Corporation for National and Community Service

About Us

We are the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that helps millions of Americans improve the lives of their fellow citizens through service. Working hand in hand with local partners, we tap the ingenuity and can-do spirit of the American people to tackle some of the most pressing challenges facing our nation.

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Our Programs

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AmeriCorps members all across the country do fantastic work.

AmeriCorps

Senior Corps
Volunteers support various initiatives across the country.

Senior Corps

The Social Innovation Fund (SIF) is a powerful approach.

Schoolkids hold up mock diplomas in a college prep program.

Social Innovation Fund

Volunteer Generation Fund -
Boosting the impact of volunteers in communities.

Volunteer Generation Fund

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Our Focus Areas

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Disaster Services -
Helping people across the nation prepare, respond, and recover.

AmeriCorps member looks upon a dilapidated house.

Disaster Services

Education -
Striving to improve students' academic achievement.

AmeriCorps member posing with a young boy in school.

Education

Veterans -
Engaging the talents of our veterans and military families.

Veteran working on a construction job for AmeriCorps project.

Vets and Military Families

Healthy Futures -
Improving health through assistance, prevention, and intervention.

Healthy Futures

From Our Blog

Nov 4, 2016

National Service Mobilizes Volunteers

By Robert Bisi, CNCS Office of External Affairs
Nov 3, 2016

Senior Corps RSVP Volunteers Help Children Succeed at

by Kathy Baird, Monadnock Senior Corps RSVP Program Director & Allison Riley, Monadnock Senior Corps RSVP Program Coordinator
Oct 27, 2016

In Memoriam: Everyone Deserves Someone in Their Corner

By Talia Schmidt
...
Oct 21, 2016

What Works Dispatch: Growing and Sustaining Effective

By Lois Nembhard, Acting Director, Social Innovation Fund

National Service on Instagram

I'm a @Jumpstartkids Americorps member serving at Ellis Memorial Preschool. Happy #ReadfortheRecord from Boston!

From Our Blog

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By Robert Bisi, CNCS Office of External Affairs

Mucking homes ravaged by hurricanes and floods, feeding the hungry, reading to children, cleaning riverbeds, and mentoring are just some of the ways that volunteers prove they are the backbone of our nation’s ability to do good and change lives. Throughout October, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) focused on how national service mobilizes volunteers and connects them to opportunities to serve.

Our 75,000 AmeriCorps members recruit, train, deploy, and work with millions of volunteers in thousands of locations across the country to serve in schools, nonprofits, community centers, and build homes for veterans. We also engage 270,000 volunteers through our Senior Corps programs and annual days of service and public awareness efforts like Ali75. Some of the upcoming opportunities to learn more about volunteering and get involved include:

Volunteering and Civic Life in America (VCLA) first reference (November 15, 2016) – The 2016 VCLA is home to the most comprehensive look at volunteering and civic life in 50 states and 51 cities across the country. Data includes volunteer rates and rankings, civic engagement trends, and analysis. Check out the 2016 data on November 15, 2016 at www.volunteeringinamerica.gov

Ali75 – Ali75 is a year-long campaign to honor the principles of Muhammad Ali for what would have been his 75th birthday on January 17. During our traditional season of giving, consider dedicating 75 hours of service to his memory. To learn more about this initiative and to inspire others through your service, visit www.Ali75.org.

MBK Week of Action (November 28 – December 2) – During the MBK Week of Action, we will join the White House and the Department of Education to call on individuals to become mentors in support of young men of color. To find an opportunity to volunteer, visit www.Mentor.org.

Nov 4, 2016

National Service Mobilizes Volunteers

By Robert Bisi, CNCS Office of External Affairs

Mucking homes ravaged by hurricanes and floods, feeding the hungry, reading to children, cleaning riverbeds, and mentoring are just some of...

by Kathy Baird, Monadnock Senior Corps RSVP Program Director & Allison Riley, Monadnock Senior Corps RSVP Program Coordinator

Senior Corps volunteer Brenda Garozzo has a fun time selecting books for her students at the Annual RSVP Book Fair

For many children, abnormal events or disasters can leave them feeling frightened, confused, and insecure. Whether a child has personally experienced trauma, has merely seen the event on television, or has heard it discussed by adults, it is important for parents and teachers to be informed and ready to respond to the varied emotions that children experience

On April 13, Rindge Memorial School in Rindge, New Hampshire was evacuated to a nearby meeting house after school officials found a bomb threat, written in crayon, in one of the bathrooms.

