Charities Get Ready to Put Millions of Federal Volunteers to Work

The votes by both houses of Congress last month to approve a big expansion of national and community-service programs left nonprofit leaders and other champions of the plan feeling euphoric. With President Obama’s support, the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act was passed by large majorities of the House and Senate. The legislation authorizes new spending of up to $6-billion over the next five years to spread volunteer efforts nationwide.

But now begins the hard work of turning into reality the plan to triple by 2017 the number of participants in AmeriCorps, the main national-service program, and create an array of new volunteer programs. AmeriCorps members work on projects for 10 months to a year for a modest stipend, winning an education grant when they finish.

Surge in Applications

Nonprofit groups have already begun to lay plans to respond to both a rising demand for help during the economic downturn and a sharp increase in applications for national-service positions. That jump has been attributed to both a new spirit of service and an interest in alternatives to disappearing jobs.

As just one example, applications to City Year, a group that recruits young AmeriCorps members to tutor, serve as mentors, and offer other assistance in schools for 10 months, have more than tripled over the past year, says Michael Brown, the chief executive. At the same time, he says, “we’ve been asked to scale up our program by a number of superintendents.”

He notes that City Year’s mission seems to dovetail with the Education Corps that was created in the national-service bill to enlist people to help improve the country’s schools. So the group has asked school districts and other interested parties in the 18 U.S. cities where it operates to draw up plans to compete for some of the new AmeriCorps positions.

The mandate to expand AmeriCorps will present some challenges, however, especially given the recession’s impact. For example, the federal money does not cover all of the costs of taking on new volunteers. In fact, nonprofit groups, or the state commissions that operate national-service programs, are usually required by law to find matching money from other sources — although that requirement can sometimes be waived.

“In any other kind of climate, it wouldn’t be that hard a sell,” says Richard Murphy, who heads Youthline America, in New York, which builds communications systems for young people, and serves on the board of Public Allies, a national group that operates an AmeriCorps program to train young people for nonprofit and public-service jobs. “This is a tough environment to raise money.” Nicky Goren, acting chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that will carry out the Serve America Act, says officials there have been talking to foundations about the possibility of providing money to help with the new programs. The Council on Foundations, which represents more than 2,000 grant makers, has organized a conference call to brief its members on the legislation.

Mr. Murphy says the recession may complicate life in another way for groups that want AmeriCorps members. If they have recently laid off people, they may have trouble proving they are not using the members to replace employees — a practice that is not allowed.

But, Mr. Murphy adds: “All of these are good problems. It’s better to have this kind of problem than no change at all.”

Money for Charities

That optimistic spirit mostly prevails. In addition to bolstering national service, the Serve America Act creates a new program to channel money to innovative nonprofit groups — a move that has been promoted by a wide range of nonprofit organizations, including more than 70 that make up the America Forward coalition. The Social Innovation Funds program has a budget of $50-million for 2010, rising to $100-million for 2014 — with matching money required from nonfederal sources.

The legislation also creates a Nonprofit Capacity Building Program to spend $5-million a year for five years to provide training to small and medium-size charities in areas like financial planning, grant-proposal writing, and complying with federal tax laws.

But not everyone is happy. Some Republicans criticized the legislation during the Congressional debates for being too costly and inserting government into what they said should be private acts of volunteerism. Some also waged a losing campaign to prohibit national-service money from going to organizations that engage in “political or legislative advocacy.”

Some experts have criticized previous AmeriCorps expansions for increasing the number of bodies without providing adequate resources to ensure the programs are effective.

“It’s not good policy to always be driving toward the most number of members with the least amount of money,” says Shirley Sagawa, a visiting fellow at the Center for American Progress who served in President Clinton’s White House when he created AmeriCorps. “We should be looking at return on investment.”

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, who chaired a Senate hearing on the national-service bill, urged supporters to ensure that enough money is allocated for managerial functions when Congress approves the 2010 budget for the Corporation for National and Community Service.

“To pass an authorization that does not have the resources behind it makes us feel good,” she said. “We want to do good.”

Ms. Sagawa praises the bill’s emphasis on measuring results, for example by setting “indicators” of success for the service programs.

The Education Corps, for example, will be expected to measure “secondary-school graduation rates” and “student engagement, including student attendance and student behavior” to see whether the corps members have done anything to improve the schools. Ms. Sagawa urges nonprofit groups who want to apply for the new AmeriCorps money to study those criteria. “Even if you’re working in education, if you can’t show how you’re advancing the things in the bill, you won’t necessarily be able to participate,” she says.