In the current environment, we witness service:
- easing the effects of a recession that has one in ten people jobless;
- strengthening our nonprofits at a time when their services have never been more needed;
- through partnerships, bridging the gaps left by state and local governments whose budgets have been slashed so that schools are furloughing teachers, state parks are closing, govt offices and libraries have reduced hours, after-school programs have been eliminated; and
- propelling a civic-minded millennial generation just entering the workforce, who want to make a difference, are tech-savvy, and love a challenge; they are 75 million strong.
As it has been just over a year since the passing of the Serve America Act, I’m thinking about the power of an extensive push to fully implement the Act and the power of the positive change that could unleash.
The passage of the Act was an all-too-rare example of bipartisanship.
It’s clear that we need to seize the momentum created by a dramatic confluence of events: urgent economic needs, a President committed to service, a huge civic-minded generation of young people, and our own passion to truly make service part of our schools, our workplaces, and our culture.
We need to look at what and how we teach, how we rate companies, how companies incent their employees, how government and nonprofits partner with each other, how we measure success and how we benchmark best service practices.
Looking ahead, we need to think about the intersection of service and social innovation – how can innovative, high-impact organizations to further leverage citizen service?
We must define strategies to sustain the momentum from the Serve America Act – how can we seize the moment to fund the Act at the level it needs? How can we demonstrate to the public and to government the high quality of programs made possible by the first investments in the Act?
We must re-imagine service – how can communities leverage volunteers effectively to drive real social change?
