Points of Light, founded by the Bush family, aims to double American volunteerism by 2035
The ambitious goal, announced in New Orleans at the foundation's annual conference, which concluded Friday, would represent a major change in the way Americans spend their time and interact with nonprofits.
It aspires to mobilize people to volunteer with nonprofits in the U.S. at a scale that only federal programs like AmeriCorps have in the past.
It also coincides with deep federal funding cuts that threaten the financial stability of many nonprofits and with an effort to gut AmeriCorps programs, which sent 200,000 volunteers all over the country. A judge on Wednesday paused those cuts in some states, which had sued the Trump administration.
Jennifer Sirangelo, president and CEO of Points of Light, said that while the campaign has been in development well before the federal cuts, the nonprofit's board members recently met and decided to move forward.
'What our board said was, 'We have to do it now. We have to put the stake in the ground now. It's more important than it was before the disruption of AmeriCorps,'' she said in an interview with The Associated Press. She said the nonprofit aims to raise and spend $100 million over the next three years to support the goal.
Points of Light, which is based in Atlanta, was founded by President George H.W. Bush to champion his vision of volunteerism. It has carried on his tradition of giving out a daily award to a volunteer around the country, built a global network of volunteer organizations and cultivated corporate volunteer programs.
Speaking Wednesday in New Orleans, Points of Light's board chair Neil Bush told the organization's annual conference that the capacity volunteers add to nonprofits will have a huge impact on communities.
'Our mission is to make volunteering and service easier, more impactful, more sustained,' Bush said. 'Because, let's be honest, the problems in our communities aren't going to fix themselves.'
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps, the rate of participation has plateaued since 2002, with a noticeable dip during the pandemic.
Susan M. Chambré, professor emerita at Baruch College who studied volunteering for decades, said Points of Light's goal of doubling the number of volunteers was admirable but unrealistic, given that volunteer rates have not varied significantly over time.
But she said more research is needed into what motivates volunteers, which would give insight into how to recruit people. She also said volunteering has become more transactional over time, directed by staff as opposed to organized by volunteers themselves.
In making its case for increasing volunteer participation in a recent report, Points of Light drew on research from nonprofits like Independent Sector, the National Alliance for Volunteer Engagement and the Do Good Institute at the University of Maryland.
Sirangelo said they want to better measure the impact volunteers make, not just the hours they put in, for example. They also see a major role for technology to better connect potential volunteers to opportunities, though they acknowledge that many have tried to do that through apps and online platforms.
Reaching young people will also be a major part of accomplishing this increase in volunteer participation. Sirangelo said she's observed that many young people who do want to participate are founding their own nonprofits rather than joining an existing one.
'We're not welcoming them to our institutions, so they have to go found something,' she said. 'That dynamic has to change.'
As the board was considering this new goal, they reached out for advice to Alex Edgar, who is now the youth engagement manager at Made By Us. They ultimately invited him to join the board as a full voting member and agreed to bring on a second young person as well.
'I think for volunteering and the incredible work that Points of Light is leading to really have a deeper connection with my generation, it needs to be done in a way that isn't just talking to or at young people, but really co-created across generations,' said Edgar, who is 21.
Karmit Bulman, who has researched and supported volunteer engagement for many years, said she was very pleased to see Points of Light make this commitment.
'They are probably the most well known volunteerism organization in the country and I really appreciate their leadership,' said Bulman, who is currently the executive director of East Side Learning Center, a nonprofit in St. Paul.
Bulman said there are many people willing to help out in their communities but who are not willing to jump through hoops to volunteer with a nonprofit.
'We also need to recognize that it's a pretty darn stressful time in people's lives right now,' she said. 'There's a lot of uncertainty personally and professionally and financially for a lot of people. So we need to be really, really flexible in how we engage volunteers.'
___
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Wall Street Journal
6 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Don't Bomb Mexico, Mr. President
The State Department designated eight organized-crime syndicates based in Latin America as 'foreign terrorist organizations,' or FTOs, in February. In July it added a ninth. Last week the New York Times reported that President Trump has signed a secret 'directive' to the Pentagon to 'begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels.' The White House declined to tell me if the Times story is true. But on Thursday Reuters reported that the U.S. deployment of air and naval resources to the Caribbean to combat cartels had begun. Whether their mission is interdiction or something more invasive remains unclear.
