What can be done immediately (in the next 3 months) to make your idea of a State of Service a reality? How would you engage other stakeholders in the effort?

I think bringing all stakeholders together is a good first step. We have a ton of non-profits in the Boston area and Massachusetts. Getting everyone on the same page in terms of programming, funding, administrative costs, etc could have a tremendous effect on how we deploy our limited resources. It's important to look at this sector top to bottom as well, from foundations and individual donors, to large institutions, to government, to small non-profit and individual volunteer. Lastly, there is a huge amount of untapped human capital among people who don't have the time/inclination to volunteer on a consistent basis. Tapping those who can give an hour a month sporadically could help a lot.

I agree that creating a platform for our state's non-profits to share ideas is critical to improving the state of service in MA. Our discussion group thought that a Wikipedia-style online forum might be a great first step. This would be a forum for discussing best practices, tips and/or resources for all aspects of non-profit development: fundraising, volunteer recruitment, board development, programming, etc. It would also provide an opportunity for non-profits to become familiar with one another's work and discuss potential collaborations. With so many organizations doing great work across the state, the pooling of ideas and resources, even in a somewhat informal online setting, could serve to strengthen and improve the work we are doing.

At the Mass INc breakfast, it was interesting to have a table full of people who were working on engaging diffent populations in different kinds of service. Some of thoughts that emerged from our conversation about pushing things forward on the short term included: - Creating a platform (technology/network) to communicate and identify 'handoff' opportunities for those engaged in service who want to go deeper (i.e.taking a volunteer who wants to go deep into committed service, skills based service or org. leadership and knowing who 'needs' this type of engagement and who will provide the best experience to keep the volunteer engaged) - Break down verticles of issue areas and have more horizontal continuum of focus on service - Create a statewide action plan with VERY specific goals that we can all be feeding our metrics into - identify who the players are and create an asset map for the state

My comment is more a follow-up to the "State of Service" breakfast. As Lisa mentions, one idea that generated a lot of enthusiasm was creating a new platform for matching volunteers with opportunities...a match.com for service I believe was the phrase. While I certainly agree technology plays an important role, I get concerned about prioritizing the creation of a new tool, given that there are many out there. I wrote a blog article about this, and my suggestion that we'd do better to focus on implementing some version of the "Geek Corps" envisioned by the Knight Commission. For more on this line of thinking, visit the Social Capital Inc. blog here: http://socialcapitalinc.org/node/598