Volunteers for Prosperity is designed to help mobilize skilled American volunteers overseas to advance health and prosperity goals connected to federally-supported development initiatives. Through Volunteers for Prosperity, the President is providing more opportunities for Americans to serve abroad and share American compassion around the world. If it meets the criteria below, your group can become part of the VfP partner network that consists of more than 200 organizations.

• The organization must be organized under the laws of the United States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or any other territory of the United States and must have its headquarters in the United States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or any other territory of the United States.
• The organization must conduct or anticipates conducting overseas activities that are consistent with the general purposes of the federally supported initiatives upon which the Volunteers for Prosperity initiative is focused.
• The organization presently sponsors, or indicates it is willing to sponsor, highly skilled U.S. professionals who wish to volunteer to work on specific U.S. development initiatives upon which the Volunteers for Prosperity initiative is focused.

Volunteers for Prosperity seeks to involve as many qualified professionals as possible in responding to the President's call for service. Accordingly, organizations providing professionals as Volunteers for Prosperity need not be among USAID's "registered" PVOs. For example, U.S. for-profit companies may participate in VfP. Also, U.S. nonprofits that are not on USAID's PVO registry may be able to participate in the initiative.

Becoming a USAID-registered PVO meanwhile does provide advantages for certain charitable organizations, for example in meeting criteria to become eligible to receive grants from USAID. Private voluntary organizations not registered with USAID are invited to consider registering. More information on this is available on the web at USAID's Private Voluntary Organization Registration page.

Volunteers for Prosperity is designed to complement the Peace Corps. President Bush has asked Congress to double the number of Peace Corps volunteers from the current 7,500 to 15,000. With its flexibility in terms of overseas service - as short as a week or as long as a year or more - Volunteers for Prosperity offers international volunteering opportunities to tens of thousands American who may not be able to commit the two years required by the Peace Corps.

Yes, for-profit U.S. organizations are encouraged to participate as part of Volunteers for Prosperity and help sponsor meaningful opportunities for your professional employees to volunteer abroad. If your company meets the three participant criteria listed above, you may register it with Volunteers for Prosperity.

Volunteers for Prosperity welcomes the participation of faith-based organizations as well as secular organizations. It works closely with the offices created by President Bush to assure non-discriminatory treatment of faith-based organizations in grantmaking and other federal government relations. Through an Executive Order, President Bush created a center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Yes, the VfP Office has a search engine on its website that links to a database of announcements for specific international voluntary opportunities. See USA Freedom Corps Volunteer Network Find an International Volunteer Opportunity at www.volunteersforprosperity.gov. This complements the website's Connect with a VfP Partner search capability, and helps VfP partners recruit volunteers for specific international voluntary service opportunities.