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Volunteering is Bigger Than the Nonprofit Sector
Posted by Gail Doyle,
Should volunteerism transcend the nonprofit world and spread its effects into the world of government and for-profit arenas? Susan J. Ellis, President of Energize, Inc., a training, consulting, and publishing firm that specializes in volunteerism, thinks that this topic should be discussed in light of the current presidential campaign.
"Too many politicians, commentators, academics, and the general public are unable to recognize that a giant part of the volunteer world is unpaid service on behalf of government, especially at the state and local level," she says. Her major discussion points:
- If we say that volunteering helps a nonprofit agency to stretch its budget and do more than the available funds would otherwise allow, why is it not as legitimate to speak of citizens serving in government agencies as a way to stretch the impact of tax dollars?
- Is the fact that government is highly unionized a key reason why politicians try to avoid rocking the boat in calling for citizens to volunteer in public agencies?
- What would be the political fallout if a candidate issued a challenge for all citizens to give 100 hours a year to some government service? More important, what would be the social impact of such collective action for the common good?
- How can we, as colleagues in volunteerism, assure that public agency volunteering is elevated to its rightful position as equal to nonprofit volunteering, and recognized as both the same and sometimes different?
- Is there any way that we can use the current presidential campaign to bring this issue to light?