January 13, 2009
Excerpted from the Non Profit Times
Today, we have exploding unemployment, a contracting economy, and urgent unmet needs. President-elect Barack Obama, with strong allies in Congress, can follow a similar strategy to marshal the nation’s talent and energy, and use the leveraged power of non-profits in a time of crisis.
President-elect Obama has made a call to service a key theme in his vision for America, and outlined a powerful plan that would:
~ Expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots and double the size of the Peace Corps;
~ Integrate service-learning into our schools and universities;
~ Provide new community service opportunities for working Americans and retirees; and,
~ Expand service initiatives that engage disadvantaged young people and advance their education.
The key elements of this plan have already been captured in legislation by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), two close friends who have come together across the aisle to make public service an American priority. In an extraordinary show of bipartisanship, their "Serve America Act" (S. 3487) was endorsed by both then-Senator Obama and Senator John McCain in the midst of their presidential campaign. Parallel efforts on service are underway in the House of Representatives, under the leadership of Congressmen George Miller and Buck McKeon. They are mobilizing support for the GIVE Act to reauthorize and strengthen AmeriCorps, Senior Corps and Learn and Serve America.
The Obama vision and the Serve America Act have the strong support of more than 100 organizations affiliated with the ServiceNation campaign (www.servicenation.org). These organizations — which range from the 40 million-member AARP to Colin Powell’s America’s Promise Alliance for Youth and the NAACP — have a collective reach of some 100 million Americans. Enacting legislation quickly would bring our nation together around a smart service plan, and help foster bipartisan unity.
There is already enormous unmet demand for national service programs. AmeriCorps receives three good applicants for every slot it can offer, and this year Teach For America expects 37,000 applications for its 5,000 positions.
As President-elect Obama envisions, the Serve America legislation will provide service opportunities for Americans from kindergarten through retirement, and harness the talents of our people to solve difficult problems, both in the United States and around the world.
Inspiring Americans to serve each other and their communities, and investing in the infrastructure needed to accommodate new volunteers, will mobilize the nonprofit sector to play a key role in helping build a stronger future.
But nonprofit leaders will have to step forward and engage the full power of their networks to help President-elect Obama, and leaders on the Hill, pass the legislation needed to bring about this new era of service and shared sacrifice in our nation.
President-elect Obama wants to build a new America — an America in which every individual has a place in shaping the American story. Building on the service legacies of nearly every president since Franklin Roosevelt, in a time of economic and civic crisis for the country, there could be no better expression of who were are as a people than to call on every American to do their part, and ignite a nation of service.