About

Service as a Strategy is a partnership between ServiceNation and Cities of Service, the bipartisan coalition of more than 100 mayors who have pledged to work together to expand impact volunteerism.

Service as a Strategy is designed to help mayors identify and implement high-impact service strategies that address pressing local challenges in education and youth, health, neighborhood revitalization, disaster preparedness, sustainability, and veteran reintegration. These strategies are developed with the help of experts and turned into actionable "blueprints" that will be implemented in cities across the country with the help of local and national funders.

By the summer of 2011, ServiceNation will develop at least 10 blueprints across the impact areas described above. The first blueprints will be released at the National Conference for Volunteering and Service in New Orleans in June 2011.

Cities of Service History

Founded in New York City on September 10, 2009, the Cities of Service coalition and its member cities are responding to the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act's historic call to action by finding new and innovative ways to harness the power of volunteers to help solve pressing local challenges. The coalition aims to accelerate the service movement at the most local level, connecting local needs to willing volunteers in innovative and impactful ways, thus creating a new chapter in America's longstanding history with service.

Today the coalition includes over 100 mayors who represent more than 49 million Americans. Like the original seventeen Mayors, each coalition member has made a commitment to advance service strategies in their city by crafting a high-impact service plan and to work with other mayors around the country. Twenty member cities have been awarded Cities of Service Leadership Grants, $200,000 two-year grants funded jointly by the Rockefeller Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies. These grants fund the hiring of a Chief Service Officer and fuel the development and implementation of high-impact service plans.

All Cities of Service - regardless of size - need help finding best practices examples, and partners to put their service plans into action. This need for effective and easy to implement solutions is the impetus behind ServiceNation's Service as a Strategy initiative.