America’s Opportunity for the “Lost Generation”

BusinessWeek recently came out with an article naming a new “Lost Generation” of recent grads who cannot get work regardless of how hard they try. The article argues that this initial bad footing in the job market can create frustration, disillusionment and loss of income as people are forced to take jobs below their education level and capabilities. President Obama’s new budget plan for the fiscal year 2011 may help to combat this recent problem.  The plan includes $1.416 billion for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) an increase of $266 million or 23.1% more than enacted in for the FY 2010. According to the White House budget:

The President believes that service is central to addressing our Nation’s greatest challenges. The Corporation for National and Community Service provides an on-ramp for Americans of all ages to serve their community and country in sustained and effective ways throughout their lives […]

The recession and the impeding crisis of unemployment can create an opportunity to cultivate a new “civic” generation. Because it’s hard to find a job or get into school recent grads have the time and space in their lives to commit themselves to helping people around the country and world. Young people are becoming increasingly aware and incensed about the inequalities and disparities they see around them and many are realizing that service is the perfect way to combat these social and economic problems.

The budget request is a good start in that direction. It will not only greatly expand national service but it will also create new and fulfilling jobs for a population who needs them. The Serve America Act put AmeriCorps on a track to have 250,000 members by 2017, the new budget would fund over 105,00 members for 2011 a 20,000 increase from 2010. Many of these positions go to young people, giving these recent graduates an opportunity to work. National service is a not only great work experience but it is also emotionally fulfilling, providing people with meaning and purpose in their day-to-day lives.

The budget request includes:

• $488 million for AmeriCorps State and National ($115 million above FY10)
• $98 million for AmeriCorps VISTA ($1.1 million below FY10)
• $34.6 million for AmeriCorps NCCC ($5.6 million above FY10)
• $293.7 million for the National Service Trust Fund ($96.7 million above FY10)

The budget also requests an additional $989 million for Head Start and Early Head Start an increase of over 13%. Learn and Serve America would receive $40.2 million. $60 million would be allocated to the Social Innovation Fund and Senior Corps would receive $221 million. Also proposed is $466 million for the PeaceCorps, an increase of 11.5% in funding over the current year’s $400 million.

Until the United States recovers from the current recession unemployment will continue to plague the graduating population. Nevertheless, for many a solution can be found in national or even global service, easing the frustration and ultimately helping the “Lost Generation” find themselves in the increasingly cutthroat adult world they are entering.

Day 5: By the Numbers

We’ve been blogging all week about our progress in the Pepsi Refresh Project.  There’s no other way to say it: Week One of the Pepsi Refresh Project has been incredible.  Your support catapulted ServeNext.org into the Top 10 within 24 hours of the contest starting, and we’ve been climbing ever since.  We’ve held the #1 position for three days now!

The support for ServeNext.org from the Refresh Service Coalition, in particular, has been tremendous, and we’re excited that all of us are in a winning position.  If you haven’t gotten a chance to vote today, please do so now!  You can find all of our links here: www.refreshservice.com.

It’s only Friday, so we can’t officially call Week 1 over yet–but it’s as good a time as any to reflect on ServeNext’s particular progress.

So with that, here you go—Week 1 of ServeNext-in-Pepsi Refresh:

Week 1|By the Numbers

Total Prize Pool for the Pepsi Refresh Project: $20 million +

Total Prize Pool for February: $1.3 million

Total Number of Grants in February: 32

Number of ‘Big Ideas’ Competing in February: 729

Largest Grant Offered: $250,000

Smallest Grant Offered: $5,000

ServeNext.org’s Category: $50,000

Total Competitors up for $50k: 192

Number of $50k grants being offered: 10

Voting Days, so far: 5

Days SN.org Has Hit the Top 10: 5

Days SN.org Has Hit the Top 5: 4

SN.org’s Current Rank: #1

A Chance (Every Day) to Vote for ServeNext.org, Atlas Corps, and other Service Groups

By Amy Potthast.  Originally posted at The New Service blog.

