Putting the sparkle into citizenship

When it comes to practicing what you preach, Stephen Greene ticks all the boxes. The US-born entrepreneur spends 50 hours a week volunteering as the chair of the National Citizen Service (NCS) Trust, fitting it around his other role as chief executive of an international charity.

Having such a committed leader is going to be crucial as the trust oversees the tricky transition to independence for the NCS, the government's flagship youth volunteering programme for 16- and 17-year-olds. But judging by the lengths to which he was pursued for the role, the government certainly thinks it has found the right man to lead the process.

Greene, the co-founder and chief executive of RockCorps - a charity that offers young people concert tickets in return for four hours of volunteering - was courted by Prime Minister David Cameron, civil society minister Nick Hurd and Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude to help shape NCS in its 2010 beginnings.

"Near the end of 2011, Nick had mentioned to me that he, Cameron and Maude felt managing it inside government, they weren't going to be able to grow it to the size and scale that they hoped," he says.

Greene, who hails from Portland in Oregon and has lived in the UK for five years, recognised this problem having witnessed the creation of the US national volunteering programme, AmeriCorps. "The non-profit I worked for then, the Fowler Centre, was one of the first pilot sites for AmeriCorps," he explains.

"AmeriCorps was launched by Bill Clinton in 1994 and was very closely associated with him. The other political party was always trying to defund it and get rid of it. By the time George Bush came in, in 2001, it had become such a part of American service culture that Bush doubled its size and funding. I see the same thing happening with NCS."

Having initially resisted government requests to head such an organisation - "I said I was happy at RockCorps. We've just launched in South Africa, the ninth country, and I'm off to Japan next week to get that set up" - Greene relented and offered to write a business plan.

By July 2012, ministers had persuaded him to lead the transition from government. He agreed to do one day a week in a voluntary capacity. "It ended up being 50 hours a week," he says. "But we've been in massive, ramp-up, transition mode."

Despite the government spending £86m on the NCS since 2010 (with a further £104m expenditure planned for 2013/14), Greene says its survival depends upon it becoming independent. He describes youth engagement as "about the most apolitical thing on the planet. It's important to depoliticise NCS," he says.

Independence day

To complete the transition to independence, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury have hired Deloitte to audit the organisation. "They need to make sure we're fit to manage public monies," says Greene. "It's been going on since July, but once they deem us fit, some time in the autumn, we will be fully independent."

The NCS website says the trust was set up to manage the programme and expand its reach. Once independence is gained, Greene says the trust will be able to work more flexibly than the government and approach sponsors with more freedom.

While its role will largely mimic what has been done thus far by the Cabinet Office, Greene is adding a marketing and communications team. As a recently published evaluation of the 2012 NCS by NatCen revealed, social media such as Facebook and Twitter are key to spreading the word about the programme. "In youth engagement, you have to be flexible and move quickly and that's not something the government is able to do," says Greene. "For example, when I was advising the programme, we wanted to put up some new Facebook adverts to capture a moment in time of what youth were talking about. It took us three weeks to get the ads approved, procured and paid for. By that time, the moment had gone."

Green illustrates the point by comparing this attitude to the swiftness of pop star Lady Gaga's social media strategy. "When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, she had changed her entire social media profile to collect donations for the people affected by it in five hours," Greene says, waving his arms enthusiastically. His popular cultural references, ripped jeans and neck-length hair indicate his brand vision of NCS will mark a striking distinction from Whitehall suits. "NCS is not the sexiest set of words," he admits. "But I've been involved in youth marketing for a long time and we can make anything resonate. The product is very exciting and we can create excitement around the name."

Once up to full speed, the trust will have about 35 employees, up from the current 25. It will be operated by a board of volunteer, non-executive members, who have been appointed. Greene cannot reveal who they are until the organisation's formal launch, but he does disclose that among them are a Labour MP with particular youth interest, a female chief executive from "one of the nation's largest youth charities" and the head of an education charity. He also says it includes a government-appointed civil servant, but insists: "they have no special powers".

The trust is currently funded with between four and six per cent of the NCS government grant, Greene says. But in the future, he plans for it to be self-sufficient. "We're able to bring in sponsorship in a way the government can't," he says. Having partnered RockCorps with technology giants Orange, Sony Ericsson and BlackBerry in the past, Greene is no stranger to high-level corporate charity relationships.

"NCS will have a portion funded by corporate sponsors," he says. "We have some alliances now that are starting to roll out, for example, with O2. We have something else going with Asda - it will do promotion for NCS in stores. We'd also like to work with all the mobile companies." But he says sponsors will remain strategic partners. "You won't see NCS being called Vodafone NCS," he says.

Central procurement

Greene says the trust will also help NCS's delivery partners - currently six regional providers who subcontract to about 125 local charities - to save money. "We'll be able to do a lot of central procurement," he says. "For example, almost all the providers are hiring coach companies to drive young people around. We can do that centrally." Greene is confident about the plan. "We'll drive efficiencies and bring in outside support so that the trust itself won't cost anything."

Cutting costs will be vital in the years ahead, as the government's plans to expand NCS are ambitious. Capacity for young people in its first year, 2011, was 8,500. That rose to 26,000 in 2012 and this year 40,000 are expected to take part. For 2014, the government has set a target of 120,000 places, and 150,000 for 2015. "The important thing is that the quality is maintained as you grow," says Greene.

He's also keen to ensure the NCS has a lasting impact on participants. "Having a strong graduate programme is a big part of the NCS Trust," he says. "We have some great schemes in this country, such as the Scouts and Girlguiding, Duke of Edinburgh's Award and the Prince's Trust. For us, it's about making sure our graduates are supported to go on and continue their service."

Greene's plans must also ensure the programme is not dropped if a different party comes to power in 2015. "We've had a bit of a revolving door in this country that each Prime Minister has had a national youth engagement programme," he recalls. "With Tony Blair it was Millennium Volunteers, which was fantastic. With Gordon Brown it was V, which was a great vision. And now this government has this vision for NCS.

"I hope beyond this election, whether the current lot stays or another lot comes in, we make the case that this country should found and support a national youth engagement programme."

Just then, Greene's phone rings, but he won't be distracted. "I happen to think this one is tremendous."

STEPHEN GREENE CV

• Greene holds a BA in psychology and an MBA in finance and entrepreneurship from the University of California
• He says he "cut his teeth" working for the Fowler Centre for Outdoor Learning in Michigan between 1991 and 2001, which works with young people and adults with special needs and disabilities. He still sits on its board of directors
• Greene co-founded RockCorps in 2003, which now operates in the US, UK, France, Israel, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Australia and South Africa
• He is unmarried and has no children, which he puts down to "a tremendous amount of travel that makes it hard to hold things down".