Nonprofit Leaders Look to Build on President Obama’s Call for Service

Charity leaders around the country vowed last week to build on President Barack Obama’s call to Americans to get to work solving the country’s problems and to act in a “spirit of service.”

“We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America,” he said in his Inaugural Address.

Mr. Obama’s Inauguration followed a national day of service designed to mark the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. At least 12,000 volunteer projects were organized nationwide — more than double last year’s number, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal national-service agency.

Nonprofit leaders were quick to respond to the national focus on volunteerism.

“We have a champion in the White House,” said Alan Khazei, chief executive of Be the Change, a civic-engagement group in Boston that helped start ServiceNation, a coalition of more than 120 organizations that held a breakfast in Washington that attracted more than 1,200 people to kick off the King service events.

“We all must double down now and seize this moment,” he said. “Otherwise it may pass us by.”

At the breakfast, Maria Shriver, wife of California’s Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, said it was not just the federal government that needed to act. She urged other states to follow California’s lead and create a cabinet-level post for volunteerism.

White House Web Site

The president did not refer specifically to nonprofit groups in his address, but he praised the concept of service while discussing America’s military heroes.

“We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service, a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves,” he said. “And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.”

The Obama administration carried through the community-service theme on the updated White House Web site, which debuted at 12:01 p.m. as Mr. Obama was about to take the oath of office.

The site provided details of his administration’s agenda, including a page outlining his goals for promoting volunteer service.

Among Mr. Obama’s goals: doubling the size of the Peace Corps, encouraging all middleand high-school students to volunteer at least 50 hours per year, giving a tax credit to college students who spend 100 hours per year volunteering, and creating a federal office to oversee social entrepreneurship.

“During the election, people all across the country talked about feeling a new sense of civic engagement and got involved in politics for the first time,” the Web site said. “Now, President Obama and Vice President Biden are counting on Americans from all walks of life to serve the nation and help address the problems we face — and they’re committed to building the infrastructure and providing the resources that will make it possible.”

National-Service Measure

As a next step, Mr. Obama will now work to persuade Congress to pass a proposed economic-stimulus package, which includes billions of dollars in spending that would help some nonprofit groups weather the recession.

Many nonprofit leaders hope he will also give priority to passing the Serve America Act, a Senate bill that was introduced in the last Congress to greatly expand the country’s national-service programs.

Sens. Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, and Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, this month reintroduced the bill in the new Congress.

The proposed legislation would more than triple, to 250,000, participation in yearlong national-service programs like AmeriCorps by 2013.

It would also create several new service programs and provide money to help nonprofit groups recruit volunteers and spread innovative projects.

ServiceNation and other nonprofit groups were hopeful that the national-service bill would become part of the economic-stimulus plan. The version of that plan unveiled by House Democrats in early January did not include the measure, although it did call for $200-million in new spending on AmeriCorps.

Nonprofit leaders emphasized the need to make a concerted push now to help support such efforts, with many calling on Congress to adopt the national-service bill within the first 100 days of the new administration.

“The goal is to keep that service going through the year,” said Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil-rights leader and chief executive of Realizing the Dream, a communityand youth-development group in Atlanta. He recalled that his father often said that anybody could serve their country: “You don’t have to have a Ph.D. to serve.”

That message has already reached many Americans. After the breakfast in Washington, several hundred people went to paint and beautify nearby Simon Elementary School.

So many people wanted to volunteer at the school that organizers had to cut off applications and send people elsewhere. Cathy Cronen, 63, a nurse from suburban Portland, Ore., was among those who made it in. In town to visit her daughter during the Inauguration festivities, she said she volunteered specifically because she wanted to honor Mr. Obama’s request.

“This is part of what Barack Obama is calling us to do,” she said. And, as the president suggested, she plans to follow up by committing to a regular community-service project — volunteering to tutor or be a mentor to schoolchildren.

Peter Panepento contributed to this article.