House Subcommittee Rejects Full Funding of the Kennedy Serve America Act

David Obey (D-WI), Chair House Appropriations Subcommittee

The House Appropriations subcommittee disappointed service supporters yesterday by offering a lower funding figure than needed to implement the Kennedy Serve America Act.

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services, Education and Related Agencies approved only $1,059,016,000 in funding for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) as a part of the fiscal year 2010 appropriations bill.

This figure is $90 million short of the President’s full budget request of $1.149 billion, and does not fully fund the Edward Kennedy Serve America Act. Implementation of the Act is dependent on appropriations, but the Appropriations

2008 Peace Corps Writers Awards Announced

Yesterday, RPCV John Coyne announced this year’s Peace Corps Writers awards, including categories in fiction, nonfiction, travel writing, poetry, memoir, photography, children’s writing, and Peace Corps experience.

Peace Corps Writers annually presents awards for books by Peace Corps writers. Winners of those awards have included Joanne Omang, Norm Rush, Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Paul Theroux.

The winning books published in 2008 are:

Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award
The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed
By Michael Meyer (China 1995-97)
Walker & Company

Maria Thomas Fiction Award

New, Stimulus-funded AmeriCorps Programs Getting Off the Ground

New short-term AmeriCorps programs, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, are getting off the ground.

President Obama signed his stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, on February 17th, 2009. It included additional $201 million in funding for the Corporation for National and Community Service for AmeriCorps State and National, and AmeriCorps VISTA programs.

Funding has gone to existing programs to increase the number of open positions, and it’s also gone to organizations already running AmeriCorps programs, to create brand-new, short-term corps.

One example of a new stimulus-funded AmeriCorps program is the Oregon Community Action Corps — now accepting applications for 24 full-time AmeriCorps positions serving throughout the state of Oregon. OCAC will operate out of the American Red Cross Oregon Trail Chapter here in Portland, which also operates the state’s largest AmeriCorps State program, the Oregon State Service Corps and our largest VISTA program Clara Barton VISTA Corps (both are currently recruiting, also).

AmeriCorps members with the Oregon Community Action Corps (OCAC) serve individually or in small teams at

Extending Noncompetitive Eligibility to All Former, Full-Time AmeriCorps Members

A movement to extend one benefit of AmeriCorps VISTA and Peace Corps service to other service corps alums.

When AmeriCorps VISTA members and Peace Corps Volunteers finish their service, they are eligible for a year of noncompetitive eligibility when applying for jobs in the Federal government. AmeriCorps State and National members are not eligible for this benefit, though there’s mounting support to change this discrepancy.

Having noncompetitive eligibility status means you can apply for federal jobs posted with a special status (“noncompetitive appointment eligibility”) in addition to federal jobs that are open to the public. Additionally, Federal managers are free to hire you without holding a competition, so hiring and selection processes are expedited for people who’ve already demonstrated a commitment to public service.

With noncompetitive eligibility status, you don’t gain any entitlement to Federal employment but your special status does give federal agencies the option of directly selecting you for a vacant position if you are rated as “qualified” for a particular

MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship Honors Innovative University Service Programs

Students at the Urban Health Program at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan provide health and socio-economic support to Karachi residents.

Guest post from Innovations in Civic Participation Intern, Alice Wu.

On June 6, eight innovative higher education programs were recognized by the MacJannet Foundation and Talloires Network for their positive university and community impact. Leaders of universities and student representatives gathered in Talloires, France, to award these extraordinary programs the MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship.  The winners were previously announced on April 16 after careful review by a selection committee of leaders in higher education civic engagement. Video of the prize winners can be seen here. And the eight programs are listed here.

The first prize went to the Urban Health Program from Aga Khan University in Pakistan, which is recognized by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) grant for Universities in Solidarity for the Health of Disadvantaged Communities (UNI-SOL). This long-standing program provides health and socio-economic support to the residents of the squatter communities in Karachi, Pakistan.

Dr. Muhammed Yousuf of Aga Khan University commented that the “main objective is to provide teaching and learning that is important to medical students to learn about the community dynamics and social issues in Karachi.”

