community service

20-29 year olds with no college experience are half as likely to volunteer as those in the same age group who do attend college, according to a report by CIRCLE and jointly released with the National Conference on Citizenship.

Conducted by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University’s Tisch College and released jointly with the National Conference on Citizenship, the report found that 25 percent of young adults who have attended college volunteered in 2007 while only 11 percent of those with no college experience volunteered. This gap has remained constant since 2002.

Peter Levine, director of CIRCLE, said young people without college experience are underutilized and underestimated: “Studies show all young people want to get involved in their communities, and lack of college experience should not be the deciding factor,” Levine said. “Schools, communities and government need to create more opportunities for all young people, not just the ones with a college education. Volunteering and participation in civic life is an important part of society, and no one should be excluded from an opportunity to do so.”

This activism gap between those youth attending college and non-college youth is something we've written about before here, and as you can see, it continues to exist. While colleges should be doing all they can to develop civic skills in their students, there should also be more focus on those not in college.

Some more information:

Eight in 10 young volunteers became involved by approaching the organization or being asked to become involved. Youth with college experience were more likely to have started volunteering through a pre-existing connection with that organization (33 percent) compared with 21 percent of non-college youth. Of those who started volunteering in some other way, youth without college experience were more likely to have started volunteering through a relative than college youth.

When asked for which type of organization they volunteered, “religious” organizations were the top choice for young people regardless of college experience. Most spend their time mentoring youth and teaching/tutoring, although young people with college experience were slightly more likely to provide professional or management assistance including serving on a board or committee.

Check out CIRCLE's fact sheet from the release here.

The National Conference on Citizenship has released a new report assessing volunteer rates across the nation in 2008. Here's what they report on Millennials:

About 8.24 million young people ages 16-24 volunteered in 2008, over 441,000 more than in 2007. This increase in young adult volunteers makes up almost half of the overall increase in the number of volunteers nationally. The volunteer rate for this group increased significantly from 20.8 percent in 2007 to 21.9 percent in 2008. The interest among young people in volunteering coincides with their reported increase in the belief that it is essential or very important to help other people in need. The Higher Education Research Institute studies the attitudes of first-year college students each year and reported that in 2008, 69.7 percent of students held this belief in 2008—the highest rate since 1970.

Overall, the report finds good new across the board for the civic health of the country, at least as it is measured by volunteer rates. Here are the other key findings of the report:

• In 2008, 61.8 million Americans or 26.4 percent of the adult population contributed 8 billion hours of volunteer service worth $162 billion, using Independent Sector’s 2008 estimate of the dollar value of a volunteer hour ($20.25).
• Despite the challenges of a tough economic situation, the volunteering rate held steady between 2007 and 2008, while the number of volunteers slightly increased by about one million.
• Neighborhood engagement levels have risen sharply since 2007, with a 31 percent increase in the number of people who worked with their neighbors to fix a community problem and a 17 percent increase in the number of people who attended community meetings.
• As the economy slows and nonprofit organizations struggle to provide services on smaller budgets, volunteers become even more vital to the health of our nation’s communities. Between September 2008 and March 2009, more than a third (37%) of nonprofit organizations report increasing the number of volunteers they use, and almost half (48%) foresee increasing their usage of volunteers in the coming year. Almost no nonprofit organizations are showing a decrease in their volunteer usage.
• Volunteers were much more likely than non-volunteers to donate to a charitable cause in 2008, with 78.2 percent contributing $25 or more compared to 38.5 percent of non-volunteers.

There is also some regional and even municipal-specific data on volunteer rates in the report. It's only 6 pages long and worth checking out.

By Chris Golden and Nick Troiano
Co-Founders, myImpact.org

President Obama and the First Lady launched “United We Serve” last month, a 12-week summer of service initiative whose goal is to engage all Americans in service projects, so that we may all be a part of the solution to our country’s most pressing challenges.

