ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

1 

Melissa Gouge: Good afternoon everyone, and welcome. My 

name is Melissa Gouge and I work in the Office of 

Research and Evaluation. And I want to thank all of you 

for joining us today. We hope that you and your 

families, your colleagues, your friends and your 

communities are remaining healthy and are staying safe. 

Just wanted to give you all a little background about 

the Office of Research and Evaluation and some of our 

objectives. 

What we do here is to support AmeriCorps mission by 

building knowledge on civic engagement, volunteering 

and national service and to use this knowledge to both 

contribute to the broad field of civic engagement, as 

well as to improve lives and to strengthen communities. 

We do in-house research and evaluations and we fund 

research through competitive grants to scholars and 

dissertators at institutions of higher education. 

Through both internally and externally facing webinars, 

we’re able to share grantees’ ongoing research, studies 

from other researchers working on similar topics, and 

findings on our AmeriCorps and Senior Corps program 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

2 

evaluations. In today’s webinar, we’re excited to share 

an update on the NCCC Impact Evaluation that’s in 

progress now, and many of you have heard about. And I 

will pass this on to Jake just to provide some 

introductory remarks for us today. 

Jake Sgambati: All right, thank you, Melissa. Hello to 

those who are in the NCCC and for those additional 

guests joining us. My name is Jake Sgambati. I am the 

Acting Deputy Director for AmeriCorps NCCC. So most of 

you know that the strategic use of data and linking 

that data to performance management has been a priority 

for our work at NCCC for a while now and this impact 

study represents a significant piece to achieving that 

priority. 

So we know that the development of the framework and 

the execution of the study was extremely intentional so 

that we can best assess our program’s ability to 

deliver on what we consider to be an extremely 

important mission. And so now that we have our project 

database and survey data is coming in, we can begin to 

see the elements of the study coming together and all 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

3 

that planning and effort and forethought really coming 

to bear fruit. 

So as we’ve discussed over the last year, this study 

will help NCCC make decisions, increase program 

effectiveness and ensure we’re meeting the needs of our 

important stakeholders to the best extent possible. So 

I want to thank everyone who’s been engaged with 

helping us get this far in the process. It has truly 

been a team effort as is everything with NCCC. 

In our team-based program, we carry that value forward 

in the way that we approach our work, and this impact 

study has been no different teams with NCCC and even 

engaging with external partners on our larger team. So 

I am extremely excited to continue to see the progress 

and results of the impact study over the next year and 

very happy to be a part of this webinar this afternoon. 

So I’ll now pass it back to you, Melissa - thank you. 

Melissa Gouge: Yeah, thank you so much, Jake. These studies 

really are giving us an opportunity to really learn in 

a systematic way the factors that influence retention, 

develop members as leaders and really hone in on what 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

4 

strengthening communities means. They’re also a means 

to grow this body of evidence to support our programs 

and our members and the work that you all show up to do 

every day. And as Jake mentioned, collaboration really 

since day one is why have been able to design and 

execute this robust set of studies with NCCC staff, 

Office of Research and Evaluation and our hardworking 

research team at JBS. 

And in that spirit too, to follow along with Jake, I’d 

like to thank all of you for your enthusiastic support 

of all these studies. Without your teamwork, your time, 

responsiveness, we wouldn’t achieve the fantastic 

response rate you’re going to hear more about. Thank 

you for sending paper files and e-files to populate the 

service project database for staff use, and to inform 

the selection of a wide variety of case studies as part 

of the impact studies. 

Just want to give a special shout-out to Juda 

[phonetic] for her endeavor to put the newsletter 

together that keeps us all informed about the studies. 

I think you may have received that yesterday. I want to 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

5 

thank especially Orla, Vera and our new colleague, 

Kristen, for being great colleagues and subject matter 

experts. And we’re really excited to share the progress 

of these studies with you all today. But before we 

begin the presentation, we’d just like to cover a few 

housekeeping items for Adobe Connect, so I’ll turn it 

over to Janelle to handle that. 

Janelle: Thank you, all for your patience as we get ready 

with Adobe Connect. This webinar will be recorded and 

posted online following the presentation. There’s no 

dial-in phone line. All audio is broadcast over the 

internet using your computer speakers. All participants 

will be in listen only mode until the question/answer 

session following the presentation at which time you 

can ask a question using your computer’s microphone by 

selecting the raise hand feature from the menu above. 

 You can also ask questions at any time during the 

presentation by using the chat box below. As mentioned 

earlier, this webinar will be recorded and if you have 

any questions or experience technical difficulties, 

please let us know using the chat box below. I believe 

that takes care of our housekeeping items. Melissa? 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

6 

Melissa: Thank you, Janelle. And to keep things simple, our 

format today is going to be as follows. Dr. Annie 

Georges, Senior Research Associate at JBS International 

will present on behalf of the research team. Jake and I 

will follow her remarks with some final thought and 

we’ll open the floor to your questions and comments. 

