Is this man spoiling the spirit of volunteering?

Volunteer, that’s an order!  From Barack Obama.  Not the activist, not the staff-less aspiring Senator, not from the candidate for the democratic nomination.  But from Obama – the President. 

It is an order clearly laid out in the Serve America Act that the first citizen of the United States of America signed on April 21, looking towards his 100^th day in office and keeping promises made to the third sector during his election campaign.  The Act represents  not only a vast economic investment (an estimated 6 million dollars for the next 5 years), but also an effort to regulate, regiment and measure social involvement like no other country has tried before.

A forced civil service I hear you ask?  Yes, but it is paid.  Obama has created a volunteering programme adaptable to every age group.  12 million dollars a year have been allocated for salaries of the over 55 volunteers, or alternatively 1000 dollar scholarships exchangeable from 350 hours of service, transferable to grandchildren, directly dealt with by non profits.  The “Education Award” for the AmeriCorps is also having money pumped into it (between 4725 and 5350 dollars), while the Corps itself is set to grow to 250,000 volunteers by 2017, from a current 75,000. 

A super contingent which up until now would do whatever the NGOs and associations told it to do.  Not any more.  The White House has decided that they will concentrate themselves on four things: clean energy, education, health education and assistance to the veterans and their families.

The impact of these new programmes and to the volunteering contingents?  Today, it is impossible to tell, but give them 12 months and the Obama administration will tell the country.  Obama has indeed made the Corporation for National and Community Service, which already coordinates most of the programmes cited in the Serve America Act, responsible for measuring civic participation in the country.  This includes everything from number of volunteering hours to donations, measured through “civil health indicators”. 

Guaranteeing the efficiency of it all as head of the Corporation for National and Community Service, Maria Eitel, who was up until yesterday president of Nike Foundation and vice-president of Nike, where she was responsible of creating its CSR section.  The nomination was well received by the American third sector, just as that of Sonal Shah was.  Coming from Google.org, Shah will head the new Office for Social Innovation at the White House. 

This represents the second clear signal coming from Obama through the new volunteering law: social impact is not exclusive to the small entities from the third sector.  There are also enterprises, and in particular, there are social enterprises.  Venture capitalism funds have been directed at them through the Social Innovation Fund Pilot Project: 50 million dollars from 2010, amount which should have doubled by 2014. 

Even this has been tied to the priorities of his administration though: education of under-privileged students, support of children and adolescents, reduction of poverty, increase in productive opportunities.  This is an extra list of imperatives which has attracted the Wall Street Journal’s critical eye: “social entrepreneurs will of course be tempted by the offer, but it will be a pity: it is not a foregone conclusion that this is the best way to serve America”.  A law to be disqualified then?

No.  Even if it’s just because it is so politically correct: written by a democratic senator, as well as by a republican one, respectively Edward M. Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, it was approved by a bipartisan vote of 79 to 19.  The Senate discussion was described by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as a first where senators stood up to talk about the impact volunteering had had on their own lives. 

The Serve America Act contains the same contradictions which the new American President could be said to have himself: a political man who has volunteered and done social work, which was the real surprise factor in his election campaign. 

So it is on Obama’s shoulders then that rests the hard exercise of pushing volunteering, even if it is with economic incentives and company strategies, but without ruining its spirit.  To make the American people volunteer, without it sounding like an order: serve America!

 

What has Obama been up to in his first 100 days as US President from a social point of view?  Follow this link to find out category by category.

 

Follow this link for the Serve America Act background article.