Welcome to the Summer 2007 Edition of SLYPN Update, a quarterly newsletter brought to you by the Service-Learning Youth Professionals Network. SLYPN is a network tailored to provide opportunities to develop the skills and capacity young professionals in their 20s and 30s need to pursue their interests and to advance their career in field of service-learning.

In this issue, you will find a collection of resources including articles and events, networking opportunities, and action items from academia and our community partners. These articles are only a sample of the numerous resources found on SLYPN's website under the Issues area of:

• Advocacy
• Communications and Visibility
• Constituency-Building
• Disaster Response and Preparedness
• Diversity
• Nonprofit Management and Leadership
• Research
• Service-Learning in Higher Education, and Service-Learning Practice and Professional Development.

Likewise, under the Calendar section of SLYPN's website you will find information on upcoming events and conferences geared toward connecting service-learning professionals as well as developing their skills and capacity.

Issue Areas

Advocacy
Politics, Policy, and the Motivations for Advocacy in Nonprofit Reproductive Health and Family Planning Providers by Jill Nicholson-Crotty

Are you looking to get the word out about the work your organization does? Are your students working with a nonprofit--does that organization have an advocacy arm? What are some of the barriers for nonprofit advocacy? Why do some nonprofits actively advocate and others not? In this article, you will find answers to these questions and more from the latest research in academia.

Nicholson-Crotty, Jill. "Politics, Policy, and the Motivations for Advocacy in Nonprofit Reproductive Health and Family Planning Providers." Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 36.1 (2007): 5-21.
Read article.

Communications and Visibility
The National Learn & Serve Challenge September 17-23, 2007

Be a solution...

The National Learn & Serve Challenge is a weeklong series of local, state, and national events designed to raise awareness and public support for service-learning. Service-learning teaches youth how to "BE A SOLUTION" to real world challenges facing their community, the nation and the world. As youth learn the skills to assess and solve problems effectively, it translates into increased civic engagement and positive personal and social development.

The Challenge is an opportunity to:

• Celebrate service-learning in schools and communities across the country
• Build public support to achieve the federal benchmark to engage 5 million college students and 50 percent of America's K-12 schools in service-learning
• Spotlight past service-learning successes to inspire others to launch their own project

To learn more and to stay connected over the summer, email nslp@aed.org. Write "I AM A SOLUTION" in the subject line.

Visit the National Learn & Serve Challenge online for more ideas and tools to plan your own activity or event: http://www.learnandservechallenge.org/.

Constituency Building
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS: How to make and keep connections with community-based organizations by Jill Addison Jacobson and Don Hill

Are you looking for ways to connect to your community partners, to work with community agencies and organizations, and to maintain these connections?

This section from Building Support for Service Learning provides best practice techniques and tips on how to make and keep connections with community-based organizations. From "Brainstorming Community Connections" to "Working With Agencies" and "Maintaining Good School/Agency Relations," this section offers ideas on how to build and maintain community connections.

• Community Connections - How to make and keep connections with community-based organizations (Part 1)
• Community Connections - How to make and keep connections with community-based organizations (Part 2)
• Community Connections - How to make and keep connections with community-based organizations (Part 3)

Diversity
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Peggy McIntosh's opening quote "I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group" resonated with familiarity. How often do we have real conversation about: earned strength, unearned power? This article features 50 questions and statements that might inspire you, your colleagues and potentially your students to think about privilege in a new way. Read complete essay.

Peggy McIntosh is associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women.

This excerpted essay is reprinted from the Winter 1990 issue of Independent School.

Nonprofit Management and Leadership
University-Based Educational Programs in the Management of Nonprofit Organizations: An Updated Census of U.S. Programs by Roseanne M. Mirabella and Naomi Bailin Wish

This article highlights the growth in the number of colleges and universities providing education in the management of nonprofit organizations in the past 10 years. With the increasing reliance of government agencies on third-party institutions to implement public policy as well as its reliance on the nonprofit sector to deliver government programs and services in the community, the partnership between government and the nonprofit sector has only strengthened in recent years. As a result of this growing partnership, there has also been a growing need to build the organizational capacity of the sector to better equip the sector to carry out public missions.

Mirabella, Roseanne M. and Wish, Naomi Bailin. "University-Based Educational Programs in the Management of Nonprofit Organizations: An Updated Census of U.S. Programs." Public Performance & Management Review 25.1 (2001): 30-41.
Read article.