And as Janelle says, during the webinar feel free to 

type your questions in the Q and A box, or provide 

comments in the chat box so our presenters can respond 

to them during the discussion. And without further ado, 

I will now this hand this over to Dr. Annie Georges. 

Annie Georges: Hi, good afternoon everyone for those of us 

on the east coast and good morning to those of us on 

the west coast. Thank you, Melissa, thank you Jake. 

Thank you to AmeriCorps and the whole NCCC team for 

giving us your support through the implementation of 

this evaluation. I am really excited to begin to share 

our progress to date with us on the first year of 

implementing the evaluation of NCCC. 

Before I get started, I just want to quickly 

acknowledge several of our JBS colleagues who are in 

the presentation room. Carmen, Robert and Victoria - 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

7 

where are for sure in my presentation they will be able 

to chime in during the question and answer. Okay, so 

the Office of Research and Evaluation in NCCC are 

implementing a multi-year evaluation to understand how 

NCCC promotes leadership, and how the service members 

perform make the communities in which they serve 

stronger. There are three distinct, but related 

studies. 

In this evaluation, AmeriCorps wants to know about the 

leadership skills such as professional skills, life 

skills, teamwork, and civic engagement of the members 

who participate in NCCC. They also want to know about 

member retention. Why do members stay and persist to 

the end of their service? And the flip side of that is, 

why do they leave before they complete their service? 

And the third study is to define what it means in the 

NCCC context to make a community stronger, and can we 

measure how NCCC makes communities stronger? 

So, how are we approaching this evaluation to address 

these objectives? First I’m going to discuss the 

leadership and member retention. This evaluation design 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

8 

will compare change in leadership skills of those who 

served with NCCC to those who could have served with 

NCCC, but do not. So, the ones who couldn’t, that’s 

what we are calling the comparison group and that 

comparison group is drawn from individuals who applied 

and were invited to serve with NCCC, but then they do 

not. 

And for this evaluation we will be using multiple modes 

of data collection. We are doing a survey of members, 

team leaders, and of course those individuals in the 

comparison group. We are doing focus groups and 

interviews with members and team leaders. Focus group 

with the staff at each of the regions and interviews 

with sponsors, so with sponsors who sponsor the 

project. 

We will also look at the project that members are 

assigned during their service and how the association 

of those projects, the type of projects that they are 

assigned, how that’s associated with their leadership 

skills. A little later in the presentation I will 

explain in a little bit more detail the database that 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

9 

we would be using that contains information on the NCCC 

service projects. 

So what is the timeline for the data collection? So the 

survey is going to be administered at three time 

points: Prior to service, that would be the baseline 

survey, upon completion of service, that’s ten months 

for traditional NCCC and twelve months for FEMA Corps 

[phonetic]. And then one year after members have 

completed their service we will do the final survey. 

For the member retention study, for members and team 

leaders get into the member retention study if they 

leave the program before they complete their service. 

And at the time they leave the program early, we 

administer a short survey, but then we follow up with 

them for the first follow up and the second follow up. 

So the first follow-up is going to be at the time they 

would have completed their service if they had stayed, 

and then the second follow up will be one year after 

the time they would have completed their service. So 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

10

it’s the same timeline, but they are part of a 

different sample. 

For the interviews, first let me talk about the focus 

groups. For the focus groups, we will do the focus 

groups at the time that members are graduating. We do 

focus group with Corps members and team leaders. And 

then one to two months after they complete their 

service, we follow up with those same individuals who 

had participated in the focus group to do a follow up 

interview to assess how they are feeling at the time 

about their experience. And we also interview members 

who have exited early for the member retention study. 

Again that interview occurs around the time that the 

member will have completed their service if they had 

remained with NCCC. So, in addition to a comprehensive 

literature review of youth leadership and youth 

retention in national service, the theory of change 

that informs the evaluation design is that when 

accepted candidates successfully complete training, 

participate in service projects, and receive support 

and mentoring from staff, from staff team leaders and 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

11

sponsors, they will improve on these outcomes that 

AmeriCorps consider as demonstration of leadership. And 

what we are measuring under each of these outcomes, 

that’s what this slide is showing. 

We are measuring in the short term, short term 

outcomes, which is a change from prior to the time you 

enter service to the time you completed your service, 

how do your professional skills, your life skills, your 

ability to work as a team, and your civic engagement - 

how that has changed from right before you started with 

NCCC to the time that you completed your service. And 

then under this evaluation we’re also going to measure 

medium term outcomes. Medium term, we also collect the 

same set of measures that we collect under short-term. 

