The Obama Foundation is looking for 100 unpaid volunteers to staff the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago when it opens in June, asking ordinary citizens to donate their labor at an $850 million campus led by a CEO who pulled in $740,000 last year.

The volunteers, branded as "ambassadors," will complement about 300 full- and part-time employees at the center. It is unclear what the salary range for those paid workers will be. What is clear: Valerie Jarrett, former top Obama aide and one of the Obamas' closest advisors, has made $740,000 annually in each of the last three years on record, covering 2022, 2023, and 2024, according to federal filings viewed by Fox News Digital.

The foundation framed the recruitment in the language you'd expect:

"Volunteerism has been central to President Obama's vision of civic life since his earliest days as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side."

Community organizing, it turns out, pays quite well for the people at the top.

The Numbers Behind the "Civic Vision"

According to the New York Post, the Obama Foundation has grown into a sprawling financial operation. Total salaries and benefits climbed from $18.5 million in 2018 to $43.7 million in 2024, with staffing expanding to 337 employees. Annual revenue reached nearly $210 million, according to the filings.

Several former Obama White House officials have collected six-figure salaries as foundation executives, though specific names beyond Jarrett were not identified. Jarrett became CEO in 2021 and is overseeing development of the 19.3-acre campus in Jackson Park, which features a 22-story museum tower.

So to recap: a foundation sitting on nearly $210 million in annual revenue, paying its CEO three-quarters of a million dollars and its staff $43.7 million collectively, needs 75 to 100 people to show up and work for free.

The Obama Brand of Generosity

This is a pattern that defines a certain kind of progressive institution. The rhetoric runs on sacrifice and community. The budget runs on something else entirely. The little people are asked to volunteer. The connected people collect salaries that would make most Americans' heads spin.

Jarrett offered her own framing of the volunteer program, saying the center will be:

"A place where the world meets the best of the city of Chicago, and our volunteers will help bring that vision to life every day."

Bring a vision to life. Every day. For free. While the woman delivering that quote earns $740,000 to oversee it.

There's nothing illegal about a nonprofit recruiting volunteers. Museums, libraries, and civic institutions across the country rely on them. But most of those institutions aren't backed by a foundation pulling in $210 million a year. Most of them aren't led by a political insider earning nearly four times the salary of the President of the United States. The scale of the wealth at the top makes the ask at the bottom land differently.

Economic Promises, Familiar Playbook

The foundation has promoted the center as a major economic engine for Chicago's South Side, projecting:

• $3.1 billion in economic activity over 10 years
• 5,000 construction jobs tied to the $850 million campus
• More than 50% of construction contracts were awarded to "diverse firms."
• 33% of the construction workforce is drawn from South and West Side communities
• 798 residents enrolled in construction pre-apprenticeship programs

Those economic projections come from an assessment conducted by Deloitte Consulting LLP. They sound impressive on paper. Projected economic activity over a decade is the kind of figure that's impossible to verify in real time and easy to tout in a press release. What can be verified right now is who's getting paid and who isn't.

Who Benefits from "Civic Engagement"?

The Obama post-presidency has always been a masterclass in converting public service into private wealth while maintaining the vocabulary of selflessness. The foundation doesn't just employ staff. It employs a particular class of staff: loyalists, advisors, and people who served in the administration and now serve the brand. The pipeline from the West Wing to the foundation payroll is direct and lucrative.

Meanwhile, residents of the South Side neighborhoods that the center claims to uplift are being asked to show up as unpaid ambassadors. They'll greet visitors, help with programming, and represent the "best of the city of Chicago." Their compensation is the honor of proximity to a legacy.

That's the deal. The insiders get six figures. The community gets a volunteer badge.

A Question the Foundation Won't Answer

If volunteerism is so central to the Obama vision, one wonders whether Jarrett considered volunteering her own time. She didn't. She took $740,000, the same amount, three years running, with the precision of a subscription renewal.

The Obama Presidential Center may well become an architectural landmark and a tourist draw. It may generate jobs and economic activity for a neighborhood that could use both. None of that changes what this volunteer recruitment reveals about priorities. When you have $210 million in revenue, and you still need free labor, the problem isn't resources. Its values.

The community organizer's foundation found people willing to work for nothing. Some things never change.