government

"Donating to the Red Cross to support victims of Hurricane Gustav is like buying a GM car - why would you when there are so many better choices that fit the Connected Age? C'mon, Team Obama, stop trying to appease and start trying to change the world!"

That's the intro to Allison's blistering post over at Personal Democracy Forum about the Obama campaign's call to aid Gulf hurricane victims by donating to the Red Cross. This ties in to one of our favorite (and as yet unanswered) issues -- are traditional institutions outdated? And if so, should we try adapting them, or rather let them fall by the wayside and move to more progressive models?

The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently posted information about the Department of Education’s request for feedback on proposed regulations regarding implementation of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007.

Come again?

Basically, this new law forgives the remaining debt of student loan recipients who have worked as full-time “public service employees” for a period of 10 consecutive years while making their payments. In other words, you graduate, land a solid gig at a nonprofit, government agency, or other still-to-be-defined “public service” employer, and you won’t have to pay any more monthly debt owed after 10 years working there or remaining in the sector. Read more »

Please give a warm welcome to a new Social Citizens blogger — Rich D’Amato, the Case Foundation’s very own VP of Communications. He likes cooking, playing golf, and building cross-generational partnerships between social citizens. Enjoy! — Kari

On Monday morning my inbox held a bit of a surprise. The Maryland Association of Nonprofits, as usual, had sent me a call to action, this time asking me to Urge Congress to Raise the Volunteer Mileage Deduction.

The what? I didn’t know that I could deduct taxable income for miles I traveled volunteering. Cool. But here’s the surprise: “While the IRS has recently increased the deduction for business travel from 50.5 to 58.5 cents per mile, and for medical or moving expense from 19 to 27 cents per mile, the volunteer deduction amount is set in law at 14 cents per mile and requires congressional action for any change.”

Outrage!!! Fourteen cents per mile to volunteer and a whopping 27 cents to rent a U-haul! What’s wrong with this picture? Read more »

In researching the Social Citizens paper, I was struck by a potential problem in public life. We have been witness to an explosion in interest in volunteerism and nonprofit careers, while interest in government careers has waned. Elected officials and other community leaders regularly laud the importance of the nonprofit sector … but is it time for nonprofit leaders to extol the virtue of government service? Read more »

There is a terrific post up on Afro-Netizen by guest blogger Helen De Michiel, the national co-director of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, based in San Francisco.

Helen calls for a digital-era Works Progress Administration (the old WPA from the New Deal started in the 1930s) so that, as she puts it, “Our next president can help reconstruct America’s fragmented and relatively weak public communications infrastructure by using the most effective tool our youth wield — the power and depth of their digital fluency.” Read more »