Funding the Kennedy Serve America Act: Appropriations Process Begins Soon in Congress

Obama signs the Serve America Act, 4/09

Beginning in early July, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will mark up the fiscal year 2010 Labor, Health & Human Services, and Education Appropriations bills.

The Kennedy Serve America Act, enacted in April, authorized the expansion of national service, but offered no promises in terms of how much funding Congress would give the Corporation for National and Community Service to implement the Act. According to the organization Voices For National Service, President Obama’s budget request for the Corporation for National and Community Service totaled $1.149 billion, including funding for:

AmeriCorps: to create 10,000 new AmeriCorps positions (the first step towards the Serve America Act’s goal of 250,000 annual members by the year 2017). Learn why funding these positions is important for local communities throughout the United States.

• $372.5 million for AmeriCorps State and National grants to support 74,861 members, $101 million or 37% increase over the FY09 enacted level.

Income Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness are Here!

Anne.Oeldorf's Flickr Photostream

The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 officially goes into effect today, July 1st, and income-based repayment (IBR) applications are now available from many major lenders, including the U.S. Department of Education.

According to IBRinfo.org, you should contact your lender directly to apply for IBR.

• Check out forms and requirements for Direct Loans through the U.S. Department of Education
• To look up information about your loans including whose servicing your current loan, check out the U.S. Department of Education’s National Student Loan Data System, the government’s central database for student aid.
• For other loans, check directly with your lender.

Also, take a look at the resources mentioned in this post as well as IBRInfo.org’s FAQ.

According to IBRInfo.org, if you have exhausted other avenues and still face “serious problems” applying for IBR,

RPCV Senator Dodd Introduces More Peace Corps Bill

This week, RPCV Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) introduced s.1382, the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009.

The bill, as currently written, would authorize $450,000,000 for fiscal year 2010; $575,000,000 for fiscal year 2011; and $700,000,000 for fiscal year 2012 — representing a gradual increase to double Peace Corps’s current budget. The bill also requires the agency director carry out assessments that lead to a new strategic plan. (As of now, Obama hasn’t appointed a new Peace Corps director, Jody Olsen serves as Acting Director.)

Read the legislation (PDF). After it was introduced, the bill was sent to the Committee on Foreign Relations. (Is your Senator a member of this committee?)

Here is the transcript of Dodd’s speech on the floor of the Senate Thursday. Thanks to Jonathan Pearson at the National Peace Corps Association for this text:

Mr. President:

I rise today to introduce the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009.

For 48 years, the Peace Corps has stood as a uniquely American institution.  What other great nation would

NCVS Opening Plenary Monday Night

Michelle Obama speaking at NCVS 09

The launch of the National Conference on Volunteering and Service Monday night brought a huge crowd of people out to hear First Lady Michelle Obama speak, among other familiar faces.

When I arrived, the throngs of people waiting in line to go through security matched the throngs of people already inside the hall, and everyone was waiting for Michelle Obama. Helping the time fly was comic/emcee Wally Collins who made fun of individual audience members between introducing musical acts like Sondre Lerche and the Glide Ensemble. Also in the lead-in to the main event, Shawn Rubin accepted the Eli Segal Award from AmeriCorps Alums, Alan Khazei of Be the Change, Inc., spoke introducing corporate sponsor Shannon Schuyler of PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

The highlight of the night didn’t come at the end, as I would have expected. Michelle Obama took the stage somewhere in the middle of the opening event, and everyone in the crowd cheered and stood if they could. Her words were inspiring of course, but I was more stunned by the simple fact of her presence—the President’s wife chose to spend time with us. She used to run a Public Allies AmeriCorps program—and said to start that she was with her people. What I liked the best about what she said was the reaction she and President Obama received when they each decided to forego lucrative careers for nonprofit jobs—Mrs. Obama at Public Allies and Pres. Obama at various nonprofits like the Developing Communities Project where he was a community organizer. She said, regarding people in our lives who dismiss our career choices: “But what these folks don’t understand is that the story of progress in this nation has always been the story of people who chose — in times of trial and struggle — to serve it.”

Mrs. Obama also announced the launch of the United We Serve summer of service initiative, which will last through Sept. 11th of this year, which will make community service easy to do for anyone, and focus on health care, energy

Daily Points of Light Award to Cindy Kerr of ConKerr Cancer

Actress Kerry Washington, representing L’Oreal, presented the Daily Points of Light Award just now to

Adorable child from the ConKerr Cancer website

Cindy Kerr in the lead up to the opening session of the National Conference on Volunteering and Service.

