Soapblogger Joe Hansbauer knows a little something about community service. As one of the founders of Give Back Cincinnati, he played a big role in growing the young professional service organization and cultivating its 1,000 + volunteers over the past eight years. An engineer by trade, Joe left the corporate world behind in 2008 to become head of UGIVE, a non-profit that energizes the next generation of high school volunteers and just might reward them with a little one-on-one with Shaq.
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Soapblog 3: Service in America - Youth Revolution
Posted By: Joe Hansbauer
11/5/2009
Volunteer service starts at the top, at the White House.
President Obama and the First Lady have emphasized service throughout the presidential campaign and since taking office in January. And they're not all talk. They have created serve.gov, a portal to help people find service opportunities in their community. President Obama campaigned for and signed into law the Kennedy Serve America Act, which more than doubled the size of the AmeriCorps program. Following their lead we've seen many new innovations focused on connecting Americans to their communities and encouraging everyone to become engaged.
AllForGood.org was created and launched in the spring. The organization is run by former employees of Craig's List, Google and other internet heavy hitters. Shortly after this service aggregator was created, VolunteerMatch.org, created their own Creative Commons license that enabled organizations to utilize the volunteer listings from their website to build new internet applications.
It truly is an exciting time for service in America. UGIVE.ORG is looking to capitalize on this momentum with our own unique focus. Most of the other innovations have one thing in common; they are almost entirely focused on adult service. Combine this with a huge desire by students to use their energy and talents in their community and you're left with a huge gap. UGIVE.ORG is looking to fill this gap by focusing exclusively on student volunteers. We streamline the process for youth to find service opportunities and build a service resume of verified service hours. The resume can be used for graduation requirements, college or professional applications and scholarships.