volunteering

There's a way to help inspirational campaigns beyond knocking on doors and sending money.

We youngsters are artists and organizers, techies and wordsmiths, students and professionals. We have skills and talents that aren't being realized by traditional volunteer models for campaigns.

Until now, people like us couldn't prove our skills and put them to work for campaigns, so candidates spent tens of thousands of dollars paying professionals to do the sort of work we're ready and willing to do in our spare time.

That just doesn't make sense.

There's a better way, and it's called the Next Generation of Talent Initiative

by Chris Golden & Nick Troiano
co-Founders, myImpact.org

Last month, First Lady Michelle Obama formally kicked off United We Serve, a 12-week summer service initiative focused on key areas of the Administration’s economic recovery agenda and aimed both at engaging Americans in service and increasing the capacity of community organizations. This week, the focus of the initiative turns to education, a sector critical to the future of our country.

Americans give back to support our students and schools every day. Whether it is the parent donating classroom supplies because of reduced school district budgets, those who volunteer time to read at their local library or community center or the young college graduate who serves as part of national programs like AmeriCorps, City Year or Teach for America. Applications for these positions are at all-time highs; with Teach for America admitting 4,100 recruits this year out from over 35,000 applications.

Within our schools, the Learn and Serve America program, administered nationally by the Corporation for National & Community Service, utilizes a service-learning curriculum designed to encourage young people to identify and address immediate community needs while strengthening the capacity of their communities to address long-term challenges. During this summer of service, it is imperative that Congress realizes the need to fully fund the recently passed Serve America Act, which will allow programs like Learn & Serve to be scaled to reach even more young people.

We believe in the power of service, the timeless American tradition of giving back to our communities and country, as the basis for sustained solutions to the most pressing crises we face, including education and the rising high school dropout rate. (A student drops out of a public high school, on average, every 26 seconds. More than 1.2 million dropped out last year).

Further, we believe that the Millennial Generation, those younger than age 28, are uniquely positioned to utilize new technological tools to enhance and extend traditional service. As an emerging Millennial-led organization dedicated to expanding the reach of service to all Americans, we know the power and potential that social media and social networking can have to increasing citizen participation and civic engagement.

Through the online community we established at united.myImpact.org, organizations and individuals who are answering the call to serve are sharing their stories. The purpose of the community is not just for personal fulfillment, it is meant to inspire more Americans to give back.

A recent study showed that reading to a young person at least three times a week made that person twice as likely to score in the top 25% on standardized reading tests. Yet, the challenges go beyond finding the time to serve because another report recently found that in low-income neighborhoods there is an average one book for every 300 children.

A commitment to service and engagement will not end with the United We Serve initiative but this summer, and this week, is a reminder that despite the challenging times we live in, each person can do their part to give back and truly make a difference. We invite you to join this effort and then share your story with us—maybe it will inspire someone else and, together, we can all unite in service.

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

To join the Online Community of United We Serve, visit united.myImpact.org.

Youth voting was up in 2008, but volunteering was down in 2007 ('08 data will be available later this year). Yet, it's not all bad news, as Peter Levine notes, "They're still volunteering at higher rates than their parents did." Additionally, some of us - depending on when your parents were born - are voting at higher rates, too. (So, stop calling Millennials 'lazy'.)

This news of a drop in high school volunteering may come as a surprise, especially as other stories report increasing service in 2009, which is partly due to the flagging economy and the growing number of under- and unemployed young Americans. CIRCLE's research uses data from the Current Population Survey, the largest public data set gauging the country's volunteerism, which is fielded annually in September. So, 2009 volunteer data still has some time to be recorded, and it's likely (when the data is released in 2010) given recent anecdotal evidence, and the signing of the GIVE/Serve America Act last Tuesday, that data will confirm a rise in volunteering this year.

While the AP story focused on 16-18 year olds, the overall pictures of youth volunteering has changed somewhat, too.

The data for 2007 show some decline in volunteering among young people, particularly high school students and college freshmen. The rate of volunteering for 16-to-18 year-olds peaked in 2005, at 33%, but has since declined by six percentage points. Traditionally, the 16-to-18 year-old cluster volunteered at a slightly higher rate than other age groups, but in 2007, people 25 or older volunteered at a slightly higher rate than 16-to-18 year-olds. The volunteer rate for the population aged 25 years and older has changed very little (2% or less) since 2002, and was 28% in 2007. (PDF)

Some trends did not change. The plurality (21%) of young volunteers got involved through religious organizations, but that varies by location, naturally.

While many factors are related to volunteering rates, perhaps the most notable feature of Salt Lake City volunteers is their affiliation with religious organizations...about half of 19-to-24 year-old SLC volunteers did [sic] performed their services at or though religious organizations. This is especially notable in contrast to their peers in the Boston area, where only 21% of volunteers donated their time at religious organizations.

• The recession is hitting young adults the hardest with disappearing jobs, shrinking wages, vanishing benefits, massive credit card debt...need I say more?
• The National Journal profiles Joe Rospars, Obama's young new media director.
• Check out how to track social media anayltics.
• Young advocates call for a framing shift on Waxman Bill.
• Check out OpenLeft's coverage of revamping voter registration to reduce disparities in the electorate.

