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Transition Reports (1977) - Action
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1563178
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Transition Reports (1977) - Action
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John O. Marsh Files (Ford Administration)
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The original documents are located in Box 33, folder "Transition Reports (1977) - Action"
of the John Marsh Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Gerald R. Ford donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Digitized from Box 33 of The John Marsh Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
AGENCY
THE
ACTION
FOR
ACTION
NOV 2 1976
VOLUNTEER SERVICE
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20525
OFFICE OF
THE DIRECTOR
November 19, 1976
Mr. John O. Marsh, Jr.
Counsellor to the President
The White House
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Marsh:
As you requested, ACTION has developed the following
concise status report of the highest priority issues
with which the agency is currently dealing:
1. Status of Authorizing Legislation
The ACTION Agency is now functioning partly under
the Domestic Volunteer Service Act, enacted in
1973 for an initial 3-year period, and since
extended through September, 1978, partly under an
Executive Order (with respect to the Peace Corps).
In the case of the Peace Corps, a new annual authoriza-
tion has to be obtained each year. There are many
unnecessary and undesirable provisions in, and incon-
sistencies between, ACTION's domestic and international
programs.
The Agency has developed a comprehensive revision and
consolidation of both acts into a unified bill, and
last year successfully completed its clearance by other
Federal agencies. This bill would provide three-year
authorizations for all programs, assure an integrated
personnel system within the Agency, standardize a
number of provisions pertaining to the use of volun-
teers, and eliminate a number of unnecessary provisions.
This Omnibus Bill also provides a clear statement of
Congressional Mission and intent for the Agency, so
that its broad purposes would no longer be a matter of
dispute.
REVOLUTION
AMERICAN
BICENTENNIAL
1776-1976
©
il
2. Volunteer Assistance in Meeting the Urban Crisis
One of the most difficult problems the new Administration
faces is to determine what forms of assistance should
be provided to the large number of major cities which
have suffered the worst degrees of deterioration, both
in economic resources and in urban living conditions,
during the past decade.
The residents of these cities can and must play a major
role in restoring economic vitality to their cities and
in preserving viable neighborhoods and communities.
For many citizens, service either as full-time or as
part-time volunteers will be an effective means of
helping maintain essential municipal services, develop-
ing neighborhood self-help organizations, providing
community services, etc. ACTION has developed and
included in its FY 1978 budget request a new Urban
Service Volunteer Program, for which the first full-year
cost is estimated at $20 million. This program will
provide funds for planning city-wide and neighborhood-
level volunteer projects, and for carrying out such
projects, under a block-grant approach using all of
ACTION's different types of assistance.
3. Increasing Technical Assistance to Strengthen Private
Voluntarism at Home and Abroad
Public Law 94-293, signed last May 27th, and amendments
to Title 3 of the Peace Corps Act which ACTION has
proposed in its FY 1978 budget submission, both stress
the importance of the Agency's provision of technical
assistance to help both new and existing non-profit
voluntary groups and organizations increase their pro-
grams effectiveness, expand their capability for solving
the problems they deal with, and improve their organiza-
tional and management systems for recruitment, training,
and assignment of volunteers.
This new responsibility was initiated in three areas in
domestic programs in FY 1976: (1) ACTION is developing
relationships with public and private voluntary organiza-
tions to provide assistance and support at policy levels
in voluntarism. (2) In the summer of 1976, an initial
- 2 -
three-month demonstration project was completed in
five states -- California, Iowa, Minnesota, New
Mexico, and Virginia to determine what kinds of
problems voluntary organizations have in these states
and what are the best means of providing technical
assistance from ACTION. The demonstrated effort
provided technical assistance in areas of recruit-
ing, training, managing, and programming volunteers
within the public and private sectors. (3) A nation-
wide needs assessment survey begun in FY 1976 will be
completed in Spring 1977. The purpose of this survey
is to assess needs of private and nonprofit volunteer
organizations and to recommend technical assistance
activities and components which ACTION might provide
to assess those needs. The study is the first major
effort undertaken in the private sector.
On the international side, the most important event
which led to mutual cooperation and requests for
technical assistance was: (1) the International
Conference on Volunteer Service, sponsored by ACTION
from June 27 - July 2, 1976, which was held at Palais
Auersperg in Vienna, Austria. (2) The principal objective
of the International Conference on Volunteer Service
was to bring together people involved with the promotion,
development, support, coordination and funding of volun-
teer programs to exchange ideas and experiences. No
formal resolutions were scheduled; no draft agreements
were to be put up for debate; and there were no plans
for the occasion to be anything other than an opportunity
to assess voluntarism as it presently exists and to
explore its potential impact on development. (3) ACTION
anticipated that as a result of the Conference, there
would be requests from other countries to: (a) join in
multi-national projects, (b) exchange staff and volun-
teers, and (c) provide technical assistance to other
service programs. These anticipated requests have in
fact become a reality. As of this writing, four months
after the Conference, ACTION has received requests for
technical information/assistance from thirty-two countries.
In thirteen of these countries the Peace Corps has no
operational programs.
ACTION has developed and included in its FY 1978 budget
request approximately $2,000,000 for Special International
Volunteer Programs and an additional $1,500,000 for
Technical Assistance for Private Voluntarism for Domestic
Volunteer efforts.
- 3 -
4. The Future of Export Volunteers
Since its beginning in 1961, the Peace Corps' people-
to-people volunteer assistance model has been replicated
by more than 15 industrialized countries. Today, host
countries are fifteen years more developed, more
sophisticated in their development needs, and (as more
qualified people become available in these countries)
increasingly demanding in terms of requests for higher
level "technician" skills. Peace Corps, and the other
programs which export foreign technically skilled man-
power, operate on a government-to-government basis; their
planning is often subordinated by the government of the
host country. This situation in which the export pro-
grams cannot fully control or evenly relate their available
supply of volunteer skills to the demands and needs of
host countries, coupled with the growing trend of
developing nations toward nationalism, has greatly contrib-
uted to a diminishing role for export volunteer services
and has produced a continuing decline in the number of
Peace Corps volunteers overseas.
In a parallel move, host countries have, over the past
fifteen years, developed an enormous array of indigenous
volunteer and domestic development service schemes which
mobilize manpower for national development objectives.
The continued viability of the international export
volunteer community will largely depend on the extent to
which (1) host government requests for external assistance
can be efficiently met while, at the same time, (2)
cooperative relationships can be developed with host
country volunteer and private sector entities involving
the assignment and support of export volunteers.
The relevance of export volunteer service will also depend
on abilities to develop more acceptable, egalitarian
assistance models which meets the particular needs of the
developing countries. Through greater interdependence and
increased cooperation with Peace Corps, export volunteer
services, and the larger private foreign assistance
community, new opportunities for future volunteer assistance
is planned in FY 1978.
Sincerely,
John L. Ganley
Deputy Director