Los Angeles Times
7 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Fatal explosion at U.S. Steel's plant raises questions about its future despite heavy investment
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The fatal explosion last week at U.S. Steel's Pittsburgh-area coal-processing plant has revived debate about its future just as the iconic American company was emerging from a long period of uncertainty. The fortunes of steelmaking in the United States — along with profits, share prices and steel prices — have been buoyed by years of friendly administrations in Washington that slapped tariffs on foreign imports and bolstered the industry's anticompetitive trade cases against China. Most recently, President Trump's administration postponed new hazardous air pollution requirements for the nation's roughly dozen coke plants, including Clairton Coke Works, where the blast occurred, and he approved U.S. Steel's nearly $15-billion acquisition by Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel. Nippon Steel's promised infusion of cash has brought vows that steelmaking will continue in the Mon Valley, a river valley south of Pittsburgh long synonymous with steelmaking. 'We're investing money here. And we wouldn't have done the deal with Nippon Steel if we weren't absolutely sure that we were going to have an enduring future here in the Mon Valley,' David Burritt, U.S. Steel's chief executive, said at a news conference Tuesday, a day after the explosion. 'You can count on this facility to be around for a long, long time.' The explosion killed two workers and hospitalized 10 with a blast so powerful that it took hours to find two missing workers beneath charred wreckage and rubble. The cause is under investigation. The plant is considered the largest coking operation in North America and, along with a blast furnace and finishing mill up the Monongahela River, is one of a handful of integrated steelmaking operations left in the U.S. The explosion now could test Nippon Steel's resolve in propping up the nearly 110-year-old Clairton plant, or at least force it to spend more than it had anticipated. Nippon Steel didn't respond to a question as to whether the explosion will change its approach to the plant. A spokesperson for the company said in a statement that its 'commitment to the Mon Valley remains strong' and that it sent 'technical experts to work with the local teams in the Clairton Plant, and to provide our full support.' Meanwhile, Burritt said that he had talked to top Nippon Steel officials after the explosion and that 'this facility and the Mon Valley are here to stay.' U.S. Steel officials say that safety is their top priority and that they spend $100 million a year on environmental compliance at Clairton alone. Repairing Clairton, however, could be expensive, an investigation into the explosion could turn up more problems, and an official from the United Steelworkers union said it's a constant struggle to get U.S. Steel to invest in its plants. Besides that, production at the facility could be affected for some time. The plant has six batteries of ovens, and two — where the explosion occurred — were damaged. Two others are on a reduced production schedule because of the blast. There is no timeline to get the damaged batteries running again, U.S. Steel said. Accidents are nothing new at Clairton, which heats coal to high temperatures to make coke, a key component in steelmaking, and produces combustible gases as byproducts. An explosion in February injured two workers. Even as Nippon Steel was closing the deal in June, a breakdown at the plant dealt three days of a rotten egg odor into the air around it from elevated hydrogen sulfide emissions, the environmental group GASP reported. The Breathe Project, a public health organization, said U.S. Steel has been forced to pay $57 million in fines and settlements since Jan. 1, 2020, for problems at the Clairton plant. A lawsuit over a Christmas Eve fire at Clairton in 2018 that saturated the area's air for weeks with sulfur dioxide produced a withering assessment of conditions there. An engineer for the environmental groups that sued wrote that he 'found no indication that U.S. Steel has an effective, comprehensive maintenance program for the Clairton plant.' Clairton, he wrote, is 'inherently dangerous because of the combination of its deficient maintenance and its defective design.' U.S. Steel settled, agreeing to spend millions on upgrades. Matthew Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, said U.S. Steel has shown more willingness to spend money on paying fines, lobbying the government and buying back shares to reward shareholders than making its plants safe. It's unclear whether Nippon Steel will change Clairton. Central to Trump's approval of the acquisition was Nippon Steel's promises to invest $11 billion into U.S. Steel's aging plants and to give the federal government a say in decisions involving domestic steel production, including plant closings. But much of the $2.2 billion that Nippon Steel has earmarked for the Mon Valley plants is expected to go toward upgrading the finishing mill, or building a new one. For years before the acquisition, U.S. Steel had signaled that the Mon Valley was on the chopping block. That left workers there uncertain whether they'd have jobs in a couple of years and whispering that U.S. Steel couldn't fill openings because nobody believed the jobs would exist much longer. In many ways, U.S. Steel's Mon Valley plants are relics of steelmaking's past. In the early 1970s, U.S. steel production led the world and was at an all-time high, thanks to 62 coke plants that fed 141 blast furnaces. Nobody in the U.S. has built a blast furnace since then, as foreign competition devastated the American steel industry and coal fell out of favor. Now, China is dominant in steel and heavily invested in coal-based steelmaking. In the U.S., there are barely a dozen coke plants and blast furnaces left, as the country's steelmaking has shifted to cheaper electric arc furnaces that use electricity, not coal. Blast furnaces won't entirely go away, analysts say, because they produce metals that are preferred by automakers, appliance makers and oil and gas exploration firms. Still, Christopher Briem, an economist at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Social and Urban Research, questioned whether the Clairton plant really will survive much longer, given its age and condition. It could be particularly vulnerable if the economy slides into recession or the fundamentals of the American steel market shift, he said. 'I'm not quite sure it's all set in stone as people believe,' Briem said. 'If the market does not bode well for U.S. Steel, for American steel, is Nippon Steel really going to keep these things?' Levy writes for the Associated Press.