ServeNext— the organization whose mission is to expand opportunities in voluntary service as a way to address social ills and strengthen democracy— is participating in this month’s Pepsi Refresh Project.

So is Atlas Corps, the international service corps with the online contest Midas Touch.

And you can vote for them both every day in February.

While online contests to benefit nonprofits have been questioned recently (especially the recent Chase Giving contest, which my organization Idealist took part in and won money from), the Pepsi contest is ostensibly trying to do something good. The soda pop company behind the contest decided not to run a Superbowl ad this year, and instead donate those  $20 million advertising dollars to bright ideas, and advertise in a more charitable, grassroots kind of way. (How else would I be writing about the company on this blog?)

Each month, Pepsi is awarding grants (up to a total of $1.3 million) to the winning ideas in six categories: health, arts & culture, food & shelter, the planet, neighborhoods and education. They’ll take up to 1000 submissions each month, and then the voting begins.

Your job, if you want it, is to help make some decisions about where the money goes. Each day during the voting period (which lasts till February 28th), you can vote for up to ten ideas.

Right now ServeNext, which registered in the $50,000 category, is in 4th place. If ServeNext wins, their goals are the following:

• Engage 25K people about the value of AmeriCorps and citizen service
• Encourage more people to serve
• Help people realize the impact of their collective voices
• Educate dozens of key leaders in 10 cities about AmeriCorps’ impact

Vote for ServeNext.

Atlas Corps, the international service fellowship that brings NGO professionals from the Global South to the States for a year of service in Washington, D.C., is also in the $50,000 category, and is currently in third place. These are their goals:

• Empower U.S. nonprofits with skilled professionals from overseas
• Address critical social issues by developing nonprofit leaders
• Double the number of Atlas Corps Fellows in the U.S.
• Expand Atlas Corps to new cities, such as New York and Seattle

Vote for Atlas Corps.

Other service organizations that are participating include: Alpha Phi Omega, World Leadership Corps, My Impact, Teach For America, and LIFT.

Day 3: The Refresh Service Coalition

Hi all, tonight I want to write to you about some of our Pepsi Refresh coalition partners. We’ve entered this contest with some good friends, and we want you to be familiar with their work and project entries.

First though, a quick note on some incredible progress.

It’s the end of Day 3 of the Pepsi Refresh Project, and ServeNext.org has some serious momentum.

How serious? It’s 7 pm where I’m writing from, and over at www.refresheverything.com/servenext, we’re seeing that ServeNext.org is ranked atop the leaderboard. We’re leading the vote in the $50k category!

That’s an amazing feat, and it’s clear that we’ve got some seriously mobilized forces.

The challenge now is to keep the momentum going through this week and beyond. Stay tuned at the bottom of this post for some new ways to keep in touch over the course of the month with this campaign.

Now for some introductions.

As you know ServeNext.org entered the Pepsi Refresh Project for the chance to win a $50k grant and put 10 community organizers in 10 cities in 2010–our ‘big idea.’   We’re asking our members, family and friends to vote for us in the hopes of winning the funding for our idea.

But we’re also asking our voters to think beyond our project.  ServeNext.org has also partnered up with several other  service-minded organizations in the Pepsi Refresh Project, to create a network of nonprofits that together could help win a greater share of the grant money for the greater good of volunteerism in the U.S.

We call it the Refresh Service Coalition, and we hope that by pooling our efforts—and our votes—we can cast a wider net over this contest and work together to haul in $450,000 for national service.

Pepsi gives everyone a chance to vote for up to 10 unique ‘ideas’ per day in the contest, and we hope that you’ll spread six of yours out among these organizations.  We’ll be promoting our coalition partners throughout the month.  Their efforts are all worth paying attention to, and their ‘big ideas’ are all worth voting for. Please take a minute to read over their mission statements and check out their entries.

