1201 New York Ave., NW 

Washington, DC 20525 

202-606-5000 

NationalService.gov

Fact Sheet

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) improves

lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service

and volunteering. As the nation's largest grant maker in support of service

and volunteering, CNCS engages more than five million Americans of all

ages and backgrounds in service to their communities each year through the

Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, VISTA, NCCC, and Learn and Serve America

programs, and leads President Obama’s call to service initiative, United We

Serve. Participants in CNCS programs and the community volunteers they

help coordinate enable tens of thousands of national and local nonprofit

organizations, faith-based groups, schools, and municipal agencies to solve

tough problems and meet local needs in education, health, the environment,

veterans, economic opportunity, and other critical areas.

AmeriCorps provides opportunities for more

than 80,000 Americans each year to give

intensive service to their communities and

country through three programs:

AmeriCorps State and National, AmeriCorps

VISTA, and AmeriCorps NCCC (National

Civilian Community Corps). AmeriCorps

members tutor and mentor youth, build

affordable housing, assist veterans and 

military families, provide health services, 

run after-school programs, help communities

respond to disasters, and build the capacity of

nonprofit groups to become self-sustaining,

among many other activities. AmeriCorps

members in recent years have stepped up

their role in recruiting, training, and managing volunteers of all ages and backgrounds,

supporting 2.5 million community volunteers in 2010 alone. In exchange for a year of

full-time service, members earn a Segal

AmeriCorps Education Award that can be

used to pay for college or graduate school, or

to pay back qualified student loans. Since

1994, more than 706,000 Americans have

given 860 million hours of service through

AmeriCorps.

Each year Senior Corps taps the skills, 

talents, and experience of nearly 500,000

Americans age 55 and older to meet a wide

range of community challenges through three

programs: RSVP, the Foster Grandparent

Program, and the Senior Companion

Program. RSVP volunteers help local police

departments conduct safety patrols, 

participate in environmental projects, 

provide intensive educational services to 

children and adults, and respond to natural

disasters, among many other activities. Foster

Grandparents serve one-on-one as tutors and

mentors to young people with special needs.

Senior Companions help homebound seniors

and other adults maintain independence in

their own homes.

AmeriCorps

Senior Corps

■ Nation’s largest grantmaker

for service and volunteering

■ Participants serve with

70,000 nonprofits

■ Engages 5 million

Americans in service 

each year

• 440,000 Senior Corps 

volunteers

• 80,000 AmeriCorps 

members

• 1.5 million Learn and 

Serve America students 

• 3 million community 

volunteers

■ Leverages $800 million in

outside funding and donations each year

■ Leads President’s United We

Serve initiative
1201 New York Ave., NW ★ Washington, DC 20525 ★ 202-606-5000 

NationalService.gov

Learn and Serve America provides an "on-ramp" to a lifetime of civic engagement for approximately 1.5 million

students each year. The program awards grants to state

education agencies, schools, nonprofit groups, and institutions of higher education to engage students in service

activities linked to academic achievement. This type of

learning, called service-learning, increases academic

achievement while developing in young people the habits

of citizenship. As part of its goal of making student service

and service-learning a common practice across the country,

Learn and Serve America provides resources to teachers,

faculty members, schools, and community groups.

Learn and Serve America

President Barack Obama is deeply committed to advancing

the role of service in addressing our national challenges and in

making service part of the life of every American. With bipartisan Congressional support, the President has worked with

CNCS to focus service on pressing social problems; expand

opportunities for more Americans of all ages and backgrounds to serve; build the capacity of individuals, nonprofits,

and communities; and embrace social innovation. The

agency’s recently adopted 2011-2015 Strategic Plan builds on

the strong foundation of national service that has developed

over the past four decades and the vision set forth in the

bipartisan Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009.

The plan recognizes that national service will have its greatest

impact if we target resources on a core set of critical problems

and carefully measure our progress. It prioritizes six major

challenges facing communities: disaster services, economic

opportunity, education, environmental stewardship, healthy

futures, and veterans and military families. It also provides

strategies and performance measures which determine how

we will evaluate our success over the next five years.

Service as a Solution 

In June 2009, CNCS joined with the White House to

launch United We Serve, a challenge to all Americans to

engage in sustained, meaningful community service to help

in our nation's renewal and recovery. Americans have

responded enthusiastically to the President's call, joining

with friends and neighbors to replenish food banks, support veterans and military families, restore public lands,

and more. The Administration worked with technology

leaders to develop a volunteer matching tool for the

Serve.gov website featuring more than 250,000 volunteer

opportunities, and teamed up with top sports stars and

celebrities to promote volunteer service.

United We Serve

To learn more about CNCS or any of its programs, visit NationalService.gov or call 202-606-5000.

More Information

■ The Social Innovation Fund promotes public and private investments in effective nonprofit organizations to

help them replicate and expand to serve more lowincome communities.

■ The Volunteer Generation Fund strengthens the

nation’s civic infrastructure by helping nonprofits

recruit, manage, and support more volunteers.

■ The Nonprofit Capacity Building Program increases the

ability of nonprofits in resource-poor communities to

implement performance management systems.

■ The King Day of Service supports community 

organizations in their efforts to engage local citizens in

service on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday. 

■ The National Conference on Volunteering and Service

is the premier annual gathering of leaders of the volunteering and national service world.

■ The President's Higher Education Community Service

Honor Roll honors colleges and universities for the

commitment of their students, faculty, and staff to 

community service.

■ The CNCS Resource Center provides training and

resources to national service programs and nonprofits

seeking to expand their capacity and impact.

■ The CNCS annual Volunteering in America report provides comprehensive data to state and local leaders to

help them expand the impact of service.

Other Programs and Initiatives

June 2011