New York Post
7 minutes ago
- New York Post
Russiagate prosecutions a must, DSA ties should disqualify and other commentary
Conservative: Russiagate Prosecutions a Must 'Damning evidence' now shows 'conclusively' that 'Russiagate was a conspiracy — hatched, implemented and relentlessly promoted by top officials in the CIA, FBI and across the Obama-Biden-Clinton political machine to rig a presidential election and undermine a duly elected president,' fumes Tom Fitton at The Hill. And it corrupted 'institutions essential to protecting American liberty.' Yet 'those responsible' remain unpunished. CIA chief John Brennan and National Intelligence boss James Clapper 'lied to Congress and the American public.' Top 'Justice Department officials, such as Bruce Ohr,' acted as 'a conduit for anti-Trump smears.' James Comey and other 'leaders at the FBI' used 'the intelligence community's credibility to spread what they knew to be their own fiction as if it were truth.' 'America is a republic, not a banana republic. It's time for accountability, reform and a sharp reminder' that 'the people are sovereign, not unelected bureaucrats.' Culture desk: Fitness Test Offers Valuable Lessons For many children, recalls The Free Press's Kat Rosenfeld, the old Presidential Fitness meant confronting 'the humiliation and discomfort of being weak and slow,' hence its 2012 'retirement' as President Barack Obama promoted 'a kinder, gentler, more progressive worldview' that preferred 'inclusivity to merit.' Yet this leveling could 'move the nation toward institutionalized mediocrity' by 'making it taboo to even have standards at all.' Progressives faced with a high bar have sought 'to get rid of the bar'; let's welcome President Trump's return of the Fitness Test, since important 'lessons' come only with 'the bitter taste of failure on your tongue.' That is: Failure is 'one of the greatest motivators to self-betterment there is.' From the right: DSA Ties Should Disqualify Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other prominent progressives' membership in the Democratic Socialists of America membership have 'been treated gingerly,' gripes Commentary's Seth Mandel. Yet 'affiliation with the DSA should finally and rightfully be regarded as disqualifying for an elected official.' After all, the recent DSA national convention included a resolution making 'it an expellable offense to say 'Israel has a right to defend itself' or to 'have knowingly provided material aid to Israel,'' plus one 'censuring Ocasio-Cortez for being too pro-Israel.' Who wants to be associated with a 'hate group?' No way 'any politician's membership in such a group should be acceptable.' Eye on hate: The Left's Obsession With Assassins Praise for Shane Tamura, who killed four people, including the CEO of BlackStone, in a mass shooting in New York City last month, 'points to a growing belief,' especially on the left, that 'violent extremism is the only way to challenge a corrupted system,' warn Max Horder & Olivia Rose at City Journal. Most evidence suggested Tamura was targeting NFL offices, but 'an alternative narrative quickly emerged' on social media that 'claimed that Tamura was following in the footsteps' of Luigi Mangione. 'The prevalence of this chatter on social media reflects the unabated growth of what the Network Contagion Research Institute has termed 'assassination culture,'' which glorifies and cheers on political violence. 'The consequences for American civic life are ominous,' and the 'slow but steady rise' of this mentality 'bodes ill for any democracy.' Campus watch: Vindicated for Resisting DEI 'I was heartened to see my former employer, Duke University Health System, quietly reverse its commitment to woke racism this year,' cheers Kendall Conger at RealClear Investigations. A physician, Conger questioned Duke's insistence, supposedly 'guided by science,' that 'racism is a public health crisis' — and 'was fired because of it.' After a nurse reported him for his views on the subject, Duke forbade him to talk about it. Though counseled to keep quiet, he continued to ask questions, knowing that evil comes from 'good men holding their tongues.' In 2024, he was let go for being disruptive and had trouble finding work nearby. But now Duke has changed — and he feels 'vindicated.' He tells his kids: 'Never shy away from asking questions in the pursuit of truth.' — Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