Cindy Kerr’s organization ConKerr Cancer has mobilized volunteers to make over 90,000 pillow cases for sick kids.  Her endeavor began in 2002, inspired by her son Ryan who was diagnosed with a rare childhood cancer in 2002. She started making pillow cases to brighten up his hospital room, and soon began to make them for other kids at the hospital.

From the ConKerr Cancer website:

In 2008, Ryan lost his very brave battle with cancer but the pillowcase project – now a not-for- profit called ConKerr Cancer – has grown in amazing ways.  In just two years, Cindy and thousands of volunteers have provided over 90,000 pillowcases to sick children in hospitals across North America and in South Africa.  School groups, sewing circles, church groups and fabric stores have all pitched in and are making pillowcases for the kids.

In 2007, Cindy was an honoree of L’Oreal’s Women of Worth Award.

Careers: Brand New Career Transitions Book for Current and Former Service Corps Members

My career transitions book is live on Idealist! Free, downloadable, accessible from any place with an internet connection — and written just for you.

I’ve been working on this for almost a year — giant thanks to everyone who helped out reading and offering feedback!

Intended for national and international service corps audiences of all ages, Service Corps to Social Impact Career – A Companion to The Idealist Guides to Nonprofit Careers is a free new book from Idealist.org.

While most resources and trainings focusing on “life after” the corps begin and end with career search skill building, Service Corps to Social Impact Career emphasizes integrating career development throughout the term.

The book highlights practices that current corps members can incorporate during their service experience which also prepare them for their next steps, including discerning their professional calling, gaining relevant skills, building relationships, and documenting their accomplishments.

For corps members actively transitioning from their service term to a career or further education, Service Corps to Social

National Conference on Volunteering and Service ‘09: Participate from Home through Live Webcasts

The 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service (NCVS) starts today!

Last night, Conference organizers announced that they’re offering the first-ever live webcast of a couple of the events this week so that people who can’t be in the room can still see what’s going on and pose questions to the speakers. Learn more & register by following the hyperlinked event titles below:

National Service Town Hall Meeting
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 — 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM PST (2:30 PM-4:30 PM Eastern)

Launching Today: YouTube’s Video Volunteers

Originally posted on today’s Idealist homepage blog by Julia Smith.

President Obama has asked everyone in the United States to heed the call of service – to pitch in and make their communities a better place. YouTube is stepping up to provide a very “21st century” way of doing just that: a new program called YouTube’s Video Volunteers.

The mission of YouTube’s Video Volunteers platform is to connect nonprofit organizations with skilled video makers who can help them broadcast their causes through video, reaching new audiences online and driving action around issues and projects that matter to them.

The Video Volunteers page shows video-related volunteer opportunities that have been posted to Allforgood.org (which includes listings from Idealist.org and VolunteerMatch). As a result, a YouTuber eager to help out might find a listing like this (”Afro Diaspora Music Video Website” in New York City) or this (”Promotional Video for the GO-Science Challenger Learning Center” in Greenville, NC).

Do you work at a nonprofit that needs help making a video? From now on, when you post a volunteer opportunity on Idealist, make sure to use the words Video Volunteer in your posting. That way, it will show up in the AllforGood feed – and as a result, on the YouTube Video Volunteers page.

To learn more, visit youtube.com/videovolunteers.

Service Nation Strategy Session in San Francisco as part of NCVS

Monday, Service Nation coalition members and others gathered for a luncheon at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, prior to the kick off of the National Conference on Volunteering and Service.

Overall the strategy luncheon was more luncheon than strategy, but I was glad to see an effort made to bring the Service Nation campaign spirit into the National Conference on Volunteering and Service gathering, which overall seeemed to involve more media attention and celebrity involvement this year than in the past.

Speakers included:

Alan Khaizei, founder of Be the Change, Inc, leader organizer of the Service Nation campaign, spoke—summarizing the

The Idealist.org Career Center at NCVS

At the National Conference on Volunteering and Service this week, look for the Idealist Career Center in the West Hall’s Third Floor Lobby, near the escalators and against the wall.