This week, the issues of hunger, homelessness and poverty are themes during an emphasis on “Community Renewal.” In the midst of a prolonged economic recession that began with a foreclosure and credit crisis and as local governments make difficult choices as a result of tightening municipal budgets; the need for renewing our communities could never be clearer. At the same time, there is a resounding belief that government cannot fix these problems alone and that citizens must come together, to take ownership of our communities again, working together to improve and renew them.

We believe that the Millennial Generation, those younger than age 28, wants to give back to our communities and to our country and that, with new technology and social networking, are in a unique position to do so. Giving back through service has always been an American tradition but today, with non-profit organizations struggling with an increased demand as their own budgets stay stagnant or in some cases are cut, volunteers are needed more than ever.

United We Serve is a prime opportunity to highlight the good works taking place in our communities and, by sharing their stories, to engage more Americans in service. Through the online community that we launched at united.myImpact.org, organizations and individuals from around the country are sharing how they are making an impact. They include Aramark workers in East Baltimore, Md. who this week will join in a day of service to build a new Community Resource Center and renovate an existing Community School and the Lion’s Club of America who continue their longstanding tradition of giving back.

We believe that the power of online social media, including technology that is still evolving, can make it even easier to serve and, moreover, can enhance and extend the service experience. We are founding myImpact.org as an online home of the service movement, where stories can be told, best practices exchanged and needs addressed. Building off of the tremendous energy following the passage this year of the Serve America Act and the success of this summer’s United We Serve initiative, we are well on our way to demonstrating the power that service can have to change our communities.

We are inspired by this moment in our country’s history and the tremendous opportunity that it presents to solve problems, both at the community and national levels. Service is key to our generation’s and our country’s future and we are proud to be enhancing the vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said “everybody can be great because anybody can serve.”

Chris Golden and Nick Troiano are co-founders of myImpact.org, an emerging online platform for young people in full and part time national and community service programs.

To sign up for the online community of United We Serve, visit www.united.myImpact.org.

Nearly three years ago, Democrats Work was launched with a simple goal: build a new service-based approach to politics. That meant making community service a big part of political activism -- not something divorced from political goals, but rather integral to the success in achieving them. This weekend, the "service politics" movement grows up and goes big.

On Saturday, the Democratic Party -- through the new Organizing for America project -- will hold the grassroots-powered National Day of Health Care Service. (You can check it out here: http://my.barackobama.com/HCservice.) The message is simple: while we fight for health care reform in Washington, D.C., we can also bring about change in our communities right now through service.

This is a big step for the DNC/OFA and an experiment worth trying. Health care reform may not be as easy to link to service as, say, the environment or education may be, but those who participate will get hands-on experiences and build relationships that won't come from television ads, town hall meetings, phone banks, or other "traditional" political activities.

We have come a long way from the days of begging local party organizations to try community service and schedule a few projects. The Georgia Democratic Party now has its own program called Georgia Democrats Work. Democrats from Northwest Arkansas to Auburn, Washington have embraced the approach. And rightfully so.

In October 2007, Democrats Work launched a pilot project in Arapahoe County, Colorado -- a hotly contested battleground -- to measure the effect of its Democrat-branded community service programs in targeted precincts and among targeted groups of voters. Fifty precincts were randomly divided into treatment and control groups. Democrats Work contacted voters eight times in the treatment precincts -- with a combination of mail and phone calls -- with information about the upcoming service opportunity and touting the success of past events over the course of a year. Afterwards, the organization measured the effect of the service-based approach on voters’ attitudes towards Democrats with polling.

The results with respect to young and unaffiliated young voters were extremely promising. Voters under the age of 35 in the treatment group (i.e., those who received information about the service events) reported being "warmer" towards the Democratic Party, felt the Democratic Party shares their values more than the Republican Party, and intended to vote for Democrats by wide margins. With respect to young, unaffiliated voters (not just all young voters), the results were even more encouraging. Democrats Work found that increased positive feelings towards Democrats caused a 30-point swing in vote share among young, unaffiliated votes.

