|
This summer was a busy one for CNCS and R&E. Check out some highlights from the past few months:
-
Senior
Corps and Health Benefits: Findings from
the first year of the Senior Corps Longitudinal Study, looking at the health
effects of Senior Corps service on volunteers and caregivers.
-
Sustaining
Evidence-based Work: The eighth in a series
of research briefs produced by the Social Innovation Fund (SIF) National
Assessment provides insight on how to sustain nonprofit, evidence-based
programming after federal funding.
-
AmeriCorps
and County-level Wellbeing: UT Austin Population Research Center, a
research grantee of R&E, looks at the
relationship between AmeriCorps presence and indicators of county-level
subjective wellbeing, as measured by language used in Twitter posts.
In February 2017, CNCS launched a free evaluation technical
assistance (TA) portal, accessible to all competitively funded AmeriCorps State
and National grantees and state commissions with active funding. The TA Portal enables grantees
and subgrantees to submit requests for evaluation TA support to address a
variety of evaluation needs, including evaluation design, implementation, and
reporting. TA can come in a variety of forms: one-time consultations, group
consultations, connecting with a topic-area expert, document review,
evaluator-to-evaluator technical consultation, or whatever other assistance you
may need.
To access the portal, go to https://americorpsevaluationta.norc.org,
create a profile, and submit a request. We look forward to assisting you with
any and all of your evaluation needs.
In its 2017 Notice of Federal Funding Opportunity, the AmeriCorps Grant
Competition call for applications introduced a new tier of grants: applications
for evidence-based planning grants that develop new national service models
seeking to integrate members in innovative ways into evidence-based
interventions. The purpose of these grants is to identify new evidence-based
service interventions in CNCS focus areas that may have less evidence, such as
economic opportunity and healthy futures.
CNCS awarded seven evidence-based planning grants this summer. One main
distinction of these grants is that they are funded through CNCS’ R&E, which adds R&E support in helping grantees
design their evaluation plans, in addition to the support they already receive
through the AmeriCorps Program Office.
The grantees include three direct AmeriCorps grantees and four Commission
sub-grantees:
- Antioch University (direct grantee)
- Association of Clinicians for the Underserved
(direct grantee)
- Campus Compact of the Mountain West (direct
grantee)
- Children’s Forum (Florida State Commission
sub-grantee)
- Artesian Community School (Tennessee State
Commission sub-grantee)
- Appalachian Regional Coalition on Homelessness (Tennessee
State Commission sub-grantee)
- The National Reentry Network for Returning
Citizens (DC State Commission sub-grantee)
Stay tuned for an upcoming blog series featuring these grantees. Please visit our website for additional
information about the agency, and its specific programs: https://www.nationalservice.gov/.
|