The Refresh Service Coalition:

• ServeNext.org
  • www.refresheverything.com/servenext
  • ServeNext is building a grassroots movement to promote and advance AmeriCorps & citizen service as a strategy to tackle our most pressing social issues and strengthen our democracy.
• Atlas Corps
  • www.refresheverything.com/atlascorps
  • Atlas Corps works in the US and abroad to facilitate international fellowships for rising citizen sector leaders who volunteer overseas for at least one year. These Fellows then commit to work an additional year in the citizen sector of their home country, sharing new skills, best practices, and valuable experience.
• Alpha Phi Omega’s Mu Alpha Chapter
  • www.refresheverything.com/mualpha
  • Alpha Phi Omega brings together the best and brightest college students under the Cardinal Principles of Leadership, Friendship, and Service.
• LIFT
  • www.refresheverything.com/lift
  • LIFT is a growing movement to combat poverty and expand opportunity for all people in the United States. LIFT clients and volunteers work one-on-one to find jobs, secure safe and stable housing, make ends meet through public benefits and tax credits, and obtain quality referrals for social services.
• myImpact
  • www.refresheverything.com/myimpact
  • myImpact.org is an emerging online platform for young Americans in national and community service. Our mission is to use social media to advance the cause of citizen service by developing new tools for volunteers and service organizations to measure and demonstrate their impact.
• World Leadership Corps
  • www.refresheverything.com/worldleadershipcorps
  • The World Leadership Corps is based on the idea that international volunteer service and cross-cultural living can make a difference in meeting critical global challenges and provide life-changing experiences for future leaders.

The most excellent news is we’re all leading our respective categories in this contest–each of us showing tremendous organizing power, and showing off the might of the service movement.  I hope you’ll take minute to vote for all six of us, every day this month.

In Solidarity,

Evan Mackinder

PS.  Feel you need a reminder to vote every day?  Sign up at www.servenext.org/vote.  We’ll send you a daily email that will remind you about the contest, ServeNext.org and the coalition, and offer links to everyone’s Pepsi Refresh pages.

PPS.  While you’re at it, why don’t you follow ServeNext.org on facebook and trend with us on twitter?  You’re bound to run across a reminder a day!

Off To the Races!

And we're off!

When we initially started planning for ServeNext.org’s Pespsi Refresh initiative, we knew there would be a lot of work.  There was strategizing, coalition meetings, emails, blog posts, tweeting, facebooking, and a ton of outreach to our individual networks–And that was before we even found out that ServeNext.org was accepted into the Pepsi Refresh contest!  But the good news came this morning, and all of our preparation seems to have paid off in a big way.  As of this post, I’m incredibly excited to report that ServeNext.org is truly off to the races with a #6 ranking!

729 individuals and organizations ideas are in the running  for the month of Februrary, all vying for their share of $1.3 million in grants.  I haven’t had much time to take a look at many of the entries, but the number alone is encouraging: Lots of great ideas for social change will at the very least have a highly-trafficked platform from which to make themselves known.

ServeNext submitted an plan to put 10 community organizers in 10 cities during 2010–something we think is worth a $50,000 grant for the positive effect it will have on communities across the country. By our count, ServeNext.org is up against 172 other ‘ideas’ in the $50k category.

But back to our network, and todays accomplishment.  When we started our outreach over the weekend, we knew our members, friends and families would all be excited about the initiative.  But the support we’ve had is even more wonderful than we expected.  Almost immediately we started getting emails with people pledging their support to vote for ServeNext.org, and not as a one-off.  Many also signed up to be Campaign Captains, a level of support that promises daily votes in addition to recruiting 5-10 close friends and family members to throw  some love behind ServeNext as we tackle the Pepsi Refresh Project. (Special shout out to all AmeriCorps members and alums! Thanks!)  We never had a moment’s doubt that people would turn out for the cause, and you guys proved us right in a huge way today.  Congrats and thank you!

We’re off to a great start, and we hope to really build on the momentum we secured today by increasing our get-out-the-vote effort and promoting ServeNext.org and our initiative.  We have a lot of great things planned that we hope will keep people excited, and maybe even draw in some people that hadn’t heard about us before.

