April 21, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
Gregg Petersmeyer, who served as director of the White House Office of National Service under President George H. W. Bush, urged nonprofit groups to discard messages that use guilt or otherwise tell people that volunteering is something they “should do.”
Instead, during a conference on volunteerism sponsored by the Point of Light Institute on Tuesday, Mr. Petersmeyer urged nonprofit groups to find out what inspires volunteers to act, and then shape their messages and their volunteer assignments in ways that respond to whatever motivates a volunteer.
“Volunteering is a patriotic act, a high calling; it’s all about meaning and adventure,” he said.
Todd Bernstein, president of Global Citizen, a Philadelphia organization that seeks to encourage young people to get involved in local and global affairs discussed the difficulties he faced when trying to create the movement to make the commemoration of Martin Luther King’s birthday a national day of community service.
Mr. Bernstein, whose group directs the annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service, said that, at first, his idea of embracing Dr. King’s legacy through community action wasn’t welcomed by many nonprofit leaders. But, he said, by encouraging local groups to come up with service ideas that met their needs and mission, the idea took root in a way that it might not otherwise have.
“It’s not about dictating to these organizations,” he said, “rather it’s about defining the needs of the community and turning them into actions.”