This weekend, the service-based approach goes to scale in a way that we could have only imagined three years ago. Service politics -- the connection of direct service work and political action -- has finally grown up and the Democratic Party is a step closer to being the Party of Service.

I wrote a post the weekend following the election that referenced "thick democracy." During the campaign, President Obama had signaled a paradigm shift in the relationship citizens would have with their government should he be elected. Citizens were not going to merely be spectators, shut out from the government's work. Instead, the new president would ask everyone to pitch in and problem-solve using whatever backgrounds they had to benefit the country. Democracy would be thickened by the infusion of substance. Voting would not serve as the only way to embrace civic engagement; things like serving others, being involved (campaigning, canvassing, etc.) in local politics, pursuing the highest degree attainable, and staying abreast of current affairs also are ways to strengthen citizenship and our country.

We're seeing much of this campaign enthusiasm translate into fulfilled promises and even more enthusiasm. For instance, the Serve America Act has tripled the size of AmeriCorps and increased the education award to over $5,000 per year. The number of applicants for programs like City Year and Teach for America, which was already on the rise before the election, has surged even higher. The increase in number and popularity of service opportunities is a great sign for the future.

But to continue progressing, we need to examine ways to improve opportunities for engagement, especially as these opportunities continue to surge in popularity among young folks. Jo Fullmer at Beyond Bread is correct: we need to continue building the service infrastructure in order to ensure its permanence over the long haul. Fullmer describes her experience in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, an organization that's not officially related to AmeriCorps, but whose volunteers can receive education awards. Fullmer believes she was fortunate to have an experience that was so engaging and supportive, as many others' do not.

My own service was conducted through the Lutheran Volunteer Corps (which is not technically part of AmeriCorps, though we can receive AmeriCorps education awards). LVC also provides participants with additional financial support, a programmatic structure, and living accommodations within an intentional community. Through this community, I’ve found the support and inspiration to sustain a year of low pay and difficult work. And with the LVC’s support, Bread for the City has provided me the space and trust to try my hand at the work of social justice. As a result, I consider this year of service to have been a privilege.

And yet, that privilege itself is not as widely available and readily exercised by young Americans as it could be. Debt prevents so many from participating, and those who try anyway must struggle to attain loan relief. Even if a year or more of service can be financially feasible, many are daunted without a proper social network or access to a feasible living situation. Opportunities to serve are taken to best advantage when there is sufficient support inside the program.

Supportive living conditions; sustained and sustaining financial support; social engagement – these are the critical components of my successful service. Through improvements designed to foster these conditions, AmeriCorps could become an even more powerful engine of volunteerism and civic participation.

With Jo’s account, we are reminded that not every direct service opportunity within AmeriCorps might be beneficial for Americans wishing to serve, and that some change in that program might be a positive development. I wonder if it is forgetting the political element of service in its work. Service and politics are undeniably related. Common sense says that those participating in direct service to treat small-scale problems (community cleanups, working at a soup kitchen, etc.) care enough about the larger parent issue (the Green Movement, hunger and homelessness, etc.) to support larger, more proactive measures aimed at destroying them. But, to my knowledge (and please comment and correct me if I am incorrect), the majority of those working with/benefited by AmeriCorps have little to do with any larger political approach to solving problems.

But what if it did? How might that take shape? My girlfriend (who's been involved with and has some knowledge of the organization) and I quickly thought of a few changes that might strengthen the civic engagement involved in working with AmeriCorps. While this is by no means a closed list with no opportunity for feedback, I thought I would post what we thought of here.

The expansion of the AmeriCorps appointment from its current two year term to an extra year could improve a variety of problems. Jo discussed the absence of a supportive network in many positions; perhaps a longer term might help this a bit, opening the possibility of longer working relationships between the agency, the AmeriCorps member, and those. Also, another year of eligibility could allow for longer deferment periods on student loans. Finally, the lengthened term could lead to additional changes for the better, listed below.

