AmeriCorps Fosters a Lifetime of Service

AmeriCorps Fosters a Lifetime of Service

September marks the final month of AmeriCorps’ 30th anniversary celebration. I hope you share the pride and excitement I’ve felt over the past 12 months celebrating AmeriCorps commitment to improving lives, strengthening communities, and fostering civic engagement through service and volunteering. This year truly drove home the fact that serving with AmeriCorps or with AmeriCorps Seniors can spark a lifetime of volunteering, civic engagement, and giving back, creating a service movement across the nation. The 30th anniversary celebration also cemented the importance of measuring the impact of AmeriCorps service. As we move into the future of AmeriCorps, I look forward to building a new generation of evidence that captures the ever-evolving nature of our work together.

In service,
Mary Hyde, Ph.D., Director,
Office of Research and Evaluation

Sparking a Lifetime of Service 

Highlights from the AmeriCorps Member Exit Survey Dataset

The AmeriCorps Member Exit Survey captures outgoing members’ service experiences upon their exit from three AmeriCorps programs: AmeriCorps State and National, AmeriCorps VISTA, and AmeriCorps NCCC. Since 2015, nearly 400,000 members have responded to this survey. Explore highlights from AmeriCorps Member Exit Survey data in this suite of products including fact sheets, infographics, and more.

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Highlights from Studies of Alumni and Long-Serving Participants

Research indicates that AmeriCorps service improves alumni’s professional and educational outcomes. We accomplish this in part by helping AmeriCorps participants develop lasting skills and benefits that can support them even beyond their service program.

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Research Grantee Spotlight: AmeriCorps Research Grantee Story Map

This story map of AmeriCorps research grantees represents our dedication to investing in the type of foundational research on civic engagement that supports efforts to understand how people of all ages and backgrounds make a difference in communities across the country.

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The Future of Virtual Volunteerism Among Older Adults

Volunteering supports positive health, well-being, and increased socialization for older adults. The COVID-19 pandemic increased health and isolation risks while limiting traditional on-site volunteer placements. Virtual volunteer strategies have quickly developed to fill the gap in volunteerism opportunities. This effort from our research grantee at the University of Maine is exploring the opportunities, and challenges of this approach from volunteer, host program, and site perspectives.

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Research Poster

Podcast: How AmeriCorps Uses Data to Support Communities Through National Service and Volunteerism

Watch this episode of Mathematica’s "On the Evidence" podcast featuring our director, Mary Hyde, Ph.D., and AmeriCorps grantee Maggie’s Place on the role of data and research in helping AmeriCorps and its grantees deliver on their missions.

They talk about the kinds of evidence that AmeriCorps and grantees like Maggie’s Place collect, how that evidence is used to drive impact, and how the role of evidence in guiding AmeriCorps’ work has evolved over time.

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Webinar: Recovery Coaching for Substance Use Disorders: Evidence from a Recent AmeriCorps Evaluation and Capacity Building Project

Join the Office of Research and Evaluation as we share findings from an Evaluation of AmeriCorps-Supported Recovery Coach Programs: Fiscal Years 2020-2022 celebrating National Recovery Month and AmeriCorps’ efforts to fund programs targeting opioid and other substance use disorders. ​During this webinar, audiences will learn about the evidence-building approaches of the Office of Research and Evaluation to increase AmeriCorps funding of promising strategies in substance use treatment and national priority areas, as well as the methodology, findings, and implications of a recently conducted bundled evaluation and evaluation capacity building among AmeriCorps-supported organizations.

Thursday, Sept. 26, 3 p.m. ET

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Video: What is AmeriCorps?

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Evidence Exchange Highlights

Visit the Evidence Exchange