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Louis Jacobson
By Louis Jacobson January 4, 2013
Back to Encourage community service through online outreach and social networking

The federal website serve.gov is serving this purpose

The Obama administration has kept up its efforts on the pledge to use social networking and online outreach to encourage community service.

First, we'll note that federal statistics suggest that volunteer work is alive and well under Obama. In 2011, 64.3 million Americans did volunteer work through an organization, up by 1.5 million compared to 2010. In all, Americans volunteered nearly 8 billion hours, with a majority of Americans volunteering in some fashion and more than one-third actively participating in a civic, religious, or school group.

As we noted in our previous update, the focus for this effort has been the website serve.gov, run by the federal Corporation for National and Community Service. The site includes a blog, a search function to find volunteer opportunities by type and location, and ways to share personal volunteering experiences and to post your own project so other volunteers can join it. The website also directs visitors to a Facebook page and Twitter feed, both of which, like the blog, appear to be updated frequently.

Not every aspect of this lengthy promise is reflected in the website -- we didn't find a way to track individuals" hours of service, for instance -- but serve.gov appears to support the vast bulk of pledge made during the 2008 campaign. We rate it a Promise Kept.

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