Statement on Government Support of Voluntary Action.

ONE of the great, distinguishing characteristics of the American people is their readiness to join together in helping one another. The principle of voluntary action is not something lately grafted onto America's ways; it goes back as far as the Nation's founding.

Today, we find that the Nation has grown enormously in wealth, and that its wealth is more widely distributed than ever before. Yet need persists: human need, personal need, which government can help to meet but which it cannot meet alone. The very magnitude of everything, government included, increases the need for that direct, human dimension that only the concerned individual can provide. More than ever, America needs the enlistment of the energies and resources of its people--not as substitutes for government action, but as supplements to it. People can reach where government cannot; people can do what government cannot. Today, more than ever, America needs the hearts and hands of its people, joined in those common enterprises, small as well as large, that are the mark of caring and the cement of community.

There is no lack of will. Millions of Americans stand ready to serve and to help, eager to know what they can do and how they can do it. One of the chief aims of this administration is to help in matching up the willing hands with the tasks that need doing.

Voluntary efforts already are contributing enormously to our national well-being, but they have had neither the assistance nor the recognition that they deserve,

In the past, government has sometimes been the jealous competitor of private efforts. From now on, it will offer encouragement and support.

Toward this end, I have taken or am taking four preliminary steps:

--On the Government side of the effort, I will, by Executive order ¹ form a Cabinet Committee on Voluntary Action. Its Chairman will be Secretary Romney of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, who scored impressive successes in stimulating voluntary action during his terms as Governor of Michigan. Its other members will be the Secretaries of Commerce, of Labor, of Agriculture, and of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Attorney General, and the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity.

¹Executive Order 11470.

--I have asked Secretary Romney to establish an Office of Voluntary Action in his Department.

--I have asked Max M. Fisher of Detroit to serve as my Special Consultant on Voluntary Action and to work with Secretary Romney and the Cabinet Committee. Mr. Fisher has brought together small groups of private leaders for informal consultation on the most effective means by which the Government can assist in stimulating voluntary activities. He will have continuing responsibility for the important aspect of this program which involves nongovernmental organizations and individuals. Mr. Fisher is currently chairman of the New Detroit Committee, the United Foundation of Detroit, and president of the United Jewish Appeal.

--I have directed the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to establish a clearinghouse for information on voluntary programs, and on government programs designed to foster voluntary action. Eventually this clearinghouse will be a function of the private sector.

The Cabinet Committee will report directly to the Cabinet and the President. It will foster cooperation among the various departments and agencies on programs related to voluntary action, and will seek to promote more widespread reliance on and recognition of voluntary activities. In addition, it will serve voluntary organizations by providing a focal point through which they can better make their needs and concerns known to the administration, and by clearing away governmental roadblocks to the effective employment of voluntary resources. It will be a prime mover in developing new Federal initiatives for encouraging voluntary action.

The Office of Voluntary Action in the Department of Housing and Urban Development will seek the development and implementation of voluntary action programs for solving problems of urban living and poverty. It will provide for the development and operation of the information clearinghouse, and will make use of both Government vehicles and nongovernment channels to help expand and multiply innovative voluntary action programs. Consistent with law, it will coordinate Federal voluntary action programs for dealing with urban and poverty problems. It will cooperate with private groups and citizens, and will be available to assist Mr. Fisher.

Mr. Fisher is already counseling with representatives of a wide range of different kinds of private and voluntary organizations:

--Private social service, health, and welfare organizations.

--Private economic organizations--business, labor, and agriculture.

--Fraternal service, professional, and religious organizations.

--Foundations.

--Civic and community organizations.

--Youth, women's, and minority group organizations.

--Communications media and their organizations.

Representatives of State and local governments will also be consulted because of their own great potential for stimulating voluntary action.

The response of the groups Mr. Fisher has consulted with thus far has been enthusiastic. Many of them have offered to make staff available full-time to work with the Office of Voluntary Action during its initial stages.

The information clearinghouse will fill a need long recognized but never met. It will serve government, private organizations, and individuals.

At one time or another, millions of Americans have asked themselves or others, "What can I do? How can I help?" One of the chief aims of this new effort will be to make answers readily available. It is a remarkable and little-appreciated fact that for practically every one of the great social ills that plagues us, solutions have been found somewhere--by citizen volunteers, who have devised programs that actually work in their own community. In nearly every case, the experience can be helpful to those who are concerned with similar problems elsewhere.

The four steps I have outlined today are a beginning. As we consider further steps, we will develop them in the closest possible collaboration with the leaders of voluntary activities themselves. All of us involved in this effort are keenly aware that this is an area in which Government initiatives must not be imposed, and that a too-tight Federal embrace could smother the voluntary principle. I will not allow that to happen. Our effort will be to assist, not to control; to encourage, not to coerce.

Our aim is not to substitute Federal leadership for the dedicated private leadership that already exists in our voluntary organizations. Rather, we will seek to help in every way possible in order that these groups can better realize their larger ambitions for public service.

Within the limits of this caution, however, I am convinced that an enriched partnership--a creative partnership--is possible.

The measure of a government's performance is not only its capacity to deliver services to its citizens, but also its capacity to inspire them to contribute their own efforts.

From the time our Nation's first settlers struggled together against a wilderness, voluntary action for mutual help and community betterment has been a hallmark of the American way. Free men and women have worked with one another and aided one another. That spirit is vigorously alive today, and the encouragement of that spirit is needed if our Nation is to become what it has the capacity to be.