George W. Romney - Public Service, Volunteerism, and Final Years

Public Service, Volunteerism, and Final Years

Romney was known as an advocate of public service, and volunteerism was a passion of his. He initiated several volunteer programs while Governor of Michigan, and at the beginning of the Nixon administration chaired the Cabinet Committee on Voluntary Action. Out of this the National Center for Voluntary Action was created: an independent, private, non-profit organization intended to encourage volunteerism on the part of American citizens and organizations, to assist in program development for voluntary efforts, and to make voluntary action an important force in American society. Romney's long interest in volunteerism stemmed from the Mormon belief in the power of institutions to transform the individual, but also had a secular basis. At the National Center's first meeting on February 20, 1970, he said:

Americans have four basic ways of solving problems that are too big for individuals to handle by themselves. One is through the federal government. A second is through state governments and the local governments that the states create. The third is through the private sector – the economic sector that includes business, agriculture, and labor. The fourth method is the independent sector – the voluntary, cooperative action of free individuals and independent association. Voluntary action is the most powerful of these, because it is uniquely capable of stirring the people themselves and involving their enthusiastic energies, because it is their own – voluntary action is the people's action. ... As Woodrow Wilson said, "The most powerful force on earth is the spontaneous cooperation of a free people." Individualism makes cooperation worthwhile – but cooperation makes freedom possible.

In 1973, after he left the cabinet, Romney became chair and CEO of the National Center for Voluntary Action. In 1979, this organization merged with the Colorado-based National Information Center on Volunteerism and became known as VOLUNTEER: The National Center for Citizen Involvement; Romney headed the new organization. The organization simplified its name to VOLUNTEER: The National Center in 1984 and to the National Volunteer Center in 1990. Romney remained as chair of these organizations throughout this time.

Within the LDS Church, Romney remained active and prominent, serving as patriarch of the Bloomfield Hills Stake and holding the office of regional representative of the Twelve, covering Michigan and northern Ohio. As part of a longtime habit of playing golf daily, he had long ago concocted a "compact 18" format in which he played three balls on each of six holes, or similar formulations depending upon the amount of daylight. During the early part of the Reagan administration, Romney served on the President's Task Force for Private Sector Initiatives along with LDS leader Monson. In 1987, he held a four-generation extended family reunion in Washington, where he showed the places and recounted the events of his life which had occurred there. Looking back on his and some other failed presidential bids, he once concluded, "You can't be right too soon and win elections."

President George H. W. Bush's Points of Light Foundation was created in 1990, also to encourage volunteerism. Romney received the Points of Light Foundation's inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from President Bush in April 1991. The Bush administration wanted to tap Romney to chair the new foundation, but he reportedly refused to head two organizations doing the same thing and suggested they merge. They did so in September 1991, and Romney became one of the founding directors of the Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network. In the early 1990s, Romney was also involved in helping to set up the Commission on National and Community Service, one of the predecessors to the later Corporation for National and Community Service. He gave speeches emphasizing the vital role of people helping people, and in 1993 inspired the first national meeting of volunteer centers.

For much of his final two decades, Romney had been out of the political eye, but he re-emerged to the general public when he campaigned for his son, Mitt Romney, during the younger Romney's bid to unseat Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts. Romney had urged Mitt to enter the race and moved into his son's house for its duration, serving as an unofficial advisor. Romney was a vigorous surrogate for his son in public appearances and at fundraising events. When Kennedy's campaign sought to bring up the LDS Church's past policy on blacks, Romney interrupted Mitt's press conference and said loudly, "I think it is absolutely wrong to keep hammering on the religious issues. And what Ted is trying to do is bring it into the picture." The father counseled the son to be relaxed in appearance and to pay less attention to his political consultants and more to his own instincts, a change that the younger Romney made late in the ultimately unsuccessful campaign.

That same year, Ronna Romney, Romney's ex-daughter-in-law (formerly married to G. Scott Romney), decided to seek the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate from Michigan. While Mitt and G. Scott endorsed Ronna Romney, George Romney had endorsed her opponent and the eventual winner, Spencer Abraham, during the previous year when Ronna was considering a run but had not yet announced. A family spokesperson said that George Romney had endorsed Abraham before knowing Ronna Romney would run and could not go back on his word, although he did refrain from personally campaigning on Abraham's behalf.

By January 1995, amid press criticism of the Points of Light Foundation engaging in ineffective, wasteful spending, Romney expressed concern that the organization had too high a budget. Active to the end, in July 1995, four days before his death, Romney proposed a presidential summit to encourage greater volunteerism and community service, and the night before his death he drove to a meeting of another volunteer organization.

On July 26, 1995, Romney died of a heart attack at the age of 88 while he was doing his morning exercising on a treadmill at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; he was discovered by his wife Lenore but it was too late to save him. He was buried at the Fairview Cemetery in Brighton, Michigan. In addition to his wife and children, Romney was survived by 23 grandchildren and 33 great-grandchildren.