Service for Impact

On April 20th, 2009, Mayor Bloomberg announced a groundbreaking program, NYC Service, to increase opportunities for New Yorkers to serve the community and the nonprofit sector. The next day, President Obama signed the Serve America Act—legislation that dramatically increased the federal government’s support for community service and nonprofit innovation.

After a Philanthropy New York members briefing on the national Serve America Act and its impact on community service and nonprofit innovation, several funders expressed an interest in maintaining an ongoing dialogue given the potential to connect new federal and city resources with a broad range of nonprofits.

We helped facilitate this conversation by creating the Service for Impact Working Group. At funder-only meetings, the group discusses issues relating to:

• Volunteerism: Ensuring that nonprofits have the capacity and strategic approach to utilize the expected influx of volunteers inspired by the President’s and Mayor’s “call to service”
• Resources: Effectively leveraging federal service-related dollars toward priority concerns
• Accountability/Evaluation: Performance measurement and assessing effectiveness/best practices
• Impact: Drawing on social science research and literature to identify appropriate metrics to track the impact of service-related efforts in addressing key issues and meeting community needs
• Framing “Service”: Promoting a broad definition of service, inclusive of people across the life cycle (children, youth, adults, and seniors) who are engaged in hands on, pro-bono/skills-based, stipended, and volunteer work in the nonprofit sector (health and human services, education, quality of life and community improvement efforts, culture and arts) and are providing direct client services, management assistance (coaching, human resources and staff/volunteer development), advocacy and organizing assistance, business development/business support (communications, strategic planning, development), and fiscal services.

Please contact Roshni Melia at rmelia@philanthropynewyork.org if you would like to join the conversation or learn more about the group.

This section of our website will provide information related to service initiatives in New York City, New York State, and nationally. If there is something you would like to include, please contact Roshni Melia at rmelia@philanthropynewyork.org.