In addition, we included some additional measures 

because we hypothesize that over time a year after you 

completed your service, you will continue to grow in 

those areas and we are hypothesizing that we will see 

an association between your service at NCCC and your 

growth in those different areas. 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

12

The survey also includes questions on motivation for 

serving, demographic information about the 

participants, the employment history and other 

volunteer experience. Just have a few examples of the 

type of question we include, but then we also include 

questions that will allow AmeriCorps to measure 

cultural competence. 

We have two sets of questions on cultural competence. 

One set is just Likert scale type of questions that we 

repeat at each data collection point. So all three 

surveys have those questions. So that will permit us to 

look at change in those cultural competence measures. 

And in the second study the first follow up at the time 

that members are graduating, we also have a few openended questions that we ask members about their 

cultural competence that we will be able to analyze and 

provide some richer context for NCCC around those 

measures. 

So, we are about to complete the first round of 

surveys. Since September 2019, I’m forgetting my dates, 

we have - we started our first year. So we are now in 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

13

the process of completing our first round of the 

baseline surveys. So this slide is showing our progress 

in enrolling members. That’s the side of the table that 

we are calling treatment. Those are the members and 

team leaders, they’re part of the treatment group and 

the comparison group. 

If you remember the comparison group, those are members 

who apply, were invited, but declined to attend. So 

this slide is showing our progress to-date enrolling 

both groups into the study, and completing the baseline 

survey. We started enrolling members in comparison 

group in February 2020. The first class we enrolled was 

the North Central region winter class and we are going 

to continue to enroll members through the southern FEMA 

class, winter class 2021 that will begin their service 

near the end of March. 

So this slide shows some very strong response rates for 

both groups. So among members and team leaders, the 

response rate ranges from 64 percent to 86 percent and 

overall response rate of 71 percent. Among the 

comparison group, the response rate ranges from 53 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

14

percent to 68 percent, an overall response rate for 

that group is 57 percent. 

And the next slide that I want to share with you on 

response rate is for the sample of members that leave 

early that’s going to be part of the member retention 

study. And this is the response rate of that short 

survey that we give to those early exit members at the 

time that they leave to get some information about the 

reason for leaving the program. 

There’s a wider variance here in the response rate. It 

ranges from 13 percent to 70 percent, an overall 

response rate of 47 percent. So I want to pause here 

and just talk a little bit about how we are able to 

achieve those response rates. A lot of it has, you 

know, the awesome support that we get from the 

different regions, the NCCC and our colleagues at the 

Office of Research and Evaluation in really helping us, 

making this evaluation visible and getting those 

members to engage with it. 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

15

When we were designing this evaluation, we knew that 

the comparison group and those who leave early would be 

very difficult to retain in the study. So AmeriCorps 

had initially offered a $20 dollar incentive and we got 

approval from the Office of Management and Budget to do 

the incentive to the comparison group only when we 

started the implementation. 

As we were observing our experience in enrolling 

members, it was lagging and it took a lot of contact to 

get those members. AmeriCorps increased the incentive 

for the comparison group to $40 dollars and later on, a 

few months later, the pool of participants who could 

get the incentive was also changed. We allowed more 

people to get the incentive. 

So having the additional incentive really made a big 

difference and the difference that it made is that we 

were able to recruit participants quicker. We increased 

the sample size among the hard to recruit, those would 

be the comparison group and those early exit members, 

and we could recruit at a faster pace. 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

16

So just a quick summary here in this slide how the 

response rate changed when we looked at around the time 

when we implemented those changes. So first, so the 

incentive was increased for the comparison group midFebruary 2020. Prior to this change, we were enrolling 

incoming Corps members and team leaders from the North 

Central winter class 2020 and the Southern team in our 

winter class, 2020. 

So the completion rate among comparison groups prior to 

that change was about 43 percent over a period of about 

7 to 8 weeks, and it was 26 percent for the comparison 

group for the Southern FEMA class over a similar period 

of time. After this change, what we observed is that 

there was a big increase to us. We could feel it, once 

we let them know that they were getting a different 

incentive. For the North Central winter class, when 

that change occurred, we only had about one or two 

weeks left to communicate with those members. 

So one important thing about the design is that the 

baseline survey occurred about two months or so before 

they start their training. But once they start their 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

17

training, we end the baseline survey, because we’re 

trying to measure that your skills are before you start 

your service. And that applies to the comparison group 

as well. 

So right around the time we changed it, we were able to 

do one follow-up email or phone call to comparison 

group in the North Central class. And with that one 

follow-up, we got a response rate of 20 percent from 

that remaining group. For the Southern FEMA, we had a 

little bit more time with that group prior to the start 

of service. So we were able to do a few more follow-ups 

with that class and we saw a completion rate among the 

comparison group of 20 percent. 

