Mandatory National Service?

I recently attended the National Conference on Volunteering and Service hosted by Points of Light in Washington, DC; a conference that brought together what I believe to be a fairly robust network of individuals and organizations responsible for providing service opportunities to communities across the country. Many of those in attendance were engaged practitioners promoting volunteer service and civic engagement, as well as thought and community leaders who are trying to expand the idea of what it means to serve and how it can be expanded amongst their constituency. 

The 5,000+ attendees were able to choose from an overwhelming number of workshops, talkshops, panel discussions, and keynote speakers around the concept of service and how it can be bolstered to maximize its impact...all in all, it was a good time. 

Yesterday, I happened upon the "National Service Issue" of TIME magazine, in which a lengthy and powerful article explored the idea of how serving others is a way that can be leveraged to help Veteran's deal with PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury while serving the greater good. The article talked about studies being done on the impact of service and used real world examples of its effects on returning servicemen and women. While I've always known that service has been a powerful and life changing force, this article made me think about it in a new light. 

What caught my eye however, was not in that article but in the letter from the editor in the front of the magazine. The letter talked about something that I hadn't heard before--something that just took place at the Aspen Institute this past weekend--something called "The National Service Summit" and it focused on a new initiative called "The Franklin Project." Having never heard of this before I looked for a website and could only find press releases and articles which sum it up as:

"The Franklin Project is a new venture by the Aspen Institute to marshal the best case for a voluntary civilian counterpart to military service in the United States. At the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival, General Stanley McChrystal called for large-scale civilian national service to engage more Americans in serving community and country. We believe national service can and should become a common expectation and common opportunity for all Americans to strengthen our social fabric and solve our most pressing national challenges. To realize this vision, the Franklin Project engages outstanding Americans from the private sector, higher education, government, the military, faith community, philanthropy, and nonprofit organizations, to develop innovative policy and to build momentum around advancing a new vision of civilian service for the 21st century." (http://www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work/franklin-project) 

For more on this I'll let reitred General McChrystal fill in the details:



The idea is intriguing and begs a mountain of questions about how this would work, if it could work, how it would be funded, how it would interact with the current wealth of Service Corps opportunities in existence, and most importantly, how do they intend to make universal national service a "new American rite of passage?" (and what exactly does that mean?)

I also find it interesting that just last week over 5,000 of the Nation's community service practitioners were assembled to celebrate and stoke the fires of civic engagement and there was no mention of this. Given the obvious connection between the conference and this initiative, a project that appears to have the potential to significantly impact how we engage in service as a Nation, one would think that the National Conference on Volunteering and Service would be a natural fit to get people pumped--I guess not. While it appears that 'The Franklin Project' is still in its infancy, I hope the plan for this is unveiled soon so that we will have an opportunity to weigh in and openly discuss the merits and potential impacts of this on how we engage in service as a Nation.

If you attended the Aspen Institute event, have filled out the survey / questionnaire they are referring to,  or have additional information on the Franklin Project, please leave a comment, I am very interested in learning more about this.

Also, below is the TIMES article "Can Service Save Us?" as well as a counter-point to the Franklin Project called "Dodge the Draft America." Also, there is a link to the Aspen Institute "National Service Summit" program that outlines the weekends events and gives an attendee listing.

ARTICLES:
TIMES cover article: Can Service Save us? http://nation.time.com/2013/06/20/can-service-save-us/
Counter point to the Franklin Project: http://nation.time.com/2013/06/28/dodge-the-draft-america/
Aspen Institute's National Service Summit Program: http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/docs/events/FP_21cnss_program.pdf

The Good for Nothing Club*

 
Civic Engagement: Community Disaster Relief Wagon from Lori H. Ersolmaz on Vimeo.

The reason I posted this video is because it captures the spirit of so many people who just start helping after a disaster...whether it's flying across the country and renting a U-Haul to create a mobile kitchen, or helping someone cleanup their home, the power of people helping people is pretty amazing.

