Nonprofits Urge More Attention in Presidential Race to National Service and Other Causes

As the contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination jockey for attention on Tuesday’s debate stage and take their messages to early primary states, nonprofit groups are trying to pin down candidates’ positions on national service and tax incentives for giving.

They are also eager to find out what the candidates would do to involve nonprofit views in setting a broad range of policies.

In June, the Serve America Together campaign, a project of the Service Year Alliance, asked each of the candidates to pledge they will make national service a priority during the first 100 days of their administration and to develop a plan to make a paid full year of service routine for most Americans.

So far, only three candidates have committed to the pledge. One, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, has already dropped out of the race. Billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg have also promised to push the service idea.

Buttegieg has released a platform for national service that would provide federal aid to locally designed service programs and give high-level posts to service officers on the National Security Council and White House Domestic Policy Council.

He would also expand beyond AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps by introducing a service corps dedicated to climate change, health, and intergenerational service work, with a goal of placing 1 million high-school graduates a year in service jobs by 2026, up from the 75,000 who are currently participating in AmeriCorps each year.

His plan was introduced in July, the same month Sonal Shah, who founded the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation under President Obama, joined his campaign.

The others haven’t signed the pledge, but Jesse Colvin, Service Year’s chief executive, is confident he’ll get other takers.

“Step one for us is to elevate the issue, making it as critical a part of the election as health care,” he said.

Questions for Candidates

Last month, Independent Sector, a membership group of nonprofits and grant makers, called on candidates to share their positions on charities.

The group asked the politicians how nonprofits had affected them personally, what role nonprofit leaders will have in the development of policy if they are elected, how the tax code can boost giving, how they would encourage national service, and how their administration would encourage diversity and professional development in the nonprofit work force.

And nonprofits that focus on single issues, including disability, HIV/AIDS policy, international human rights, and efforts to strengthen democracy in the United States, have also issued questionnaires.

Healing Partisan Divides

Colvin, the Service Year leader, would like to change attitudes about national service to the point where people would get embarrassed if they hadn’t served. Working side-by-side in service positions with people of different backgrounds and ideologies could help mend partisan splits before the problem gets worse.

“As these divides get deeper and deeper, national service is the best antidote,” he said. “The way to get there is peer pressure.”

Colvin made his comments at an event last week at the Brookings Institution where former Republican Rep. Joe Heck, who chairs the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service provided an update on the commission’s work.

The commission was created by Congress in 2017 to consider the need for a military draft and explore ways to instill an ethos of service among young Americans.

Currently the commission is grappling with questions such as whether service should be voluntary and how participants should be compensated. A public comment period is open through the end of the year, and the commission expects to issue a final report by the end of March.

In an interim report issued in January, the commission said that more than 60 percent of people ages 14 to 24 are not aware of service-year opportunities such as AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps.

To entice more people to serve, Heck suggested that the Corporation for National and Community Service, which has seen its budget essentially flatline over the past several fiscal years, establish more of a media presence. The corporation runs AmeriCorps and Senior Corps.

“When I grew up, I saw Peace Corp commercials,” he said. “I haven’t seen one in over 20 years.”

He also said schools must beef up their civics curricula.

Young people can’t be expected to participate in service positions “when they don’t truly understand the rights and responsibilities that go along with citizenship,” he said. “Civic education has fallen by the wayside.”

Pressure on Nonprofits

If the next administration expands national service, it isn’t clear that nonprofits could handle a rush of new participants, said Barbara Stewart, chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service, who also spoke at the Brookings panel.

“We need to be investing in our nonprofit infrastructure,” she said. She added later in an interview that it should fall largely to philanthropy to beef up nonprofits’ ability to absorb more volunteers, provide them with training, and identify meaningful placements that will both help society and assist participants in their careers.

Government can help, she said, by simplifying the process for receiving AmeriCorps grants. She added that providing nonprofits incentives to develop approaches that involve using data to measure progress could allow nonprofits to use tested approaches from organizations in other regions, making their work easier and cheaper.

“If we have programs with strong evidence, they can be replicated throughout the country,” she said.

Alex Daniels covers foundations, donor-advised funds, fundraising research, and tax issues for the Chronicle. He recently wrote about philanthropy’s attempts to save democracy and about a $100 million effort to use data to improve health care in poor countries. Email Alex or follow him on Twitter.

Correction: A previous version of this article mistakenly said that the Corporation for National and Community Service ran Elder-Corps and the Peace Corps. The piece has also been updated to say the corporation runs Senior Corps.