Nonprofit Groups Seek to Win Federal Support for Older Volunteers

Some nonprofit groups say new federal efforts are needed to entice the massive wave of baby boomers who are nearing traditional retirement age to work on solving the country’s social problems. But Congress — perhaps because it has been preoccupied with war, budget deficits, and presidential campaigns — has so far shown only slivers of interest.

Proponents who want to tap older people to work for the public good faced disappointment last month when the House of Representatives failed to approve legislation that included a provision to create a Silver Scholarship program. That effort, included in a bill to extend the country’s national-service programs, H.R. 5563, would have offered a $1,000 continuing-education grant to people ages 55 and older who volunteered at least 600 hours a year.

The national-service legislation got caught up in wrangling between Democrats and Republicans and was brought up for a vote by the full House under procedures that required a two-thirds majority to pass. The vote was 277 to 140, one vote shy of the number needed to win. Furthermore, the Senate has not yet drafted a companion bill.

“There’s a beginning of serious interest. There’s an understanding that the future is not going to be just an updated version of the past,” said John Gomperts, president of Civic Ventures, a nonprofit group that advocates programs and policies to encourage older people to volunteer or work for charities. “But I don’t think anybody yet really has their arms around the big ideas that are going to work for the next generation.”

Law Extended

So far, the main piece of legislation adopted by Congress to get older people involved in charity work is the Older Americans Act. When they extended the act in 2006, lawmakers added new language asking the federal government to award grants and contracts to organizations that create opportunities for older people to work on multigenerational projects and other activities to meet “critical community needs.”

The legislation did not specify a budget for the projects, but a coalition of nonprofit groups lobbied to get Congress to allocate close to $10-million in fiscal year 2008. They lost that battle.

Instead, the U.S. Administration on Aging, the agency that administers the Older Americans Act, awarded a three-year annual grant of nearly $1-million to the National Council on Aging, a nonprofit group in Washington, to operate programs that would engage older people in nonprofit enterprises. However, that grant basically just shifted around money that was already going to another project the council operates, Family Friends, which uses older volunteers to help families with children who are disabled or chronically ill.

“It was a tight budget year,” said Howard Bedlin, vice president for public policy and advocacy at the National Council on Aging. “We weren’t able to find a real champion, which we’re hoping to do this time around. At least it didn’t get cut.”

Mr. Bedlin’s group has joined a coalition of organizations — including Camp Fire USA, Easter Seals, Experience Wave, Generations United, Lutheran Services in America, and Youth Service America — that is pressing Congress to allocate about $9-million for civic-engagement projects under the Older Americans Act in fiscal year 2009.

“Our goal would be to have a broader array of projects and ultimately to be able to evaluate those projects [for effectiveness],” said Jaia Peterson Lent, director of public policy and outreach for Generations United, a group in Washington that promotes cooperation among people of different age groups on social-policy issues.

In addition to creating the Silver Scholarship program, the bill to extend national-service programs, the Generations Invigorating Volunteering and Education (GIVE) Act, included new measures to attract more baby boomers to volunteer work. For example, it proposed lowering the minimum age from 60 to 55 for participants in the Foster Grandparents program, which helps needy and disabled young people, and the Senior Companions program, which helps frail or disabled adults.

But over all, the budget for Senior Corps, the federal program that taps older volunteers, has been shrinking — from $217.6-million in 2006 to $213.8-million this year. As part of his broader effort to rein in an enormous federal budget deficit, President Bush has proposed slashing the Senior Corps budget to $174-million in 2009, with most coming out of the Foster Grandparents program.

David Eisner, chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which administers Senior Corps, said in an interview that “it’s a really tough budget year” and the administration had to make choices about where to cut.

Noting that Foster Grandparents would still have the biggest budget of all the Senior Corps programs in 2009, he said, “We could still [cut] it while maintaining a really strong program.”

Jennifer Ney, director of public policy for City Year, in Washington, said she is optimistic Congress will be more generous. City Year, a youth-service corps, is a member of Voices for National Service, a coalition of organizations that are pushing to expand national-service programs. “There’s strong bipartisan support for national-service programs and there are many champions of senior programs,” Ms. Ney said.

Volunteer Deduction

Experience Wave — a group that was set up with money from Atlantic Philanthropies, a foundation in New York, to push federal and state governments to make it easier for older people to stay engaged in volunteerism or public service — has proposed a package of measures for Congress to consider.

For example, it says the federal government should allow older volunteers to deduct the value of their charitable services from their income taxes; provide grants to help charities develop systems for managing unpaid older workers, as well as to help organizations such as community colleges or senior centers develop lifelong-learning programs; and offer fellowships to help train people in midlife who want to pursue public-service careers.

Mr. Gomperts of Civic Ventures and others hope to persuade lawmakers to shift their perspective, which they said now focuses largely on the downside of the growth of the country’s older population, such as rising Social Security and health costs, instead of on their potential contributions.

One political leader could make a big difference, Mr. Gomperts said — “somebody in the federal system, a new president or a member of Congress, who gets passionate about this issue and sees the opportunities to engage this generation, someone who says, ‘We have to do something big and bold; we’d be crazy to let it go.’”

Elizabeth Pope contributed to this article.