Is Your Life Powered By Service?

As an organization driven by citizen involvement, ServiceNation is always interested in motivating and harnessing the power and drive of the world’s youth to make our planet a better place.

A new initiative, called Powered by Service, is working with us, along with the Corporation for National and Community Service, the United Nations Foundation, Earth Echo International, City Year 2009, HandsOn Network, Public Allies and Communities in Schools, to do just that. And ServiceNation Youth Chair Usher, through his New Look Foundation, is helping lead the charge.

This inspired new idea was announced at the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative and here’s an overview of what they plan to do, according to their website:

Powered By Service is a bold new initiative to rebrand service and fundamentally change the role of youth in communities. Powered by Service is designed to get young people the world over involved in changing the most pressing problems facing them and their communities—whether it be preventing malaria, stopping the spread of HIV/AIDs, ending gang violence or increasing access to clean water. The goal of Powered By Service is to mobilize over 5,000,000 youth in a global call to service that will ultimately touch the lives of 50 million individuals.

Powered By Service offers youth the chance to use their creativity and talent to create change. Strategies can include grassroots organizing, social entrepreneurship, media with messages for social change, philanthropy, and local governance, as well as volunteerism. These strategies call on young peoples’ unique talents, passions and innovation to help them have power in their communities and flourish as leaders on the forefront of creating a better world. By highlighting the infinite possibilities for service more young people—especially young people of color—can lead lives Powered By Service.

So how will they do this?

• Online toolkits to help young people plan projects Powered By Service that address a variety of issues and use innovative strategies.
• Mini-grant pools to fund youth-led projects Powered By Service.
• Major announcements, events and community projects throughout the year especially during national service days and weeks.
• A strategic marketing campaign including a celebrity PSA, media placements, interviews, advertisements, billboards, product development and sales, and strategic brand placement in popular television shows.
• Usher’s world tour in 2010 will be Powered By Service seeding youth-led service in each of the 80 cities he visits worldwide.

This initiative is promising because it gives youth across the country an opportunity to design, recruit for and lead their own service projects. Even if you have no idea where to start, there are tool-kits and how-to guides on the website, making service easier than ever for young people to access.

Applications for micro-grants are already available for youth (that’s ages 12-20) in Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New Orleans and New York for service projects that address any problem they hope to solve. Interested? Learn more and apply for a grant here.

Check out this video from Usher's New Look Foundation Camp, about how important it is to live lives Powered by Service: