[Update 22 February 2008: the Obama plan is outlined in full on the site. Barack Obama's Plan for Universal Voluntary Public Service.]

In a 5 December 2007 speech in Mount Vernon, Iowa, Senator Barack Obama outlined an ambitious plan for a voluntary national service plan. Building on many of the existing programs, and proposing several new ones, Obama's plan follows the outline of a series of volunteer programs proposed by Chris Dodd in June.

As a nonprofit booster, I am pleased by the emphasis on nonprofit organization and their social innovations. I wish Senator Obama made his plan mandatory in some way, but see the coherence of this call for voluntary effort and his own campaign.

Below are excerpts of Obama's speech with the specific proposals.

Senator Chris Dodd, a returned Peace Corps volunteer, plans to announce his national service plan on his web site in a national town hall meeting at 5:00 pm EDT on Wednesday 20 June 2007. Dodd's site, in a request to other returned Peace Corps volunteers, notes (emphasis mine):

Chris Dodd knows that to meet today's challenges at home and abroad we must fully engage the talents of all Americans. That's why Chris Dodd is working on a national universal service plan that once again asks all of us to be part of something larger than ourselves. Chris Dodd needs your voice and vision to make this plan the best it can be.

This looks promising for the Everyone Serves campaign. We'll see what Dodd outlines on Wednesday, but "national universal service plan" sounds something like what we are looking for.

Some of the blog-based discussion on John Edwards's recent support for mandatory service have confused it with support for a military draft. A comment by Elizabeth Edwards on the Daily Kos offers clarification:

Former North Carolina Senator and Democratic candidate for President John Edwards expressed his support for a program of mandatory national service this week. In an Associated Press article by Philip Elliott, Edwards Touts Plan to End Iraq Conflict Elliot notes:

Edwards also called Monday for spreading the burden of serving the country by mandating national service.

"One of the things we ought to be thinking about is some level of mandatory service to our country, so that everybody in America -- not just the poor kids who get sent to war -- are serving this country," he said.

After the event, Edwards said he had not meant to imply that only the poor go to war, only that everyone should serve in some way.