AmeriCorps:
A First-Year Status Report by Independent Evaluators

A Forum — July 21, 1995

Launching AmeriCorps: First-Year Implementation of the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993, a new report from Public/Private Ventures (P/PV), chronicles how states carried out the first year implementation of AmeriCorps, the signature component of the Act. This report is part of a larger P/PV study that addresses the effectiveness of the Act in creating or expanding national service in the U.S., particularly the role states play in that process.
 
The report, based on documentation in nine states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Washington and West Virginia), included interviews with commissioners, staff and other officials; attendance at commission meetings; review of documents, reports and proposals; as well as interviews with staff of the Corporation for National Service.

Tom Smith, Vice President for Special Projects at P/PV, began by stating that the report covered the implementation period through the end of 1994 when some of the AmeriCorps programs began. Thus, the report does not focus on program costs, successes or failures. Smith also outlined three controversial issues in the service policy arena that he wished to separate from implementation issues: 1) the difference between service  (defined as full-time and long-term) and voluntarism; 2) paid versus non-paid service; 3) targeted (whether participants are selected based on their socio-economic status) versus non-targeted service opportunities. According to Smith, there is no "public policy bottom line" about any of these issues; they are value-laden and subjective questions. This is especially important for AmeriCorps because it is politically vulnerable on all three fronts: AmeriCorps favors service over voluntarism; is compensated and remains untargeted. The more objective task for P/PV was to ask, "How do you implement whatever form of service you want and what works?"

The legislative process for the National and Community Service Trust Act was fraught with glitches and delays; the bill passed with thin bipartisan support and objections not about service as an ideal, but service in a particular form. The entity created to carry out the Act's provisions was the Corporation for National Service. The Corporation replaced the previous Commission on National and Community Service and absorbed the staff and responsibilities of the federally funded ACTION programs.

In the first year, the Corporation pushed to get programs into place quickly and effectively at as large a volume as possible. Program start-up and participant enrollment were the priorities, with an original target of 20,000 participants in place by early fall 1994 (only a year after the bill was signed). The intent was to establish an early record of success and results that would work in its favor when the legislation came up for reauthorization, and when it came time for second-year funding decisions.

To meet the ambitious goal of such a large program roll-out, regulation-writing and review, grant-making and program start-up were scheduled on a tight timetable. The central finding of the P/PV report is that the accelerated and hectic pace of the first year dominated the overall proceedings, costing AmeriCorps the development of infrastructure and of leadership at the state level.

Other Key Findings (from a P/PV handout)

Strengths and Accomplishments

• Numerous accomplishments on the part of states during the first year included establishment of commissions, grant application process, and selection and start-up of new programs
• Strong emphasis on quality in program selection process
• Satisfactory working relationship established between the Corporation for National Service and the states

Issues

• Degree of state leadership limited, both by compressed first-year schedule and prominent role of the Corporation
• Corporation focus on quality occasionally amounted to second-guessing state choices regarding programs to be funded
• The funding mechanism for AmeriCorps state programs (which included both formula-based and competitively awarded grants) was not helpful and confusing to states

Smith elaborated on several of these findings. The goal of quick program start-up meant that planning and capacity-building for the state commissions were slighted; the states ran the request-for-proposal process, rather than thinking "What does service really mean in this state?"

In making funding decisions, states demonstrated a similar tendency to make short-term decisions rather than developing a deeper, more long-term vision for service. Funds were to flow on a formula and competitive basis. The formula programs (funded based on a state's population) were to meet broad goals in the legislation, while the competitive programs were supposed to meet more narrowly defined priorities. But the states picked the best programs and then looked at the two pots of money strategically -- for example, a state might decide to put the best programs in the formula pool to guarantee their funding. Thus, the issue of priorities was largely ignored. "The process was one of ranking programs against each other rather than a strategic look at participant development or public service needs in the state and then developing programs around that," Smith said.

Consequently, the overall funding mechanism failed to achieve its regulatory aims, which partly were intended to build a national agenda for AmeriCorps, and it did not help states develop effective program strategies. It left individual programs uncertain of whether they would be funded (and thus unable to recruit or build staff), and if so, how much funding they would receive.

The Corporation decided early on to make quality an explicit theme, producing a 100-page document on its vision of quality programs and scrutinizing the individual programs within each state package. In a manner not commonly found among federal grant-making organizations, the Corporation, rather than establishing minimum standards for acceptability, set ambitious quality criteria, emphasized them consistently, and assessed the funding proposals submitted by states against them. However, there were some instances where preferences for particular kinds of programs (e.g., operating programs over planning grants) played more of a role than quality principles. The downside, according to some states, is that quality became a subjective factor and the states complained that this became intrusive.

It is unclear how the federal-state balance in shaping AmeriCorps will play out. The Corporation extended the federal role to a considerable degree, seeking to make AmeriCorps a nationally visible and recognized program, with the states assuming programmatic and managerial responsibility. How effectively the Corporation continues to play this role, how comfortable states feel about the activist posture of the Corporation, and the extent to which states develop coherent and lasting service networks are all key issues to examine. P/PV will look at these questions and will focus on programs and participants in its second-year report.

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