New Civilian Response Corps

My first few posts seemed to have a negative tone and I thought, there are a lot of positives going on that deserve attention too. As proposed by Walter Isaacson, President of the Aspen Institute and author of the Einstein biography, the Civilian Response Corps was officially launch by the state department in July.

This corps will consist of federal employees who are trained as engineers, lawyers, city planners, doctors, and others to help with the reconstruction of disaster-struck areas, such as Afganhistan, Indonesia from the tsunami, and New Orleans after Katrina. As we've seen over the past few years, reconstruction represents a significant challenge, both from natural disaster and from war.

I think the corps should be expanded to include private sector employees who are responsible to check in for one weekend ever two months, similar to national guard, both for training or possibly helping devastated areas that are in constant need of such assistance due to lack of formally-educated professionals, whether they are domestic or abroad. This would enable poverty-stricken areas to receive more consistent aid that is focused on building new leaders and infrastructure for long-term impact (instead of throwing aid money), and train a team to react cohesively when a true disaster occurs in the future.

By extending the program into the private sector, it must allow for companies to willingly allow employees to donate their time when necessary, but enable them tobuild their brand by associating with the corps. As we've seen over the past five years, this is essential marketing both for attracting customers as well as acquring/retaining employees. (which by the way, is one of the reasons you see companies like P&G donating diapers after disasters. Again, this is necessary, but let's think bigger!).

You might think...companies already allow employees to volunteer and some even offer additional perks for employees who volunteer so many hours or donate so many dollars. This is true, but I've gone to volunteer opportunities that have more than enough people helping and only offer manual labor. Don't get me wrong these are necessary initiatives, but when you have white collar workers with significant strategic and project management skills, combined with the desire to help, it makes sense to leverage these skills and create a more comprehensive program for change, rather than ad hoc volunteering on random Saturday mornings.

Kudos for Walter Isaacson for pushing this forward and the Bush Administration, and Sec. of State Rice for making the initial steps a reality. Let's see how far this can go with even more participants and the addition of corporate funding.