The White House Conference on Aging, which took place in December, adopted 50 resolutions to guide national policy on aging over the next decade, including several to promote volunteering by baby boomers and older Americans. (See related story on The Center's new publication, Expanding the Boundaries of Corporate Volunteerism.)

One resolution proposed a national strategy to promote volunteer work by "current and future seniors" — an issue of growing interest to nonprofit groups and foundations, which are hoping to tap into the energy and expertise of the huge wave of baby boomers who begin to turn 60 in January. It ranked number 25 with 699 votes.

A separate resolution, ranked number 28, looks to expand the scope of the National and Community Service Act, which authorizes federal volunteer programs for older people including Foster Grandparents, Senior Companions, and RSVP. The resolution proposed doubling the number of participants in those programs to 1 million by 2010, easing restrictions that make it hard for all but the poorest Americans to participate in the Foster Grandparents and Senior Companions programs, and lowering the age eligibility for those two programs from 60 to 55.

More information about the conference resolutions is available on the web site of the conference, http://www.whcoa.gov.