Abstract
The American Way to Change is a book intended to portray what the United States could be like if government officials and citizens caught the vision of the potential of national service and volunteering. In fact, the title of the book is taken from a speech given by President Bill Clinton when he proposed the legislation for AmeriCorps in 1993—calling national service the “American way to change America.” Shirley Sagawa is well-positioned to write a book of this nature. She has had an inside look at the formation of our national volunteering policies over the past two decades. She was instrumental in helping to draft national service policies under two U.S. presidents—George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton—and also worked as the managing director of the Corporation for National and Community Service at its creation.
The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, Sagawa seeks to outline the benefits that accrue to individuals from participating in national service programs such as AmeriCorps. For instance, national service can provide teenagers with a sense of purpose and self-confidence to help them make future decisions about life as they pursue education and careers. Engaging in national service can help retired individuals to stay mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy after leaving productive careers. National service has also been shown to help increase civic engagement and political activism—at least with some program designs.
In the second part of the book, Sagawa reports research and anecdotes that illustrate her vision for how national service can be used to help solve some of our most pressing social problems. Specific chapters in the book focus on the role that national service has played in the areas of education, health, poverty and disasters, and the environment. For instance, Experience Corps brings adults from the community to provide extra assistance to teachers by working with children one-on-one or in small groups. Children who participated in the program made 60% higher gains in reading comprehension than children not in the program. In Texas, the Prison Entrepreneurship Program provides business plan competitions for prisons along with pro bono help from entrepreneurs. This program has a return-to-prison rate that is less than 10% and an employment rate of 80% within 30 days of leaving prison. In central Wisconsin, members of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) offer a telephone reassurance program for homebound seniors to call and check in on them every day.
Sagawa also illustrates how national service participants can help to create and diffuse social innovations—or new solutions to persistent problems—through their service and volunteer efforts. Throughout the book, Sagawa makes a compelling case for the benefits of federal support for national service programs that allow for long-term volunteering assignments. For many participants in national service, the education awards, living stipends, and reimbursed expenses allow them to serve in this capacity.
The primary benefit for readers of The American Way to Change is that it provides a portrait of what our country could be like if more people were engaged in volunteering and national service. It is interesting and often moving to hear the stories about the great things Americans are doing through their service. I also found the book’s preface interesting, as it provided an insider view of the development of national service policies over the past two decades. This trajectory started with George H. W. Bush including an office of national service in the White House and interested congresspersons forming the bipartisan Commission on National and Community Service to explore putting together some national service policies. The emerging legislation was the National and Community Service Act of 1990, which authorized funding for student service-learning programs, youth service and conservation corps, a program to test the linkage between educational benefits and service, and the creation of the Points of Light Foundation. The inauguration of Bill Clinton saw the addition of the AmeriCorps program to the slate of federal volunteering initiatives and the creation of the Corporation for National and Community Service to manage and direct the growing cornucopia of federal initiatives related to national service. President George W. Bush continued to support these programs. National service rose to a more prominent position in the presidential election of 2008 with many presidential candidates pledging to support volunteering. Once elected, President Obama moved quickly to push passage of the Service America Act in early 2009, which included provisions for a dramatic increase in AmeriCorps placements, increased service-learning, and service opportunities for seniors.
Reading this book, however, also cemented in my mind the vast difficulties that we face as a country if we want to be serious about using national service and volunteering as a policy tool to address social issues. I find much of this necessary discourse missing in the literature about national service policies. Although some of the difficulties were mentioned (briefly) in the book, a successful call to national service would need to explain in more detail how to overcome these challenges. The effectiveness of national service policies has been circumscribed by the partisan policies surrounding these policies (Reingold & Lenkowsky, 2010). Indeed, the history of AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service has been rocky at times. For instance, in 2003 several factors contributed to a small crisis for AmeriCorps when an increase in AmeriCorps placements meant that there was not enough in the Trust Fund to pay the AmeriCorps education awards. The program was saved primarily due to strong public support and lobbying from public and nonprofit organizations. Recently, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (2010) rated the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps program of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) as “ineffective” because it was costly compared to other AmeriCorps programs, had not had a comprehensive evaluation, and did not have measureable goals. It also rated AmeriCorps State and National Grants and AmeriCorps Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) programs as “adequate,” the lowest rating given to performing agencies, primarily due to unclear impact, no good historical data documenting results, and lack of outcome measures. These ratings will provide a further hurdle for national service legislation in the future.
In addition, the nation’s nonprofits do not have the volunteer management capacity to successfully manage an influx of new volunteers (Light, 2002; Urban Institute, 2004). Mobilizing more volunteers without making adequate investments in volunteer management capacity can lead to greater turnover in volunteers. Good volunteer management practices, such as providing training, screening and matching volunteers to assignments, and providing recognition for volunteer efforts are associated with higher volunteer retention (Hager & Brudney, 2004). Common volunteer complaints include disorganized volunteer experiences and leaders, lack of recognition, insufficient materials, mismatched skill and interest with the volunteer position, and lack of proper training (CNCS, 2009). Volunteers are not a costless resource—it takes time, money, and effort to effectively train and supervise volunteers of any kind.
Finally, the challenge of using volunteers to solve social problems rests not only on successful volunteer management but also on placing national service participants and volunteers in programs that have been demonstrated to be successful—not just in one context and for one organization, but across a range of situations (Nesbit & Brudney, 2010). Social innovation is a great thing, but it must be accompanied by sound research and evaluation as we seek to diffuse these initiatives across the country.
The examples provided in The American Way to Change show that national service and volunteering can positively influence our communities, and this is very encouraging. However, nonprofit management and public policy have a long way to go to catch up with this ideal view of national service. Nonprofit organizations need to invest adequate resources in their volunteer programs and focus on providing high-quality training to both staff and volunteers to ensure their success in working together. Often these deficiencies are caused because the executive leadership of an organizations does not understand the important role that they need to take in setting the tone for the organization’s use of volunteers and in helping to plan for volunteers (Rhenborg, 2009). Public policy needs to pay more attention to developing the volunteer management capacity and programmatic capacity of nonprofit organizations. Greater bipartisan support for national service and volunteering policies will also help us to revise these policies to better fit our national realities.