Nick Noyes had just arrived to spend his weekly hour as a Senior Corps RSVP America Reads volunteer to work with six 3rd-grade students on reading and writing. He saw that the students were outside and waiting to walk up to the town’s meeting house. Not knowing exactly what was happening, Nick drove to the meeting house to see if the teacher, Becky DeGrandpre, wanted some additional hands and eyes to help. But as he approached the group, he was detained by authorities because of precautionary security measures.

The following day Nick learned from the teacher that a little boy he worked with was so happy to see him that he was able to control his behavior and put his fears aside.

Nov 3, 2016

Senior Corps RSVP Volunteers Help Children Succeed at School, Work, and Life

By Talia Schmidt

My AmeriCorps VISTA Leader, Abby Zent.

When I moved to the boonies, which some people call Montana, I worried that I wouldn’t find a group of friends like I’d had in college. I didn’t need best friends; I just wanted a group of young women I could share my ups and downs with, exchange stories with, and help me grow in my year of finding myself.

I never wanted to join AmeriCorps. My mother basically pushed me into it as I was finishing up an internship at Seattle Business Magazine. Jobs in journalism were scarce back in 2009 (ha, they are even scarcer now), and I decided to look into giving back through a year of service.

AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) sounded like an adventure in learning, team building, and creating sustainable communities.

It was all of those things and more. It was refreshing to surround myself with millennials who cared deeply about grassroots activism. It was inspiring to work hard on advocacy campaigns around substance abuse/overdose and teen pregnancy prevention. It was humbling to watch one community talk about the hard stuff and then enact the changes needed to help.

By far, though, the highlight of my year was the friendships I made. Friendships that extend beyond the spending time together realm or camping together under the stars in Butte for the summer folk festival, though those are lovely memories as well. The friendships I’m talking about are the surrogate mothers who took me under their wing, checked in regularly, and shared my successes and challenges during that year.

Friendships like my roommate during my AmeriCorps VISTA year, a local girl my age, who embraced me into her family and town and never let me feel lonely.

Oct 27, 2016

In Memoriam: Everyone Deserves Someone in Their Corner like Abby Zent

By Lois Nembhard, Acting Director, Social Innovation Fund

As someone who has had the privilege of working in the Social Innovation Fund, almost since the initiative was announced by First Lady Michelle Obama, its status as a six-year-old program has helped nearly 700,000 people. I am especially proud of two moments this past week.

On Monday, the White House hosted the My Brother’s Keeper “What Works Showcase.” This showcase included a science-fair meets demo-day style event with more than 30 of the nation’s premiere organizations that are applying rigorous evidence of impact across MBK’s cradle-to-college-and-career-goals.

Of those 30+ organizations, 19 are part of the Social Innovation Fund’s network of grantees and sub-grantees.

What unites all of our grantees is a focus on finding what works and making it work for more people. That means mentoring efforts that keep kids engaged and on track to finish school, or other initiatives that help people, including homeless veterans, find new jobs.

In fact, President Obama echoed this What Works philosophy last week in a speech about employing technology to help us address challenges, “We’ve applied data and evidence to social policy, to find out what works, to scale up when it works - and stop funding things that don’t, thereby fostering a new era of social innovation.“

Oct 21, 2016

What Works Dispatch: Growing and Sustaining Effective Programming to Serve More People in Need

By: Bill Basl, Director of AmeriCorps

They came from every borough in New York City and beyond to dedicate themselves to serving for one year making a positive change in communities throughout New York City.

What they will bring will vary as many recently completed college and are eager for that first opportunity to experience real world issues and put into place all that learning. Others have learned much from their varied life experiences and taken the best of those forward to share with others. Some have just graduated from high school and are eager to see what they can offer and learn before deciding what career to pursue. All come with commitment in their hearts, eager to stand for something.

You see their faces below, representing what America has to offer and what makes America a great nation. For it’s the “doers” who place into action their energy and enthusiasm and wade into the fray of American life willing to help improve the lives of others. They aren’t motivated by what they get but rather what they give to others. Over 400 stood together pledging their willingness to not only “get things done” “but to carry the commitment this year and beyond”. Wherever they serve in New York, they will be our Ambassadors of Hope-standing for the best values of America when perhaps some have lost faith in themselves and are looking for examples of someone steeped in selfless service to others.

You can also serve this year, the year of One Million AmeriCorps members.

Your face can become part of these faces. It’s your chance to stand for someone other than yourself. It’s your chance to be courageous enough to say with the support of others that we truly can make a difference. Our country has provided us this opportunity to serve. Let’s go forward as others have done and be about building the more perfect union.

Oct 18, 2016

AmeriCorps Kicks Off Service in NYC