Washington D.C. – At a Brookings Institution forum yesterday, CEOs of some of America’s largest voluntary organizations, Members of Congress, and experts on the nonprofit workforce hailed AmeriCorps as a critical pipeline for public service that can help address a looming leadership and workforce crisis.

CEOs of Boys & Girls Clubs of America, National Council of La Raza, and other national groups highlighted how AmeriCorps members not only help organizations extend their reach and impact during their terms of service but also well into the future as AmeriCorps alumni go on to become staff, volunteers, and board members.

The nonprofit leaders were reacting to a new longitudinal study about AmeriCorps that was released yesterday at the forum, which was part of the nationwide recognition of AmeriCorps Week.

Video excerpts and a full transcript of the forum are available at the Brookings website.

The report, Still Serving: Measuring the Eight-Year Impact of AmeriCorps on Alumni, analyzed the impacts of AmeriCorps on a group of 2,000 AmeriCorps members eight years after their service and a control group of similar individuals who did not serve. The study, the most rigorous ever conducted about AmeriCorps’ impacts on members, conclusively demonstrates that AmeriCorps alumni are significantly more civically engaged and more likely to pursue public service careers, with more than 60 percent of alums working in nonprofits or government. The full report, executive summary, and issue brief are available at NationalService.gov/research, along with quotes from the CEOs of Habitat for Humanity, Points of Light & Hands On Network, City Year, and other organizations about how AmeriCorps groom future nonprofit leaders and profiles of AmeriCorps alums in public service.

The forum attracted a full house of 150 attendees including a large contingent of AmeriCorps alums. Starting off the discussion, Washington Post columnist and moderator E.J. Dionne reflected on how AmeriCorps has achieved widespread bipartisan acceptance, in large part because of its unique program design that blends the best thinking from across the political spectrum. “I view this as a great program, it is one of my favorite programs, and also a political miracle…. I think it's well established because I can think of very few programs that draw more effectively on insights from liberals, from moderates, and from conservatives.”

Dionne welcomed Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-WI), who described her experience as a VISTA member in Milwaukee in the early 1980s when she launched a community development credit union from scratch in a poor neighborhood that had been denied banking services. National service “grew us as human beings, helped us deepen the compassion that we had for people, gave us this third eye and this vision for what is needed.” Rep. Moore, whose daughter also served as a VISTA, recalled the slogan on the VISTA poster which gave her so much inspiration: “If we can’t find a way, we will make a way.”

Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT), a returned Peace Corps volunteer, recalled the creation of AmeriCorps and how Republicans worked with President Clinton to ensure the program had a decentralized structure. “We were all committed to national service but we didn't want a one size fits all. What the President decided to do was to have this have a local and state focus…It was an effort to say let's have this creativity, let's have this almost competitive model that would allow people to step forward and say I'd like to see AmeriCorps volunteers involved here, and to allow the states to take charge over national service.” Shays then spoke to the AmeriCorps members in the room: “You are my heroes. You are doing something very important for your country and if I came here for no other reason than to just say these words I would have come: Thank you.”

Dionne noted that all three major Presidential candidates have embraced AmeriCorps and asked the members about the future of the program. Rep. Shays said, “The unbelievable genius of AmeriCorps is it’s not one program… There’s no limit frankly to how large this program can be because it is locally based, it’s state-based, it’s not a one-size-fits-all national program, and so the sky is the limit.” Rep. Moore replied, “An expansion of AmeriCorps would be just the thing that we need to reassure Americans that somebody really cares about them, that they have not been forgotten.”

Corporation for National and Community Service CEO David Eisner then gave an overview of the study. He highlighted four big findings – that AmeriCorps is a pipeline to careers in public service, especially for minorities and people form disadvantaged circumstances; that AmeriCorps alums are more likely to be engaged in their communities and taking part in civic activities; that AmeriCorps gives its alumni career options and a leg up in finding jobs; and that AmeriCorps alums are more satisfied with their lives. He reported that 60% of alums are working in government or nonprofit organizations compared to 40% of the control group, and noted that it is rare for a program to demonstrate such significant impacts eight years later.

Next up was a panel of nonprofit leaders and experts discussing the study and its implications. Roxanne Spillet, CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of America, was asked if the report’s finding about AmeriCorps alums going into public service rang true in her organization. “What AmeriCorps workers really contribute to Boys and Girls Clubs is they enable us to extend what we're doing so that in many cases they're conducting new programs in our clubs. We are seeing AmeriCorps alumni being employed by our clubs. We see it in Biloxi, we see it in Utah, we’re seeing it all over the country. It is clear to me that this is a pipeline for future employees and future professionals,” Spillet said.

Janet Murguia, President and CEO, National Council of La Raza, shared a similar view. “Our experience reflects what the study has found as well, and that is that many in our community are also finding that not only is this rewarding, but they are also seeing this as future careers for themselves in public service. We have a leadership deficit, a talent deficit, when it comes to replacing so many who are running these community based organizations right now. I can’t think of a better pipeline than to engage these folks, to expose them initially to public service and then to let them learn about the business of nonprofits, to let them learn about putting their values and their mission to work back for the community.”

Paul Light, a leading expert on the public workforce and New York University professor, noted the rigorous methodology of the study, including its use of a control group. “This is a very nice piece of research, well worth reading as an exemplar of how we might evaluate how government performs in terms of really solid evidence that focuses on outcomes.” He went on to remark about the connection of the study to his research on government. “It is true that there is a leadership deficit. It is true that government in particular has become a career of last resort for many young people… You see these young people coming through this pipeline highly motivated by public service, clearly looking at the nonprofit sector as a destination, but I wonder whether or not government could also look at AmeriCorps members as a very efficient source of talent for government... At all levels we desperately need this talent.”

Light then highlighted a trend echoed by other panelists – the elevated levels of service, civic engagement, and social entrepreneurialism of the millennial generation. “Do you remember Jerry Maguire where Cuba Gooding, Jr. says, “Show me the money”? Young people aren’t saying “show me the money;” they’re saying, “Show me the impact.” And if we can do that in both nonprofit land and in government as well as in the private sector, where there are emergent social entrepreneurial activities, then we can view this as a significant recruiting tool and at a very efficient price increase the number of potential public servants dramatically.”

After a lively question and answer session, the forum wrapped up with closing remarks from Corporation for National and Community Service board chair Steven Goldsmith, who noted that AmeriCorps has become more effective and accepted because of increased participation of faith-based and community organizations and because Corporation has placed stronger emphasis on AmeriCorps members mobilizing and managing other volunteers. AmeriCorps plays a key role in the “infrastructure of volunteerism,” by serving as volunteer managers for thousands of nonprofits and ensuring that volunteers have a positive experience. This role is more important than ever given the large volunteer dropout rate and is “an inherent reason for the growth of AmeriCorps.”

Goldsmith suggested several areas for future policymaking including looking at how other federal agencies and programs can drive more service and volunteering through their grantmaking, and exploring higher education loan forgiveness programs for people who enter public service careers. Goldsmith noted that Americans share a “broad commitment that civic service itself, civic participation itself is of value in this democracy” and noted that “All three of the remaining presidential candidates are broadly supportive of expansions of the AmeriCorps program… this may be the only thing that all three of them agree on.”

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The Corporation for National and Community Service improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. Each year the Corporation engages more than four million Americans of all ages and backgrounds in service to meet local needs through its Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America programs. For more information, visit NationalService.gov.

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