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Dear State Service Commissions and National Directs,
Good morning! I hope this finds you well. Across the country, it’s been a great summer for national service. I want to thank you for the role you and your organization play in leveraging national service volunteers to address the challenges in your local communities.
Over the last year, we’ve engaged you and continued to keep you updated on the changes that CNCS is making as part of our Transformation and Sustainability Plan. These include important changes to the roles played by the CNCS Program Officers and Grant Officers with whom you interact on a regular basis, as well as to the offices where our staff will be located. In the next ten months, we will transition the day-to-day CNCS contact for your organization to a “Portfolio Manager” who will be responsible for overseeing both the programmatic and financial aspects of your grant.
We recognize this change will require a transition – in certain cases, from Program Officers and Grant Officers you’ve worked with for some time – and so I want to take an opportunity to share with you more information about what you can expect and how we’ll communicate with you.
The transition to your new Portfolio Manager will happen during one of three phases, based on the CNCS region in which you are located. A map of the regions is located here.
- Mountain, North Central, Northeast – October 2019 transition
- West, Midwest, Southeast – March 2020 transition
- South Central, Mid-Atlantic – June 2020 transition
For grantees located in the first three regions – Mountain, North Central and Northeast – here are some things to know about how the transition will work:
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Region Leadership – The Regional Administrator and Deputy Regional Administrator for each region have already begun their new positions, and they are putting the finishing touches on building out their teams. You can expect to receive an introductory email from them in the coming days.
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Start Dates – Senior Portfolio Managers, who will serve as supervisors in the regions, will begin their new positions and help open our new offices on September 16, 2019. Portfolio Managers will start on September 30, 2019. If your existing Program Officer and/or Grant Officer is transitioning to one of these new positions, we will notify you ahead of September 16 about who to contact for day-to-day questions/issues with your grant/project during the interim. In the meantime, please continue to work with the folks currently assigned to your grant or project.
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Transition Date – As part of a carefully sequenced transition, the hand-off from your assigned Program Officer and Grant Officer to your newly assigned Portfolio Manager will take place the week of October 14. The Senior Portfolio Manager for the state where your organization is located will provide you with more information in October, including new contact information, and the Portfolio Manager will then follow up with you directly.
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Staff Training – All regional office staff – whether experienced CNCS veterans or newly hired staff – will participate in CNCS’s new onboarding/training curriculum over their first three months. This curriculum is designed to ensure staff are trained in a consistent manner on the fundamentals of national service and managing federal awards. We are also committed to providing our teams with ongoing training and professional development opportunities.
What to do right now. Until you are notified, please continue to work with your currently-assigned Program Officer and Grant Officer.
I especially want to recognize the important contributions of our current CNCS Program and Grant Officers. Throughout this transition, these colleagues have remained committed to our grantees, sponsors, national service participants, and the communities we serve. Over the course of the coming year, many of these colleagues will join us in new roles with CNCS, while others will conclude their time at the agency. I want to thank each of them for their dedicated public service and commitment to our shared work.
We value your organization and the important role it plays in your communities, and we are committed to do all we can to ensure the transition to your newly assigned Portfolio Manager is seamless. Ultimately, we believe these changes – paired with investments our agency is making in training for our employees and updated resources available to organizations – will help us serve you better.
I want to thank you in advance for your patience with us as we implement these changes. And I look forward to discussing with you later this week on our ASN monthly update call.
In Service,
Chester W. Spellman
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