I'm about to get in the car to head down to Baltimore. I'm staying with my aunt and taking the metro into DC tomorrow for the inauguration and then again at night for the official youth ball. I plan on taking tons of pictures at both events. I'll try to upload them and blog about the experience during the afternoon when I have some down time. For those at home, the youth ball will be broadcast on MTV at 10pm Eastern. In the meantime, here's some interesting reads and updates on things we've blogged about previously:

• The biggest news is that OFA 2.0 officially launched as Organizing for America - a reimagination of the Obama political operation inside the DNC. I share Micah Sifry's take on it thus far. Here's the announcement from the President Elect himself:

• Speaking of organizing for America, today's is the national day of service planned by the Obama campaign. Follow along or find an opportunity in your area at the USA Service website. Also do check out Peter Levine's blog post about today's volunteer activities.
• Future Majority got a shout-out in the latest youth/constituent newsletter from Speaker Pelosi's office. You can sign up for those emails here.
• Campus Progress lists 6 things the incoming Obama administration must do to make headway on the issues that matter to young voters.
• Rock the Vote polled its membership to determine the direction of the organization in 2009. Preliminary results are here, and they tend to favor policy work aimed at solving the economic crisis.
• Eric Greenberg has a nice piece at the Huffington Post explaining the importance of young voters in the 2008 campaign.
• The New York Times has a nice photo essay of Obama's 50 closest advisors. There are three Millennials in the group. Check it out.
• On the other side of the aisle, the Houston Chronicle interviews Young Republican Chairman Jessica Colon and asks her how the Republicans can recapture the youth vote.
• Finally, in light of tomorrow's events, I think we can all recognize and celebrate this as an especially significant time to celebrate Martin Luther King Day:

Like a lot of people who work somewhere in the general orbit of politics, I often find myself playing the role of low-budget pundit with friends and acquaintances.

"How's the election looking?" they ask. "Who's going to be the running mate?" "What big October surprises do we have in store?"

Honestly I kind of suck at punditry. Answering damn near every question with "who the hell knows" probably won't get you invited back as a talking head on CNN, and a careful analysis of the possibilities doesn't really seem to thrill a party crowd gathered around the punch bowl.

I'm ok with that. Anyone who claims to have all the answers is probably as full of it as the TV pundits anyway.

But there is one question that I get asked that really ticks me off -- not because it's a bad question, but because I don't have a good answer.

That question: "What else can I do?"

I know tons of people, of all ages, who really care about the outcome of this election, and who want to "help." But they don't really know how.

For young people who can afford to do it, there are definitely some jump-in-with-both-feet options, like volunteering or working full time for a campaign, or hooking up with the League of Young Voters (where I work), or taking a trip with Swing Semester, or getting involved with one of the great "young progressive" organizations on the right column of this website.

But when it comes to young people who need to work full time, or people in my parents and grandparents generation, or even my peers in their 30's or 40's, the options thin out a little bit.

Everyone knows they can donate money. That's a good thing to do, and it's important. But it's only sorta satisfying, and reduces a person's potential talent and energy to all the creativity and skill of having a credit card.

Sure, I could tell people to volunteer at a local campaign office. That's definitely important. Sometimes that can even be fun or satisfying. And sometimes it stinks.

I could tell them to get out there and make phone calls or knock on doors. That can be enjoyable sometimes, when you're not feeling apologetic being the guy on the other end of those phone calls and front porch visits we all "love" so much. After trying it once, plenty of people have no interest in a return engagement.

Donating, stuffing envelopes, phone banking, or knocking doors. Are those really the best ways we can offer people to engage?

The truth is, the way most election work is done these days is shockingly inefficient. The amount of time and money that campaigns end up spending in ineffective ways is staggering. We have to play the game because it's the best option we've got right now. But if you step back and summon a little perspective about the way voters are identified and turned out, you quickly figure out that we're still just emerging from the prehistoric age here.

There has to be a better way. I've been thinking about it and I've got some ideas about how we might be able to step back a bit, think outside the box, and figure out how to use the massive well of talent and energy that's out there from people of all ages.

I hope other people are hard at work at the same task. There's a lot of powerful passion, energy, and skill out there to be tapped, and we're only just at the beginning of learning how to do it. Holler if you're down to help, and let's get to it.

--------------------
Sam Dorman is the Managing Director of the League of Young Voters

The National Conference on Citizenship has released their 2007 Civic Health Index. The main finding, reported here by Peter Levine, one of the co-authors, and covered on Yahoo News by Ron Fournier, is that there is a "civic core" of 36 million Americans who do the majority of volunteering and participating in civic activities (in addition to voting). The report also finds that volunteering and civic engagement have dropped recently, finally returning to their pre-9/11 levels.

When it comes to Millennials, the report is encouraging. It notes that participation at the ballot box by Millennials continues to rise, and suggests that Millennials are mimicking the civic-mindedness of the Greatest Generation (the report actually tags Gen X and the Boomers with responsibility for the overall decline in civic participation in the last 30 years). When it comes to overall trust, the report finds that Millennials are less trusting of individual actors, but more trusting of government and institutions, and three quarters of Millennials express distrust of the mainstream media as a reliable reporter of information.

What I found very interesting was that of all age groups, Millennials are the most likely to feel that they have little power and few avenues for civic engagement that could result in positive change. More than any other groups, they are looking for those opportunities to further increase their level of participation. Yet at the same time, they are one of the least likely of groups to use the internet to express opinions about politics and take civic actions. This is due primarily to the fact that older generations use email as a political tool at a FAR higher rate than Millennials.

I'm not sure exactly what questions the researchers asked to come to these conclusions and produce the two charts below. It may in fact be that pairing these next two charts is like comparing apples and oranges, but I wonder what this means about Millennial participation in something like MoveOn, the most obvious organization to allow its members to participate and express themselves politically using email. At the very least it is indicative of a disconnect between what Millennials are doing online (IMing, blogging, social networking) and what they regard as effective political action for their community. It seems we still have a long way to go in making those into effective vehicles for political participation.