Once Again on the March

By MARGARET CARLSON

Colin Powell can do just about anything he wants. He could run for President, run a FORTUNE 500 corporation, a university or a foundation. The publisher of his best-selling autobiography, My American Journey, is begging him to write another. The crate of mail he gets each day is heavy with offers. My favorite is an offer to make a quick million by penning Chicken Soup for the Black Soul.

He assures me he won't be turning out an instant chicken-soup book or throwing his name into the presidential or vice-presidential ring. What Powell chooses to do instead is continue to run America's Promise, his "crusade" to enlist corporations, government, nonprofit organizations and millions of citizens into giving every child at risk five things: an ongoing relationship with a caring adult, a safe place to go after school (most juveniles get in trouble between the hours of 3 and 8 p.m.), as well as a healthy start, a marketable skill and a chance to serve others.

But isn't this what everyone wants? The difference is that Powell decided to use his credibility and celebrity to bring it about, to come up with one plan for how 400 different groups should "take the hill." Celebrating its second anniversary, America's Promise is on its way to surpassing its pledge to help "2 million kids by 2000." It's hard to measure the bottom line of an activity that doesn't have a traditional balance sheet. But to get away from the mushy anecdotal indices of success, Powell got the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers (it volunteered) to evaluate the second year's effort. The firm sampled 91 of the 441 commitments made in 14,000 places and found that 10.3 million children had been "touched," which means served by a "promise partner." The dollar value of the commitments was $295.5 million.

Not a bad showing for someone operating on a shoeshine and a smile, moral suasion and optimism. I was among the skeptics who thought America's Promise couldn't live up to its opening day, when the President, Vice President, all the former Presidents except Ronald Reagan, along with 38 Governors and 100 mayors and celebs like Oprah Winfrey, gathered at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Was volunteerism going to be cool? Not just little old ladies with time on their hands but also people in their prime taking precious moments away from their cell phones and Stairmasters?

That was the plan, but America's Promise hit a few bumps. For weeks the phones were on the fritz, and there were too few people to handle too many offers to help. More hands came on board, thanks to grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, but Powell discovered something else: he is America's Promise. To paraphrase Woody Allen, 80% of success is showing up, and Powell saw that he would need to increase his showing up from a quarter of his time to well over half. He keeps the schedule of a candidate: his campaign trail is made up of "promise partners"--the schools, Junior Achievement programs and Rotary Clubs that are part of the 441 groups and 447 cities, states, counties and towns that have made pledges. Wherever he goes, corporate moguls drool all over him (and pay dearly--upward of $50,000 per speech--for the opportunity), but it is kids who get him for free who really light him up. They get brighter, chattier, taller when he's around. As he sings along with a heartrendingly mangled rendition of America the Beautiful by students playing with instruments donated by VH-1, the unsentimental general gets misty-eyed. At Colin Powell Elementary School in Grand Prairie, Texas, the kids wanted to talk about the mystery of how those two boys at Columbine with their BMW and pampered, obstacle-free days could have become so hopeless. A child asked the general if he ever got sad. "Something makes me sad every day," he answered, and said that helping others is the best way to work yourself out of it, that if those two lost souls in Littleton had coached a soccer team, visited a hospital, come face-to-face with someone else's little miseries, they might not have "descended into hell." He said, "I don't know a 16-year-old who doesn't have something to give a 9-year-old."

Powell learned another important thing that first year, which is "not to jump into bed with just anyone as a promise partner," but to link up with established groups already on the ground. That means tapping into existing organizations, from Catholic Charities to the VFW to the YMCA, all of which have deep roots in their communities. Powell is especially fond of the Boys & Girls Clubs because they know how to deliver the services. They have received a huge infusion of cash. As a result, they have increased their original commitment to America's Promise: they plan to serve a million kids by 2002, instead of 500,000 by 2000.

But Powell also likes to discover unconventional partners. For instance, he gratefully accepted the American Trucking Associations' $100,000 but enjoyed even more kicking off Trucker Buddies, which pairs long-haul drivers with classrooms so that kids learn geography and math by tracking Macks across the country. In launching the partnership from an 18-wheeler, Powell flattened only two red cones.

So why would these groups want to sign up with Powell? First, he's careful "not to reinvent what already is thriving" but to bring his "force multiplier" to bear. He has things the fragmented world of nonprofits needs: focus (the five goals), accountability ("I'm not shy about holding people's feet to the fire"), progress reports (people like to know their efforts are working) and his own tireless cheerleading. As worthy as they are, the heads of the United Way and the Salvation Army don't trail Governors, mayors, sports stars and cameras in their wake wherever they go. Last week he stopped in Minneapolis, Minn., on his way to Denver to deliver an Up with People speech, and joined Governor Jesse Ventura and Minnesota Vikings coach Dennis Green to pump up Minneapolis South High School's dropout-prevention program and give an award from the Citizens Scholarship Foundation. That evening he spoke at a dinner to raise money for the same foundation.

As a journalist, I want to find something, anything, to quibble over. Just when I think Powell might be all work and no play, he takes off his standard dark suit for a black T shirt, a white sport coat and shades and sings Yakety Yak at the annual fund raiser of Best Friends, which tries to keep young girls from drugs and sex with special classes and after-school activities. (His wife Alma is on the board.) Spend time with Colin Powell and you can't help thinking, Shouldn't someone this energetic, this smart, this decent be running for President or some other office?

This is how persuasive he is: I got myself down to the District Building to get my police clearance (it took two days; there must be a Margaret Carlson with a rap sheet) so that I could become a volunteer at the local Boys & Girls Club. It's the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force, conquering one couch potato at a time.