Among those will be this blog.  As the lead on this campaign for ServeNext, I’ll be blogging as often as possible–every day?  hold me to it!–about all things ServeNext-in-Pepsi Refresh, including campaign updates, notes on our coalition partners, and, of course, all the support and news coming out of the service movement.

This blog has long been a forum in which service is paid high tribute.  And grant aside, much of the reason we have entered Pepsi Refresh is because the project really coheres with ServeNext’s larger goal: to help strengthen volunteerism in this country by promoting (and rewarding) hard work and good ideas.  Given that coherence, I would expect our involvement in the contest to really amplify those themes on BlogNext.

And to that end, we’ll need your comments, input, questions, etc.  Engagement is key, folks.  (If you have anything you’d like to address outside the forum, you can email me at evan@servenext.org)

So get excited, and I’ll see you in the morning!

Onward and Upward,

Evan Mackinder

What a Start! And key details for Captains…

Hey Everyone!

Thank you for signing up to be a Campaign Captain for ServeNext.org in the Pepsi Refresh Project.  As we wrote this morning, we’ve been accepted into the contest and need a fast start today and this week to position ServeNext as a force!

At the end of a long but energizing day, we have some important highlights and updates:

First and foremost, your early support has been incredible: Your votes have catapulted ServeNext.org to #6 in the rankings! Great team effort!!  Those initial results are incredible.  If we can hold this lead among the Top 10 in the $50,000 category we will win $50,000.  You’ve truly shown our power to mobilize, and now we need to sustain this momentum through tomorrow, the rest of the week, and all month – especially as the other groups get going.

Please remember to vote for ServeNext.org and our coalition partners every day. We have included more information and links to directly vote for them below.  They are voting for us too!

Also, please seize on the momentum now and start recruiting your 5-10 daily voters. Also included below is a template paragraph that you can personalize to recruit family and friends.  Remember, we really need people to pledge to vote daily or sign-up as captains.  Recruiting 5 people to vote daily is better than getting 20 people to vote once.

Thanks again for everything and we apologize if the Pepsi site was a bit slow.  There was lots of traffic, and hopefully Pepsi will have it completely worked out by tomorrow.  Let us know if you have any questions.

We’ll be more selective with sending emails next week, but want to get you the necessary information upfront since there are many moving pieces.  Thanks for your patience and persistence!

Let’s win this thing!

Zach and Evan

The Refresh Service Coalition:
The Refresh Service Coalition is a group of six service-oriented organizations that have partnered for the Pepsi Refresh Contest.  You can only vote for ServeNext once per day, so we ask that you use some of your remaining votes to help our partners.  Because there are many grants and our partners are spread across the categories, collaboration is a winning strategy.

·  Atlas Corps: http://www.refresheverything.com/atlascorps

·  Alpha Phi Omega’s Mu Alpha Chapter: http://www.refresheverything.com/mualpha

·  LIFT: http://www.refresheverything.com/lift

·  MyImpact: http://www.refresheverything.com/myimpact

·  World Leadership Corps: http://www.refresheverything.com/worldleadershipcorps

Template Paragraph for Friends

Hey [friends],

I’m helping ServeNext.org, a great organization that works to promote AmeriCorps and citizen service, win $50,000 in an online voting contest during February.  Voting is open right now!  You’re able to vote every day.  Click here to get reminders.  The top 10 organizations entering the $50,000 category EACH win that amount!  With only 200 groups competing in this category the odds are really strong.  I’d really appreciate your help.

A quick start is essential — please take a sec and vote now: http://www.refresheverything.com/servenext.

I’m also helping to recruit Campaign Captains and folks who pledge to vote daily.  You can read more and become a Captain here.  Can you do that?  Or if you can’t be a Captain, please pledge to vote daily here.

Thanks!

Help ServeNext Win the Pepsi Refresh Project!

How can $50,000 transform the national service movement?