Monday through Wednesday, we’ll have staff on hand for one-on-one or small-group conversations about careers, as well as a series of 30-minute workshops to address specific topics. All of these are free to attend, and no reservation is required.

Monday, June 22

3-5 pm        20-minute Career Conversations with Steven Joiner, Director, Career Transition Program or Russ Finkelstein, Associate Director. Got burning questions? Need a sounding board? Here’s a chance to brainstorm ideas with some people on our careers team.

Tuesday, June 23

Supporting Your Corps Members’s Career Transitions

Next week at NCVS, in addition to blogging & helping staff the Idealist Career Center on the Third Floor Exhibit Hall, I’ll be offering a workshop for service corps program directors and team leaders called “Incorporating Career Transitions Throughout the Term of Service.”

My workshop will take place first thing Wednesday morning as part of the NCVS events at the Moscone Center — and I am looking forward to seeing a room full of wide awake, rearing to go participants. I hope you can join us!

The idea behind the workshop is that preparing corps members for their career transition out of your program benefits both your program and the members themselves. With this workshop, participants can explore the components of an effective career transitions support strategy, and share effective practices with each other and me.

Because I learned how to train people as a Peace Corps Volunteer in China (where I taught English

Film Screenings at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service

Sargent Shriver, an American Idealist

NCVS is next week in San Francisco, and will bring together thousands of volunteer and service leaders from around the country — and world.

The National Conference on Volunteering and Service (NCVS) is the world’s largest gathering of volunteer and service leaders from the nonprofit, government and corporate sectors. Co-convened by Points of Light Institute and the Corporation for National and Community Service, the annual event gives participants an opportunity to learn, connect and be inspired through a wide range of plenary sessions, workshops, special events, service projects, exhibits, specialized corporate tracks, and more. More than 4,000 attendees are expected to attend the 2009 conference, taking place June 22-24 in San Francisco.  

One thing I am getting really excited about — other than getting to see old friends and meet new people (you?) — is the mini-film festival taking place Tuesday afternoon from 4-6 pm.

Two films are showing at the conference as part of the Civic.Energy.Generation. Film Festival:

New Podcast: A Pride Month Interview – Lesbian and Gay Perspectives in AmeriCorps and Peace Corps

June is Pride Month, so The New Service podcast from

Gay Pride 8-colors Flag by Stonewall Veteran Gilbert Baker

Idealist.org is taking a closer look at the experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals serving in Peace Corps and AmeriCorps.

Today’s guests are lesbian and gay former service corps participants:

• Chad Jeremy, a former AmeriCorps NCCC corps member, currently a training specialist with AmeriCorps NCCC in Perry Point, MD. Chad is an officer with National Service GLOBE, an affinity group for LGBT folks involved with national service.
• Kate Kuykendall, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (China, 1999-2001); currently a Public

A Pride Month Interview: The First Known Transgender Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Speaks Out

A Pride Month interview.

A recently-Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, and the first known transgender person to serve, writes about his experiences—first on the website for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Returned Peace Corps Volunteer group (also known as the LGBT RPCVs), and now in an interview with my intern Sara Lozito and me.

The interview here is timed to appear on the same day as our podcast interview for Pride Month. The RPCV has chosen to remain anonymous for security purposes.

To give you a little background here are some excerpts from the LGBT RPCVs website:

My desire to become a Peace Corps volunteer stemmed from not only believing in the mission and goals of PC, but because I wanted to gain valuable international experience

Pride Month Podcast Transcript

Gay Pride 8-colors Flag by Stonewall Veteran Gilbert Baker

Below is the transcript of our June podcast, “Lesbian and Gay Perspectives in AmeriCorps and Peace Corps.” Huge thanks to podcast intern Sara Lozito, an AmeriCorps member, for work in creating the transcript.

Amy: Welcome to the Idealist podcast. I’m Amy Potthast and this is the The New Service Podcast from Idealist.org – moving people from good intentions to action.

June is Pride Month, so The New Service podcast is taking a closer look at the experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals serving in Peace Corps and AmeriCorps. The terms lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender are abbreviated throughout the show as LGBT or GLBT.

Today’s guests are lesbian and gay former service corps participants: