(The Chronicle of Philanthropy) — I grew up volunteering. I taught people with physical disabilities how to swim at the B.R. Ryall YMCA in my hometown of Glen Ellyn, Ill. I tutored Eritrean refugees in English at a community center in nearby Wheaton. I served meals at the Salvation Army, the Men’s Emergency Shelter, and the Center for Women in Transition when I went off to college at the University of Illinois at Champaign.

Volunteering was a social norm in my generation. During introductions at the beginning of seminar-sized college classes, people would say their name, major, hometown, and where they volunteered.

If you came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s, you heard President George H.W. Bush talk about American volunteerism as “a thousand points of light” and President Bill Clinton build upon that spirit by founding the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The message was clear: Americans hail from all different backgrounds and disagree on many things, but we come together to serve others.

The most inspiring organizations of the era made bringing together diversity and service a central goal, not just an ancillary benefit. Habitat for Humanity, City Year, Public Allies, and Teach for America highlighted how the service experience was improved by the diversity of people gathered to participate. Diversity meant different perspectives and identities were at the table, all the better for identifying effective solutions to social challenges and connecting with the various groups we aimed to help.

I didn’t much like the fashion sense of my generation — all that flannel and plaid — but I loved the service ethic. I was the volunteer coordinator for my residence hall in college, the Unit One Living/Learning Center at the University of Illinois, and I found it fascinating that students who shouted at each other during political debates talked warmly to one another when they volunteered to pick up trash at local parks. Service projects brought together Black kids and white kids, people who grew up in the city and people who were raised in small towns, good students and lackadaisical ones.

Americans hail from all different backgrounds and disagree on many things, but we come together to serve others.

Interfaith America, the organization I founded, is very much a product of this time. My thinking went something like this: If service is a great way to build solidarity among people from different races, classes, and geographies — and if those different identities in collaboration made for more effective service — surely the same is true for people of different religious identities.

A Concrete Strategy

Don’t worry, this is not a good-old-days column. Rather, it’s a reminder that volunteerism is both a well of civic energy and a tried-and-true approach to bridging divides. Let’s think of it as part of the muscle memory of the body politic. I think Alexis de Tocqueville would like that metaphor.

A new report, “No Greater Mission. No Greater Means,” released this week by the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution, raises the hope that we can flex these civic muscles and put them to use to address our nation’s greatest domestic challenge: polarization.

The co-authors David Eisner and John Gomperts, both of whom I consider friends, served their respective political parties in senior leadership roles at the Corporation for National and Community Service: Eisner under President George W. Bush, and Gomperts under President Barack Obama.

The bipartisan nature of their alliance demonstrates that you can disagree on some fundamental things — affirmative action, abortion, government spending — while working together to achieve other fundamental goals.

In Gomperts and Eisner’s case, what they agree on is the great promise of the nation’s volunteerism infrastructure, the massive problem of polarization, and the inspiring potential of the former to address the latter. They state their thesis succinctly on page five of the report: “National service was created to take on the country’s biggest challenges, and right now that means tackling toxic polarization head on.”

This clear goal gives rise to a concrete strategy: train AmeriCorps volunteers and alumni in bridge-building skills and send them forth to heal divides across the nation. Encourage philanthropy to support them and engage researchers to make sure that they are doing their work effectively. Eisner and Gomperts call this “Civic CPR,” a term I hope catches on.

Momentum Is Growing

There are headwinds, of course. Simply put, volunteerism is down and polarization is up. “No Greater Mission” cites some scary statistics that are no less frightening for being familiar. Among them: 66 percent of Americans believe the opposite party is a serious threat to the country, and 20 percent believe people from the other party aren’t fully human.

And yet, despite the obvious challenges, momentum for change is growing. Last year, the White House hosted a United We Stand summit that named civic bridge building as a national priority. The summit highlighted a variety of initiatives aimed at healing divides, including one called Team Up, which involves my organization, Catholic Charities USA, Habitat for Humanity International, and the YMCA of the USA.

The Building Civic Bridges Act, which would create a bridge-building office within AmeriCorps, was introduced in the last Congress by Reps. Derek Kilmer (D) and Andy Barr (R). It has gathered impressive bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and endorsements from a wide cross section of civic groups.

Even though the legislation has not yet passed, AmeriCorps has already hired a new bridging and service fellow, thanks to the support of key philanthropists in the field, including the Einhorn Collaborative, Schmidt Family Foundation, and Solidarity Giving. The leadership of the agency, headed by Michael D. Smith, clearly wants to do this work.

This is a very good sign.