Here at ServeNext.org, we’ve spent much of the last few weeks huddled up in our offices trying to come up with big ideas for 2010.   We’ve come up with a series of new initiatives that we think will really add a spark to movement for national service, including an exciting expansion of our Social Media Service training program and a national service discussion plus actions series about the role of the grassroots, all of which we’ll be rolling out as the year progresses.

And today, we’re very excited to talk about our first big plan for 2010.

This February, ServeNext.org is participating in the Pepsi Refresh Project, an opportunity for our organization to earn $50,000 for the national service movement!

The Pepsi Refresh Project is an initiative that will award $1.3 million in grants to “people, businesses, and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact.”  ServeNext.org will be campaigning alongside several other service-oriented nonprofits throughout the month of February to win portions of the prize money, and work towards the greater goal of strengthening the national service movement.

In order to enter, ServeNext had to submit its own idea for how it will use the money.  With the $50,000 grant, ServeNext.org will put 10 community organizers in 10 cities across the country in 2010, an initiative that will spur the grassroots movement for national service.

We’ve submitted our entry, and on Monday, February 1^st, we find out if we were accepted.   Monday is also the day voting starts.  Call us premature, but we’re already ramping up!

The Refresh Contest is an online affair, and the winners will be decided entirely by the public—by online votes.  We need as many people as possible voting online for ServeNext every day!

Because our ability to win the $50,000 depends entirely on your votes, we have spent the last week really ramping up our efforts for the contest and coming up with ways for you to get involved.  First and foremost, we’ve set up an auxiliary page that explains the Refresh Contest initiative, which you can view here.  We’ll be updating that as the contest moves along (in particular, after we know we have been accepted).

In the meantime, here are  three quick and easy steps:

1.   Become a Campaign Captain. The voting doesn’t open for the contest until February 1^st—this coming Monday.  But you can pledge your support today: Visit www.servenext.org/captain and sign up to vote every day throughout February!

2.   Follow updates on the contest right here on the ServeNext blog. As Online Organizer for the contest, I’ll be posting daily from BlogNext about all things ServeNext /Pepsi Refresh.  We’ll talk about strategies for winning and keep you updated on our progress—and challenges—en route to hopefully winning the 50k.  We’ll also be asking for your input every step of the way.  So set those RSS feeds to Set your RSS feed to http://blognext.wordpress.com/feed/ and join the discussion!

3.   Follow us on Facebook and Twitter! If you aren’t a fan of ServeNext.org on Facebook, what are you waiting for?  Check us out! You can make a difference now by pledging your support and RSVPing to our event right now.  On Twitter? Follow us @ServeNext.  Speak Twitter? Pls RT! @ServeNext is going for 50k via #pepsirefresh! Vote http://bit.ly/d96Xos & transform the grassroots movement for nat’l #service!

ServeNext can accomplish a lot with $50,000, but we also see this contest as a fantastic way to connect with you, our members, and expand our network.  Just participating in this initiative will provide us with some great momentum moving into our 2010 initiatives.

So wish us luck as we move to Monday’s launch—or better yet, pledge to vote!

Story of Mentoring

Julie Sobin mentors young mother every week

A great friend of mine was just featured on her local news station in Maryland for her volunteer work mentoring a young mother raising two children.

It’s a great piece and shows how important it is to have experienced parents supporting  new ones — advice, positive encouragement, etc.

Check out the short video to hear the inspiring Julie Sobin talk about her experience.

January is National Mentoring Month and a good time to follow through on that New Year’s resolution to volunteer more often and help those that are really struggling in this economy.

To find opportunities to mentor visit: http://www.nationalmentoringmonth.org/ or to find other general volunteer opportunities visit: http://serve.gov/.

The Moral Case for Increasing Funding for National Service Programs

“But if they injure you and could have helped it?” said Gwendolen. 

Deronda wondered at her choice of subjects.  A painful impression arrested his answer a moment, but at last he said, with a graver, deeper intonation, ‘Why then, after all, I prefer my place to theirs.’”

