New Podcast: Cross Sector Relationships, Corporate Responsibility and Citizen Service: An Interview with Alan Khazei and Shannon Schuyler

The New Service podcast from Idealist.org takes a look at a new national partnership.

Corporate social responsibility and citizen service are increasingly becoming two sides of the same coin, as more business-sectoemployees and clients demand opportunities to improve their communities as part of their workplace culture. Exemplifying the beneficial opportunities of cross-sector alliances is the new national partnership between the nonprofit Be The Change, Inc., and the business network Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC).

Alan Khazei

Alan Khazei

Today’s guests on The New Service podcast from Idealist.og are Be the Change, Inc’s Alan Khazei and PwC’s Shannon Schuyler. Link to the podcast.

Alan Khazei is the founder and CEO of Be the Change, Inc, the lead organizer of the Service Nation campaign that has galvanized support throughout the country for passage of the Kennedy Serve America Act. Alan is Co-Founder & former CEO of City Year, the youth service corps that helped to inspire the development of AmeriCorps.

Shannon Schuyler

Shannon Schuyler

Shannon Schuyler is the Managing Director responsible for PwC’s U.S. Corporate Responsibility. As such she is responsible for fostering meaningful partnerships with national non-profits, including a new national relationship with Be the Change, Inc.

The collaboration between Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Be the Change Inc is aimed at inspiring a new era of voluntary citizen service. PwC will also serve as a Lead Sponsor for ServiceNation’s participation in the upcoming National Conference on Volunteering and Service.

I spoke with Alan and Shannon about their evolving partnership, about how corporate responsibility strengthens communities, and about how groups can — and must — come together across sectors to solve our most pressing social problems.

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Senate To Debate Serve America Bill Monday Afternoon

Update, April 21, 2009: President Obama signs the Serve America Act into law. To take effect October 1, 2009.

The office of Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) — who is managing the bill — says that the Serve America Act will go to the full Senate Monday likely at 3 p.m. EST. Debate could last days.

Voices for National Service, Service Nation, and Serve Next urge proponents of the Serve America Act and national service to contact their senators today or Monday morning, to let Senators know where they stand.

Read the joint Press Release issued on the Serve America Act this week by Senators Kennedy (D-MA), Enzi (R-WY), Hatch (R-UT) and Mikulski.

You can watch the debate live on CSPAN.

Read the amended Serve America Act approved by the Senate HELP Committee.

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Why It’s Wrong to Assume that All Service Participants are Young

How branding national service as an opportunity only for young people does more harm to the movement than good.

Christian Witkin for TIME Magazine

Christian Witkin for TIME Magazine

While many service corps do have upper age limits — City Year, AmeriCorps*NCCC, Public Allies, and many other team-based programs — most programs do not have an upper age limit.

In fact, several programs specifically recruit professionalsExperience Corps, Atlas Corps, CUSO-VSO (the Canadian VSO), Volunteers for Prosperity, and United Nations Volunteers just to name a few. Others like Peace Corps and AmeriCorps*VISTA recruit almost entirely college graduates because of the skill required in carrying out service.

And yet when people speak of service they almost always describe it as an opportunity for young people to give back, receive scholarship money, develop leadership skills, and go an an adventure before settling down with a real job.

What difference does it make if most people think of national or international service as a pursuit for the young?

Here are some reasons:

Recruitment:

If we assume only young people will enlist in a citizen service corps, we won’t recruit new corps members as creatively Continue reading

Pres. Obama Calls for Swift Passage of the Serve America Act

Update, April 21, 2009: President Obama signs the Serve America Act into law. To take effect October 1, 2009.

In an address to a joint session Congress tonight, Feb. 24th, President Obama urged lawmakers to pass the picture-24Kennedy-Hatch Serve America Act which would expand funding for national service.

The Serve America Act, co-authored by Senator Kennedy (D-MA) and Senator Hatch (R-UT), was introduced in the Senate January 16 and would:

  • Engage more Americans in a term of national service to solve critical challenges in local communities by increasing AmeriCorps from 75,000 to 250,000 Continue reading

National Service and Volunteerism on the Radio

Service is the topic on a call-in show today, on American University radio station WAMU 88.5 FM.

Today, starting at 1:06 EST, Kojo Nnamdi will spend an hour speaking with guests about national service and volunteerism.

Guests will include:

  • AnnMaura Connolly, Senior Vice President, City Year, Inc.; Lead Organizer with Service Nation Coalition
  • William Hauser, Colonel, U.S. Army (ret.); Co-author of the article, “Bring Back the Draft” in Foreign Policy Magazine
  • Jerome Slater, University Research Scholar, State University of New York at Buffalo; Co-author of the article, “Bring Back the Draft” in Foreign Policy Magazine
  • Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow, New America Foundation

Learn more details of the show.

Listen live.

Kojo Nnamdi show takes calls and e-mails from listeners.  To join the show: call 1-800-433-8850 or e-mail kojo[at]wamu.org.

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