Policy Impact
As the largest volunteer network in the country, Points of Light Institute plays an important leadership role advocating public policy to enhance service and volunteering. We strive to advance innovative civic strategies to shape national policy, to achieve impact through service and to build an engaged citizenry.

We are one of four Co-Conveners of Service Nation (servicenation.org), a coalition of almost 200 national and local non-profits, dedicated to the proposition that every American should have an opportunity to serve. Points of Light Institute is also on the Steering Committee for Voices for National Service (voicesfornationalservice.org), another collaborative effort to urge Congressional support of expansions in service and service-related funding.

The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act
As a result of the policy proposals assembled by the Service Nation coalition, Senators Edward Kennedy and Orrin Hatch introduced legislation in January 2009 calling for a dramatic expansion of opportunities for all Americans to serve in their communities, enabling American to effect real change through citizen service.

With the active support of organizations such as the Points of Light Institute and its affiliate base, HandsOn Network, the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act passed both houses of Congress in the spring of 2009 and was signed into law by President Obama on March 31, 2009. The Act includes both expansions of existing national service programs such as AmeriCorps and also authorizes several new programs including the Volunteer Generation Fund.


The Volunteer Generation Fund would provide competitive grants to volunteer connector agencies and state service commissions to expand the supply of volunteers and to improve the capacity of non-profits, faith-based and other organizations to use these new volunteers.

This provision authorizes a total of $360 million over the next five years to invest exclusively, and for the first time, in volunteer infrastructure—a proposal which Points of Light Institute and HandsOn Network has championed over the last several years and particularly during the formation of the Act.

For a full summary of the Serve America Act, click on the following link: serve america act summary.

Points of Light Institute is also supporting creative new ideas to fulfill the promise of President Obama's and the First Lady's strong commitment to service and civic engagement.

• We are actively engaged in the newly announced Summer of Service initiative, championed by the President and First Lady, to call Americans to address community needs in education, health care, the environment and community renewal throughout the summer of 2009 and culminating in a day of service on September 11.


• Points of Light Institute administers the President's Volunteer Service Award which has been awarded to over 1.3 million Americans through a network of over 27,000 community-based certifying organizations like schools and faith groups. This recognition program for our nation’s most active and inspiring volunteers inspires a long-term culture of service.


• Our experience has been that volunteers as leaders can be powerful force multipliers for the actions of others. We are currently working with the LEAGUE to convene the sector to imagine and implement a universally recognized role of volunteer leader/service coach in every community institution. We must create a volunteer leader structure that will enable scaled citizen action towards specific and focused impact.


• We also promote federal service learning policies to help young people learn to volunteer and give from an early age. We need to ensure that young Americans have easy access to meaningful service opportunities that accommodate a wide range of ages, abilities, interests and schedules and that provide a continuum of youth-service projects that span the full breadth of development - from early childhood through high school.

For questions or more information concerning the policy work of the Points of Light Institute, contact Julie Murphy, Director of Government Affairs, at 202-729-8172 or Julie.Murphy@pointsoflight.org.