Once back at Harvard, Brown says he and Khazei began to pursue the idea of a national service program with more vigor. They began meeting weekly with a professor at the Kennedy School of Government, who would go on to serve as mentor for many years.

Although Brown says the College's liberal arts setting allowed the two roommates to "dream big things," it was not until arriving at Harvard Law School (HLS) that he found the theoretical basis for the plans they had been pondering.

Brown says working with HLS faculty members, such as University Professor Frank I. Michaelman, introduced him and Khazei to the idea of civic republicanism, a theory about creating civic virtue among all people, not just the elite.

"It gave us the entire intellectual framework for national service," Brown says. "It's an intellectual framework I couldn't have given you before I started HLS, even though I may have felt it."

But even after they had mastered the theory, Brown says the prospect of launching an actual service program seemed anything but easy.

Daunted by the task of raising $200,000 for the pilot program alone, the two enlisted help from a number of Harvard's most influential faculty. Among that group, Brown says they worked closely with then-Radcliffe President Matina S. Horner, who served on President Jimmy Carter's Task Force on Public Service and would go on to chair the City Year board of trustees. In addition, they sought out the help of Harvard Business School Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, an expert in organizational change.

City Year's first check--for $25,000--soon came from Ira A. Jackson '70, then-senior vice president of Bank of Boston.