Research
On behalf of the standards review team, Shelley Billig of RMC Research requests support from the service-learning field in establishing K-12 service-learning standards.

There are two ways to contribute to the standardization process

1. Host a reactor panel
2. Participant on a reactor panel.

For more details about how you can play a role in the creation of the K-12 service-learning standards contact Shelley H. Billig, Ph.D. Vice President RMC Research Corporation at billig@rmcdenver.com

Disaster Response and Preparedness
Public Sector Motivation: Is There Something to Learn From the Study of Volunteerism? by Trui Steen

Abstract: A principal question in the study of public administration is how to motivate personnel to work in public services and to work towards achieving public purposes. The conceptualisation of the notion of *public service motivation' has provided researchers with openings to explain the disinterested behaviour often displayed by public servants. In a similar way other scholars trying to explain what motivates individuals to take up volunteering activities, struggle to explain disinterested or altruistic behaviour. This article examines the contribution that the literature on volunteering can make to a better understanding of public service motivation. The article first, outlines major arguments used to explain why people volunteer and second, explores the extent to which these insights provide a fertile ground for public service management scholars to further develop theories of public service motivation. The insight into the multi-dimensional nature of volunteering motivation and the notion on *impure' altruism demonstrate that altruistic activities are both complex and rationally driven. This leads to ways of narrowing the existing gap between rational choice and principal-agent theories of motivation and a purely altruistic view of public service. Finally, the article examines what this implies for the development of human resource policies to obtain and retain committed and motivated staff.

Steen, Trui. "Public Sector Motivation: Is There Something to Learn From the Study of Volunteerism?" Public Policy and Administration 21.1 (2006): 49-62.
Read article.

Service-Learning in Higher Education
How Campuses Can Create Engaged Citizens: The Student View by Stephanie Raill, Macalester College, and Elizabeth Hollander

Imagine a campus where respectful dialogue about public issues resonates through residence halls, public spaces, and classrooms; where a sense of commitment and purpose is palpable among students, as well as administrators, staff, and faculty; and where the campus is brimming with student-initiated service projects, advocacy campaigns, and community based research. While such a campus may seem a bit idealistic, it does provide a vision of an engaged campus.

Hollander, Elizabeth; Raill, Stephanie; and Macalester College. "How Campuses Can Create Engaged Citizens: The Student View." Journal of College & Character 7.1 (2006): 1-7.
Read article.

Service-Learning Practice and Professional Development
Washington Reading Corps Toolkit: A Guide to Community Partnerships and the Media

This module is provided by Washington Reading Corps as a tool designed for tutoring programs and/or schools for use in developing community partnerships and working with the media. Within it are key preliminary steps, tools, and resources to aid in building these alliances.
Read article.

Grants and Awards Opportunities

• Case Foundation Make It Your Own Awards
  Make It Your Own Awards, a new pilot grants program initiative the Case Foundation launched on June 26, is about giving grants, tools and recognition to people who are coming together to discuss what matters, form solutions and take action. Twenty semi-finalists will each receive $10,000 grants to start bringing their ideas to life. Four final grant recipients will then be chosen by the public using an online voting system. These finalists will each be awarded an additional $25,000 grant.
  $10,000-$35,000 - Deadline: August 8, 2007
  
  
• Taproot Foundation
  Deadline: September 15, 2007
  
  
• Learning and Leadership Grants
  The NEA Foundation will provide opportunities for teachers, education support professionals, and higher education faculty and staff to engage in high-quality professional development and lead their colleagues in professional growth. The grant amount is $2,000 for individuals and $5,000 for groups engaged in collegial study.
  $2,000-$5,000 - Deadline: October 15, 2007
  
  
• Project Learning Tree
  Project Learning Tree (PLT), is the environmental education program of the American Forest Foundation. GreenWorks! is PLT's service-learning program that engages PLT educators and their students with their local community in "learning-by-doing" neighborhood improvement projects. Elementary through college-age students in 20 different states will design native plant gardens, restore streams and riparian habitat, construct hiking trails, start composting projects, and investigate alternative sources of energy. PLT is now accepting applications for the Fall 2007 grants. Grants up to $5,000 are available. This year, $100,000 will be awarded in two funding cycles.
  $5,000 - Deadline: October 31, 2007

© 2007 Service-Learning Young Professionals Network

SLYPN is administered by the National Service-Learning Partnership at the Academy for Educational Development—with strategic support and leadership from Youth Service California.

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