With an expanded term, AmeriCorps members could be given the space to confront larger, more systemic issues and do so with more than just direct service. Instead of maintaining a static term in which the AmeriCorps member performs direct service each year of his or her eligibility, the term could be tiered: while the first year of service might be direct, AmeriCorps could then create a series of "Issue Advocate" positions for second and third year members of the program. Issue Advocates would become civic experts in their policy area, learning and teaching the ropes of government and non-profits, identifying and leveraging support for certain policies that reinforce the direct service work already being performed.

As it turns out, there's an excellent model for this kind of experience already in place. At the Congressional Hunger Center, the Bill Emerson National Fellows Program links the direct service with the additional issue advocacy needed to solve the massive hunger problem in this country. A description of the program's structure from the website:

Twenty Fellows begin the program in Washington, D.C. for a 10-day orientation and training session, and are then placed for six months with community-based organizations involved in direct anti-hunger and anti-poverty efforts, such as food banks, local advocacy organizations, community organizing groups and economic development agencies. Each host organization identifies specific goals and objectives for the Fellows and provides the supervision and resources necessary to accomplish them. In mid-February, the Fellows move to Washington, D.C. and regroup for another week-long training session before starting their policy placements. Policy placements are with national organizations involved in the anti-hunger and poverty movement. These placements give the Fellows insight into the process that shapes policy on the national level. The program ends in early August.

Someone who I consulted when writing this pointed out that such a holistic experience would be akin to receiving a master's degree in that policy area by the end of that person's direct service and advocacy work. Not only would our problem-solving efforts in various policy arenas be fortified with an expanded version of the Fellows program, but the nation's local communities could gain a considerable number of skilled civic experts.

In order to build the programmatic elements of AmeriCorps though, Jo's call for more infrastructural support should be heeded. Providing a separate housing stipend for participants would provide the additional support Jo called for. The increased stipends in the Serve America legislation was a great start, but starting a separate housing stipend would institutionalize housing support for AmeriCorps members, broadening their compensation package. Those working for AmeriCorps could then focus more on the work they do as opposed to finding an affordable place to live.

In the end, the thinking here is to ensure that we continue to move forward in building a progressive youth movement, which must, at its core, include a vision for expanding programs like AmeriCorps. When expanding AmeriCorps and other programs, we should be concentrating on moving past the direct service and embracing the other civic opportunities inherent in these initiatives. The ideas discussed above are just a few ways to thicken our service infrastructure as we move further into the 21st Century.

This sure is nice. From the Times earlier this week:

Barack Obama is calling for a national day of service to take place on Jan. 19, the federal holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and the day preceding Mr. Obama’s inauguration as president.

[...]

The Presidential Inaugural Committee is putting the wheels for the project in motion with calls and e-mails to national service organizations. The committee is reaching out to organizations of all sizes and ideologies, including faith-based groups, unions and businesses as well as political groups — from Moveon.org on the left to Focus on the Family on the right — to motivate their members to participate.

“While government has an important role to play in helping rekindle our economy and addressing the problems of a distressed nation, President-elect Obama believes each of us, as Americans, have a responsibility to do what we can for our communities and fellow citizens,” said the e-mail, which was signed by the five co-chairmen of the committee.

The e-mail also suggested that the day of service would be the beginning of a larger effort.

“Unlike past calls to service, President-elect Obama will ask Americans to do more than just offer a single day of service to their cities, towns and neighborhoods,” the e-mail said. “He will ask all of us to make an ongoing commitment to our communities. Never has it been more important to come together in shared purpose to tackle the common challenges we face.”

It's encouraging to see Obama put actions behind his rhetoric, and it gives us a sneak preview of the consequences of putting a community organizer in the White House.

I'm interested to see if we might be able to incorporate some kind of Twitter dimension behind this effort. For example, those that are able to serve and bring a mobile device with a data plan can tweet their experiences for others to see. Talk about visualizing the movement -- the "ripples of hope" Kennedy talked about would be on a computer screen.

