Chris Dodd

“Although I would like to say ‘anything that gets more people to volunteer more often is a good thing,’ I think that we must strongly consider the ramifications of any action that seeks to mandate that which should be freely given.” So wrote Jeremy Gregg recently in a post on The Raiser’s Razor blog, referring to the proposal by U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.) to require high-school students to participate in volunteer service. Gregg listed some of the downsides he sees to forcing kids to volunteer, some of which are “significant inefficiencies and wasted resources”; a reinforcement of “the idea that volunteering is negative,