How Foundations Can Promote Volunteering

Within days of learning of the death of a friend in a hiking accident in Jordan, my daughter decided to organize a service project to honor his memory and to promote understanding among different ethnic groups in Israel. This gesture helped me appreciate just how integral the notion of service is to her life.

And she is not alone. The desire to help others is motivating increasingly larger numbers of young people and, if appropriately nurtured, will result in the emergence of a skilled and experienced generation of community activists and leaders capable of effecting positive change for years to come. It is no coincidence that young people are participating in the 2008 presidential-election process in unprecedented numbers, and it is vital that we find ways to harness this energy for the long-term benefit of our communities and our world.

The signs of interest in service are everywhere. A group of scholars and leaders housed at the Brookings Institution has proposed that Congress join with the White House to double the size of the Peace Corps and to establish a program of Global Service Fellowships to support American volunteers interested in working with nonprofit organizations, religious institutions, and universities that are committed to advancing peace and development. In the past few months, California created a new cabinet-level position for service and volunteering, and the U.S. Senate joined the House of Representatives in establishing the National Service Congressional Caucus.

Community service is becoming an integral part of American education and American society. Many high schools and, increasingly, American universities require such service before graduation. More than 32 percent of all college and university students are engaged in community service. In an annual national survey conducted nationwide by the University of California at Los Angeles, 94 percent of college freshmen said they had participated in some form of community service in the last 12 months. And the national-service movement has demonstrated incredible achievements and growth, with approximately 4 million Americans serving annually through federally financed programs like AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America, contributing more than 228 million hours of service each year.

So, what can we as philanthropists do to seize this moment, to strengthen this impulse, and to ensure that as many university-age young people as possible who wish to serve will have the chance to do so? Several approaches already under way point out a few directions, especially where performing community service becomes integral to the idea of a well-rounded college education.

Among them:

• The Duke Endowment and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation contributed $15-million each to endow DukeEngage, a program that will provide financial aid to Duke University students who wish to pursue activities that serve people anywhere in the world. Any Duke undergraduate who has completed at least two semesters of courses is eligible for participation, and, last summer, nearly 90 Duke students served others in programs in Durham, N.C., New Orleans, Costa Rica, India, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Ukraine, Yemen, and elsewhere.

• At Princeton, President Shirley M. Tilghman recently announced that her university was exploring the creation of a “gap year” program that would allow newly admitted undergraduates to spend a year of public service abroad before starting as freshmen. The program will enable students to pursue a tuition-free, precollegiate enrichment year outside their home country, with support from the university.

• Just steps from our nation’s Capitol, Georgetown University operates its Community-Based Learning Credit program, facilitated by the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching, and Service, in which students can participate in more than 100 community-service activities, such as teaching children, offering pro bono legal services, and providing health care to people who cannot afford to pay for the services.

Foundations could support a network of experiments of this type in a bridge year, or on campuses to learn what works and what does not and spread the idea to institutions that are not as wealthy as Princeton or Duke.

Additionally, we should be thinking of ways to continue students’ transformative experiences beyond graduation, which means ensuring that service programs at nonprofit organizations absorb all those who want to lend a hand.

At the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, we learned how much demand for service opportunities exists when more than 3,000 young people applied in late 2006 to participate in our Leading Up North program. We were ultimately able to help 550 students travel to Israel and assist in the rebuilding of communities in the northern part of the country immediately following the conflict with Hezbollah. Nearly 100 percent of participants reported that they maintained or increased their already high levels of volunteering after returning home.

This prompted us to take a new look at ways to link college students on semester break to service opportunities. We made separate matching grants equaling up to $1.25-million to several Jewish organizations that offer service opportunities, with a goal of increasing by 30 percent the number of students participating this year in alternative break programs. The results of those grants are very encouraging; the six organizations are making excellent progress in meeting the expansion goals we set out. Plans for even greater growth are in the works for the coming year, when additional Jewish and secular organizations will join in organizing these programs.

We are also in conversations with Teach for America about bringing that program to Oklahoma, the state where our foundation makes many of our grants, and even to Israel.

Our foundation recently commissioned a study, along with the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, to examine how “service learning” — efforts to integrate educational activities and community service — can be used in a way that fosters the Jewish tradition of tikkun olam, or “repairing the world.”

More than 85 percent of the organizations in our survey said they had more applicants than they could accept.

The same study found that City Year and Teach for America, two of the biggest organizations that offer service opportunities, are able to accept only a small percentage of applicants (25 percent and 17 percent, respectively).

It’s clear that perhaps the most important thing that grant makers can do is to make sure that plenty of serious and meaningful opportunities are available to those who want to serve.

Our own goal is to help motivated young people seize the moment and act upon their desire to make the world a better place. Just as the group City Year says in its promotions, we want it to be as commonplace for young people to say, “Where are you doing your service next year?” as they now ask each other, “Where did you apply early decision?”

By giving money to organizations that make service opportunities available to young people, the world of philanthropy can inspire and connect the next generation in ways that will benefit all humanity for years to come.

Our young people aspire to change the world, and helping them pursue their dreams is a responsibility we simply cannot ignore.

Sandy Cardin is president of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the Center for Leadership Initiatives, and the Schusterman Foundation-Israel.