            -George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda

            A few days ago I had a conversation concerning the question: Is it better to be Barry Bonds and make it as a baseball player or be someone who does not take steroids but never makes it out of the minor leagues?

            My fellow conversationalists pointed out that Bonds may be shamed, but he still has a lot of money that he does not have to give back.  The thousands of would-be major league ballplayers do not have that luxury—many of them are without other skill-sets since they have focused exclusively on baseball.  As a result, while Bonds may be shamed in certain communities, he can still live a certain life whereas the other ballplayers that never made it have to constantly struggle just to make their daily ration.

            With this information in mind, the question becomes: On what grounds is it better to be Barry Bonds or to be an honest minor-league player?

            The cop-out answer is that steroids pose health risks and therefore that is reason enough not to do it.  This reasoning fails to address the fundamental moral question that arises.  Namely, is it ever OK to gain an unfair advantage over one’s competitors?

            To me the answer is simple: No.  It is rotten to gain an unfair advantage.  As the conversation wore on, however, I noticed that I was unique in this view.  For the others in the discussion, health and wealth were their main arguments. 

            This led me to wonder why this might be.  I immediately realized that they did not grow up with an honor code at their middle and high school.  To be sure not everyone who grows up with an honor code abides by it, and not everyone who lacks one growing up does not abide by something similar—but in general, the teaching of these values leads to their being acted upon.

            In a similar vein, community engagement, active citizenship, and social responsibility must be learned if we wish to promote these values in our community.  It is morally right for the private sector, public sector and government to increase funding for national service programs.  I have made previous blog posts arguments about whether increasing funding for national service is economically feasible (which it is), but now I am not sure how persuasive the economics argument really is.  Put simply, by investing in our greatest asset—human capital—we will reap larger benefits than we can even imagine. 

            Of course, the moral argument for increasing funding for national service programs becomes problematic when faced with the fact that moral arguments can be made for every cause that needs government funding.  And undoubtedly there are many causes more worthy of our sympathy than the promotion of national service.  The reason the moral argument for increasing national service programs outweighs many other causes, however, is that civic engagement, loyalty, and social responsibility are virtues upon which everything else depends.  Without the trust of the community and the belief in American ideals—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all—how can our Great Experiment continue?

2009 Closes with Great Victories

I just sent an email to ServeNext members and wanted to post it here as well.  I highlighted the GREAT victories of 2009 and the work ahead in 2010 and beyond as we continue to build the voice for service/social innovation policy and ensure it remains a political priority.  If you don’t already get our updates, sign-up here.

- Show quoted text -

Hello Zach, Great news!!! Since President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act into law earlier this year, the question has been: will Congress fully fund it at the President’s request for the Fiscal 2010 budget? As we learned earlier this week, the answer is YES! And this means a record level of funding for the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Learn & Serve America, and other programs. The budget for 2010 will be $1.149 billion – a $260 million increase from 2009! Thank you for the work you did to push our Members of Congress! Other great progress this week includes the passage of the Jobs for Main Street Act of 2010 in the House of Representatives. This legislation includes $200 million to support up to 25,000 additional AmeriCorps members. The Senate is expected to consider this bill in January. These victories mean two important things: First, that our elected leaders realize the importance of service to our communities as a strategy to tackle needs and employ people during these especially tough economic times. For example, service members and volunteers are helping the unemployed, assisting in food banks, adding capacity to local nonprofits, working to keep students in school, and so much more. This combination of creating service jobs and increasing services delivered is so critical right now. Second, these victories show the power of great service programs combined with effective advocacy and political leadership. It is important to remember this as we approach other legislative campaigns in the future (congressional funding is an annual process, for example). There is much work ahead to continue growing and strengthening the service movement and to ensure it remains a political priority. Thanks for everything you’ve done throughout 2009! Your efforts have helped make it an historic year for the role of service in America and in our political system. Have a great holiday season and talk to you in 2010! With Gratitude, Zach and the ServeNext.org Team

ServeNext.org P.O. Box 51065 Washington, DC 20091 phone: 202-580-8639 fax: 202-729-8100