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Thanks to those of you who were able to participate in the AmeriCorps National conference call that took place on January 22, 2008. Hopefully you found it to be informative. Below, I have summarized some of the key topics, as well as provided some information on additional topics.
TRAINING EVENTS
New Grantee Staff Training
You should have received a couple of messages regarding the New Grantee Staff Training taking place March 12-14 in San Francisco. Registration is open now. Rooms must be reserved by February 15. A flyer is attached.
Financial Management Institute
Attached to this message is a ‘save the date’ flyer for the Financial Management Institute that takes place March 18-20 in San Diego. The Institute comprehensively addressed the range of topics relevant to good fiscal management of national service programs.
FY ’08 GRANT REVIEW PROCESS
Single Match
The separate member support cost and program operating cost match rates were eliminated in our FY ’08 appropriations. There is now only an overall match rate which starts at 24% for years one to three of a grant and gradually increasing beginning in year four to 50% in year 10 according to the match schedule outlined in the Regulations. If you have had an AmeriCorps grant for more than three years and aren’t sure where you fall on the match schedule, please consult with your program and grants officers. The new match rate applies to grants funded from our FY ’08 appropriations only, which are the applications currently under review.
Continuations
Continuation requests are currently being reviewed. The negotiation period, when issues that arose during the review are resolved, will begin by February 29 at the latest. You will have the opportunity during this time period to revise your budget to reflect the change in match requirements. However, please note that you are not required to do so. We hope to conclude negotiations and begin processing continuations for award on March 14. Please ensure that staff is available.
News and Recompetes
Peer review has concluded and staff review has begun. A change this year is that rather than grant negotiations taking place after the result of the competitions have been announced, application clarification and any necessary revisions will occur between March 24 and April 25, before the CEO makes final funding decisions. Please ensure that all staff involved in the development of your application is available at this time. Further information will be forthcoming.
AMERICORPS WEEK – MAY 11-18, 2008
Hopefully you have all begun thinking about how to use AmeriCorps Week as an opportunity to engage more Americans in service; salute AmeriCorps members and alums; and thank community partners. This year the Corporation is developing Presentation Kits with a variety of informative and fun materials for members and community stakeholders to use to enhance their presentations. Please consider opportunities for your AmeriCorps members to make 15 -20 minute presentations during AmeriCorps Week to youth, as a way of reaching a new generation of national service participants, and to community stakeholders.
To help us gauge the number of kits to order, by March 1 please provide your program officer with the names, mailing addresses, and email addresses of AmeriCorps members who will give presentations. If possible, please also provide dates and locations of presentations. Presentation kits will be mailed directly to those members. Programs will have the opportunity to order additional presentation kits through the website.
PEER MENTOR PROGRAM
Attached to this email is a description of the AmeriCorps National peer mentor program. Experienced program directors are encouraged to apply to be a mentor for less-experienced peers. If you are interested, please let your program officer know by February 19.
ENCORPS PROJECT
AmeriCorps program directors have an opportunity to participate in a unique distance learning initiative called EnCorps. EnCorps is the Corporation's Member Recruitment and Development Initiative and is facilitated by NWREL. The EnCorps project is seeking AmeriCorps programs that have strengths in recruiting, supporting, training, supervising and retaining members.
Selected project staff will be interviewed about their practices and participate in one to two meetings with other selected programs nationwide to review and adapt good practices for publication in the EnCorps collection. Details on the process and the benefits of participating in EnCorps are attached. If you're interested, please read the attached flyer and complete the online application (link below) as soon as possible.
Online Application link: http://snipurl.com/encorps_application
Visit EnCorps Member Development Resources at http://snipurl.com/encorps
FAMOUS ALUMS
The Corporation’s Office of Research and Policy Development (RPD) is looking for “Famous Members” to be profiled during the release of the Longitudinal Study in May. If you can think of anyone who is an alumni of any of our programs and now holds an executive position in the private, public or non-profit sector please contact Sasha Rosen at srosen@cns.gov. This might include executive directors, VPs, Presidents, Congressmen, Senators, but also actors and other artists.
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