The other reason I posted it is because I think this video captures the sentiment of a lot of Spontaneous Unaffiliated Volunteers (SUVs) and their motivations for getting involved, which I believe is an important first step in being able to setup systems that work with this type of mentality. Better understanding the motivations of SUVs will help to create dynamic and flexible systems of coordination that support these types of individuals on a local level, while working to integrate them into the broader response context instead of ignoring or marginalizing them and their impacts.

Have a good weekend...see you on Monday.

* The good for nothing club, people who do "good" for "nothing." Kinda corny...but I like it.

Innovation + Civic Engagement = Secret Sauce

Who doesn't love a Venn diagram?

Secret Sauce...that's what we're all after right? Finding the balance, the intersection between civic engagement and innovation, where capable, hungry individuals and organizations are working to streamline access to new and exciting ways to help their communities in both times of disaster and not.

The fluid nature of innovation and the reactive spikes in civic engagement following disasters makes harnessing the confluence of these two elements difficult. However, I believe what happened following Hurricane Sandy is a great example of Secret Sauce in action; where volunteerism and civic engagement fueled by new tech platforms aided community-wide response and recovery activities. At the time it was messy and chaotic, but the new ideas and perspectives on how to approach many of the challenges that continue to pervade response and recovery, were a welcomed breath of fresh air.

Because the life cycle of a technology employed in response is so short, it's almost guaranteed that the next time it's used, lessons learned from its previous deployment will have gone into creating version 2.0. While creating newer and more efficient applications and systems is good, I believe the key to retaining the secret sauce is to maintain a technology's simplicity while enhancing its functionality. Of course that's easier said than done, but it's important to remember that during times of disaster people revert to what they know and what's easiest, which is why you see so many people doing coordination with a pen and legal pads.

The confluence of motivated people and new technology rallying around a common cause is rare, but we have the good fortune in disaster response to have an abundance of both. I believe the key to ensuring that every community gets their own brand of Secret Sauce is to aggressively promote innovation while nurturing and rewarding civic engagement that promotes community cohesion.

Hacking our way towards Resilience

The concepts of preparedness and whole of community are being pushed to the forefront of the conversation when talking about creating community resilience; transforming them from abstract ideas and words used in grant proposals, to tangible ideas and actions.

Civic engagement and the growing base of concerned and motivated individuals rallying around the idea that they can create a tangible impact on their community through technological ideation is spurring a wave of innovation. It's casting a broad net that is reaching a new breed of disaster practitioner--the technologist. An example of this transition can be seen in the integration of technology in civic activism through groups like Code for America and events like the national day of civic hacking. These forms of civic engagement have also worked to influence disaster response and recovery.

http://h4d2.eu/ (Hackathon for Disaster Response 2.0)

http://codeforamerica.org/2013/05/31/be-part-of-something-big-this-weekend/

http://hackeroo.io/

http://rockawayhelp.com/

https://www.hackerleague.org/

The recent surge in civic engagement has predominately come in the form of Hackathons; a hackathon being an "event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon). The focus or theme around these events is to address a community-based issue and they are drawing bright, young innovators to the table and are producing some surprising ideas and apps centered around the idea of Peer-to-Peer disaster recovery / survivor-centric response. 

With the recognition that technology and mobile platforms are rapidly changing how the business of disaster response and recovery is conducted, the focus of some of these coding marathons is to address the challenges communities face as they work through the turbulence of community-wide recovery. The resources are out there as well as a loose infrastructure needed to galvanize a community around the cause of streamlined/expedited disaster response and recovery...all that remains is the will to push it forward and make it a reality.

Given the popularity and explosive growth civic hacking has experienced, I believe there is  an opportunity for National VOAD and FEMA's Innovation advisory team to sponsor a disaster hackathon of their own. Organizing and leveraging the ideas and spirit of civic engagement to address the common challenges of community-wide response and recovery, is a way to create resilience and engage a constituency that has the 'local touch' and can provide the context needed to make the apps relevant with the backing of national coalitions and entities that can push for widespread adoption.