Service Year Alliance Calls on Congress To Support Service Year Programs

December 8, 2016

Ever heard of a service year? For someone trying to find the right career fit, or looking to change careers, it might just be the thing.

A service year is a paid opportunity to develop real-world skills through hands-on service. A lot of organizations offer service years in a wide array of fields like education, the environment, disaster relief, or healthcare. For instance, for someone interested in sustainable farming that helps fight hunger and poverty could check out this service year with the Grow Ohio group. And there’s always the rewarding path of teaching people to read with the Reading Corps.

Our partners at the Service Year Alliance are currently working to make a year of paid, full-time service—a service year—a common expectation and opportunity for all young Americans. A service year before, during, or after college—or as a way to find your path—can give someone the chance to transform their lives, make an impact in their community, and become active citizens and leaders for our nation.

And the skills someone can develop during a service year is something that is capturing the attention of many companies who are looking to fill positions. Service Year Alliance President and CEO Shirley Sagawa says the companies they have talked with are excited about service year experiences because they see it as way young people are developing the skills they need to be successful in the workforce. Skills like working on a team, problem solving, working with people from diverse backgrounds, the ability to communicate—all of which are beneficial for a job in any field.

MORE: Five Skills to Help You Stay Relevant at Work

Sagawa says Service Year Alliance realizes there are a lot of issues where we’re not doing a very good job as a country solving big problems—things in the healthcare arena, encouraging people to adopt healthy behaviors, or helping young people succeed in school—that are really labor intensive challenges facing our country.

What Service Year Alliance says it can offer is a labor force that can help solve these problems.

“We really think that this [service year programs] is a solution that can help with so many challenges the country is facing,” says Sagawa.

In order to continue to expand the work service year programs is doing already to help make our country stronger, Service Year Alliance is calling on Congress to reach a budget deal and fund service year programs like AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, and YouthBuild before a new Congress is sworn in.

Sagawa argues that if the country invests in this with public money that will, in turn, leverage private funds and the combination will save the country a lot of money down the road.

Congress has until Dec. 9 to reach the deal and WorkingNation’s partner is asking all of you to let your Members of Congress know that you support national service as a critical way to bring communities together.

“It’s important that we set the table for some big priorities next year by demonstrating that expanding service year opportunities has broad bipartisan support and a robust constituency ready to take action,” Service Year Alliance says.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Service Year Alliance will be collecting postcards, writing letters, and mobilizing in communities across the country. Making this call to your members of Congress is a critical first step. If you think Congress should support funding for groups like Service Year Alliance, Click here to call your member of Congress today and tell them to LET US SERVE.

OPPORTUNITIES: Check out these open fascinating service year positions

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.