As
500 leaders gather for the National Conference on Citizenship,
which starts today in Washington, it is time to reassess
how we can strengthen the civic health of our nation.
The
unprecedented increase in turnout in the election among
Americans of all ages was another hopeful sign that we
are shifting from a nation of spectators to a nation of
citizens. Yet that same election has left national division
that could thwart these promising civic developments.
We must do more if we are to become a unified nation of
doers, givers and joiners.
After
9/11, President Bush asked every American to give two
years in service to the country and created the USA Freedom
Corps. In terms of numbers of Americans enlisted and the
public investment made, the Freedom Corps may be one of
the most significant civic engagement initiatives since
the Civilian Conservation Corps of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The
early results are quite promising. Peace Corps volunteers
are at their highest levels in 28 years; AmeriCorps is
now growing from 50,000 to 75,000 members; and a new Citizen
Corps is providing an outlet for hundreds of thousands
of citizens who want to help protect the homeland.
The
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in December 2003 that
the number of Americans who regularly volunteered through
a school, house of worship, or other organization grew
from 59 million in the year after September 2001 to 63
million in the following year. This is a significant increase,
given the high baseline of volunteering created in the
aftermath of 9/11. How do we best sustain it?
Public
investments in service matter. With a leverage ratio of
12 volunteers to every one AmeriCorps worker, more than
1 million Americans could be enlisted every year to read
to illiterate children, build low-income homes, mentor
the disadvantaged, clean up our rivers and parks, and
feed the hungry. For this to happen, AmeriCorps would
need to grow to 100,000 members. It should be sustained
there.
Congress
should double the Peace Corps to 15,000 volunteers, and
ramp up the new Volunteers for Prosperity to deploy tens
of thousands of skilled American professionals to countries
most in need. Together, these two initiatives would realize
John F. Kennedy's dream.
Citizen
Corps should be given more standing and resources in the
Department of Homeland Security and grow from 1,450 communities
representing 57 percent of the population to every community
in all of the country.
A
culture of citizenship also depends on changes in the
institutions we occupy - workplaces, schools, houses of
worship, and local institutions. More than 400 volunteer
centers should receive a small federal investment, locally
matched, to recruit thousands of additional volunteers
to meet urgent community needs. Local chambers of commerce
should recruit businesses to change policies to regularly
enlist employees into service. Schools should make community
service and civic engagement a part of their missions
and a criterion for graduation. Houses of worship should
ask parishioners to pledge time, in addition to money,
and match them with local nonprofits.
Volunteering
to help others is not enough. Citizenship means becoming
involved in common deliberation about our shared concerns
- and our divisions as well. Citizenship means shared
sacrifice, including an equal share of the financial burdens
of the country in a time of war. It means shared responsibility
for a more civil dialogue, a shared respect for minority
rights, as well as majority rule.
We
need a forum to train young leaders about our founding
principles, brief them on our most urgent problems and
promising policies, encourage them to disagree about principles
in a way that fosters mutual learning, and give them specific
ways to reach across the aisle to find common ground.
The Aspen Institute's new Rodel Fellows program is a good
start.
The
benefits of a culture of shared citizenship are immense.
With some extra effort, we could foster a kind of civic
renewal that comes only once or twice a century. That
is something that could unite us all.
Robert D. Putnam
is Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University
John
M. Bridgeland
is former director of USA Freedom Corps and now CEO of
Civic Enterprises
Contact
Robert D. Putnam at rputnam@fas.harvard.edu
. Contact John M. Bridgeland at bridge@civicenterprises.net
. |
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