Andrew Wolk

The Importance of the Serve America Act: Part II

Posted on 27. Mar, 2009 in Public Innovation, Role of Government, Social Innovation

The Serve America Act passed 78-20 in the Senate yesterday!

In addition to the importance of the social innovation funds remaining in the legislation, the expansion of opportunities for Americans of all ages and backgrounds to participate in national service is critical. This expansion is key not only as a policy on its own, but as a coordinated effort in concert with the social innovation fund to drive national service toward scaled social impact.

Volunteerism is at the heart of a majority of scaled social innovations − Little League, Girl Scouts, Red Cross, and Habitat for Humanity come to mind. The power of this human capital to scale social innovations is only in its early stages of being understood. What we need to do now is to harness this resource, not just through national service, but also at universities and other institutions in a much more strategic and leveraged manner.  If some of the investments from the social innovation fund were combined with human capital investments from this new legislation, the resulting social impact could be significantly compounded.

You can read a bit more about coordinating volunteer resources to scale solutions in my Root Cause-Aspen report.

Tags: girl scouts, habitat for humanity, little league, red cross, serve america act, Social Innovation