourne at a luncheon hosted by a local bank. At the end of the speech, as we were leaving, our host asked me to wait for a moment. He returned from his office with a sheet of paper, which he presented to me.

I read it, and knew I had been given a great gift. I have shared it widely ever since. Most of us have not read it before, even though we think we know the works of George Bernard Shaw. Here is the message the Australian banker shared with me:

"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.

"Life is no 'brief candle' for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a short moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

Shaw's "splendid torch" travels with me on my weekly flights to somewhere in the United States or abroad. I find it reassuring that, wherever I go, there are remarkable men and women, and boys and girls, reaching out beyond their walls, changing lives in thousands of ways and building community, the common bottom line of the 1.2 million social sector organizations in the United States.

A recent publication of INDEPENDENT SECTOR, The New Nonprofit Almanac in Brief: Facts and Figures on the Independent Sector 2001, provides powerful evidence documenting the significance, size, and scope of the social sector -- the equal partner of business and government. It notes that in 1998, 55 percent of Americans, or 109 million, volunteered an average of 3.5 hours per week, for a total valued at more than $225 billion.

Seeing Ourselves Life-Size

I love to think that George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), author and believer in the significance of service, can inspire today a third century of people and organizations who share a common bottom line.

In Shaw's "Don Juan in Hell," a general growls, "A good slogan is half the battle." I've used this on occasion when I've been trying to emphasize the power of short, compelling messages in communicating across the sectors. I never dreamed that lurking somewhere was George Bernard Shaw's vision about his own life and the significance of serving others. I had to travel to Australia, speak to a group of business leaders, and meet a banker who knew the perfect gift in order to discover a message I could share with fellow travelers along the way.

For all people working with nonprofit organizations, there is another discovery or message. It is a difficult message to deliver, because volunteers and staff are modest about their contributions. The message is that one of the most important actions that leaders of the social sector can take is to see their contributions and their organizations life-size. To be acknowledged as an equal partner with business and government, the social sector needs to assert that equality. And for the sector to make this impact, each person and organization within it is called to see and act and lead as a life-size, equal partner.

In a schedule that includes far too much travel, I am endlessly rewarded at the end of each flight, where I encounter men and women working to meet the needs of children, families, and their community in organizations that support the strength of the society. In China, Argentina, Poland, the Philippines -- wherever a Drucker Foundation team travels abroad -- at the end of the line are the leaders of nonprofit organizations, all passionately committed to the mission, to changing lives and building community.

The first time a Drucker Foundation team presented a leadership seminar in Argentina, working with a newly formed nonprofit, Fundacion Compromiso, we opened a seminar with 825 men and women determined to learn more about the leadership and management of social sector organizations -- some established, some just emerging -- in their country.

In the opening remarks, Father Rafael Braun, a Compromiso founder and board member, said, "After 50 years of social disintegration, at last we have a chance to build a social sector, for without it we cannot sustain the democracy."

Peter Drucker reinforced this idea in the Foundation's 1999 Year in Review, where he noted, "The 21st century will be the century of the social sector organization. The more economy, money, and information become global, the more community will matter. And only the social sector nonprofit organization performs in the community, exploits its opportunities, mobilizes its local resources, and solves its problems. The leadership, competence, and management of the social sector nonprofit organization will thus largely determine the values, the vision, the cohesion, and the performance of the 21st century society." We would add that in the end it is the social sector that sustains the democracy.