Twice in the past week I've heard people refer to the need for a "Craig's List for service." First at Roots Camp, where it was suggested that such a website/organizational model would make it easier for people to plug into various civic opportunities. The second time I heard it was from Craig himself.

Craig Newmark wrote a blog on the Huffington Post noting that the Obama Administration has made a call for such an entity on it's Change.gov site. Craig's got some good ideas as to what such a service might do and how it could evolve using existing infrastructure and institutions such as Volunteer Match and Kiva.org. Definitely worth a read if you are trying to conceptualize how Obama can make good on his promises regarding a new call to service in America.

"This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change." -President-elect Barack Obama

Across the country, food banks are struggling to keep up with increased demand. In some places, demand is up 70 to 80 percent. On the eve of Thanksgiving, Democrats Work is trying to do something about it. We need your help.

Last week, we launched the Yes We Cans Virtual Food Drive as a way to get donations to food banks in our communities. So far, over 23,000 meals have been donated to local food banks. Here's how it works:

1. Click here to go to our Yes We Cans Virtual Food Drive website.

2. Put food or cash contributions in your shopping cart.

3. When you check out, you will be able to designate one of over 200 food banks that will receive your donation.

No matter where you live, you can give to a food bank in your area. Put turkey on the table in Colorado or fill a child's bowl with mac and cheese in New York.

This election was about bringing positive change to our country. A lot of us are asking "What's next?" - for the progressive movement, for the Democratic Party, for volunteers who were inspired to act during this election - but we don't have to wait on something like this. Yes We Cans aims to support local food banks during a time of urgent need and hopes to engage election volunteers in a campaign of year-round community service.

If you want to volunteer or deliver goods directly to your local food bank, you can find the location of one near you by visiting Feeding America.

And Happy Thanksgiving!

In the wake of what can only be called a pretty amazing week, we at Democrats Work want to offer a brief bit of transitional advice: community service. In the spirit of “thinking globally and acting locally” we can’t imagine a better way to help you plan your next steps than by getting your hands a little dirty and reminding yourselves why you do what you do. Whether it be at a homeless shelter or a school or your favorite piece of natural beauty, fill a few of those suddenly campaign-less hours with giving back and we promise you won’t regret it. The feeling might not be as tearfully monumental as Tuesday night, but it will surely remind you where your priorities stand.
If you’re not convinced; The Onion provides the alternative.

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Democrats Work is based on the idea of mobilizing grassroots Democrats to perform community service projects as Democrats. While at first glance this may just seem like a good opportunity for people to serve their communities, it's actually an incredible tool for building the Democratic brand.

We are all familiar with religious-based community service organizations: the Salvation Army, Red Cross, organizations that provide medical care or help the homeless, and countless others. These organizations don't exist solely to help other people, which they do, but also to recruit new followers.

Ever wonder why those on the religious right are so adamant about allowing religious community service organizations to receive government funding? These organizations would be able to use government funds to help people under their own banner. To those being helped, it won't be the government they see as coming to their aid in a time of need, but the church.

Even without overt attempts to convert the people they serve these programs are extremely successful. Part of it is based on the social psychology principle of reciprocation as explained by Dr. Robert Cialdini. Their efforts also build positive associations with their religion.

The principle is also used by terrorist organizations in the Middle East and Africa. According to Dr. Jessica Stern in Terror in the Name of God, religious militant organizations gain influence among the poor by providing for free community services that the government isn't providing. They have learned that community service is a powerful instrument in winning hearts and minds.

Democrats Work gives Democrats the opportunity to build support for their party by serving their communities utilizing the same principle that religious organizations have used for centuries. That's why the "as Democrats" in their mission statement is in bold on their website. By serving under the banner of the Democratic Party we are building positive associations in our communities. When things in Washington may seem broken there are Democrats in the neighborhood improving people's lives. This is a principle that we as Democrats have ignored for too long, and Democrats Work is the kind of organization needed for this purpose.

What are your thoughts on community service's role in brand-building? Share in the comments.