So a good comparison for the impact of the changing 

incentive is the last, the recent North Central class 

that we just enrolled that’s the winter 2021 class a 

year later from that first one. And at this time, over 

a period of six weeks, we had a response rate of 53 

percent. So clearly, we were able to get them a little 

bit faster and we were able to increase the number of 

people we could bring into the study. 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

18

And as an example of increasing the pool of 

participants who can get the incentive, when we 

started, those members who exited early did not have an 

incentive, but that pool was increased to allow us to 

offer an incentive to that group. So prior to that 

change, over a period of about five to six months, we 

were getting just about 43 percent of those early exit 

members to complete that survey. 

But after the incentive when we could offer the 

incentive, over a period of three months since we’ve 

been offering the new incentives, we have been able to 

get a response rate of 55 percent, so definitely 

helping increase the sample size. So the higher 

incentive is making a difference. We can recruit 

participants quicker. We are able to increase the 

sample size among the recruit and we are definitely 

recruiting at a much faster pace than we were able to 

with the lower incentives. 

Okay, so I’m going to talk about some of the challenges 

we encounter in implementing the leadership study. And 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

19

again, so from mid-March, right around when we first 

started, March 2020 to June 2020, Corps members and 

team leaders were on emergency leave due to the 

pandemic. And of course, this is unexpected event in 

the design of our study, so we had to adjust and be 

able to accommodate making sure that we have valid and 

reliable results. 

So we reviewed our design, we reviewed our data 

collection. What we did is we added questions to the 

survey. We adjusted our focus group and interview 

protocols to capture and measure the effect of the 

pandemic on the outcomes that we are measuring. And 

when we began the analysis, we were looking to making 

statistical adjustments as appropriate to account for 

and adjust for any effect of an external shock on the 

outcomes that we will be measuring and talking about. 

So another thing that I want to quickly talk about is, 

because this is multi-year evaluation with multiple 

classes, we take precaution to track and monitor the 

participants. And what happened is that some of the 

candidates may decline an invitation for a particular 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

20

class, but then subsequently, we are still enrolling 

people subsequently. Those candidates, they may have 

declined the invitation. Remember, if you decline your 

invitation, you are part of our comparison group. 

So we get some of the candidates that initially 

declined and then, you know, two classes later they 

accept an invitation and they do begin to serve with 

NCCC. So we do careful tracking and monitoring of all 

the participants to make sure that we are counting each 

person one time. 

So in our tracking and monitoring, we give priority to 

service with NCCC. So if somebody was part of a 

comparison group and they decided to serve with one of 

the classes that is still in the study, that person 

will become part of the treatment class for that class 

that they begin to serve with. So we do that very 

carefully throughout making sure that we are not double 

counting any participants. 

Okay, so those are the big issues with the leadership 

and member retention. So now I’m going to turn my 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

21

attention to the strengthening communities study. So 

that study is going to rely on existing information 

NCCC already collects on its service projects, that’s 

coming from the service project database that both 

Melissa and Jake mentioned earlier. In addition to 

using that information, we will collect data on a 

sample of service projects through multiple modes - 

site visits at the region, interviews and focus groups 

with multiple stakeholders who are impacted by those 

service projects. 

For the primary data collection, we are going to do two 

types of case studies using a total of 18 service 

projects. The service projects will be represented in 

each of the NCCC regions and it’s going to have a mix 

of traditional NCCC and FEMA Corps projects. So for six 

of those projects - and again, those six projects will 

be represented across all four regions and representing 

traditional and FEMA Corps. 

We will do, for six projects we will do a comprehensive 

data collection that’s going to entail spending time 

onsite doing site visits, doing multiple interviews and 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

22

focus groups with different stakeholders. And for 

twelve projects, we will do what we are calling a 

restrictive set of case studies and those will entail 

doing phone interviews and very intensive review of 

documents and materials about those service projects. 

The timeline for the data collection is for the six 

projects that’s going to be part of the comprehensive 

data collection where we are doing site visits, there 

will be two data collection points. The first one will 

occur when the project is actually ongoing. And again, 

that’s because we will be doing site visits and doing 

observations at the time that the project is happening 

and talking to all those different stakeholders at the 

time that the project is happening. 

The second data collection point is planned for a year 

later after the project ends and that’s going to, we 

will follow-up with the different stakeholders that we 

talked to at the first time point to get their 

assessment about the projects impact on their community 

and on the organization. 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

23

For the twelve, what we are calling the restricted case 

studies, it’s one time point. We will do the phone 

interviews, review the documents and provide some 

analysis trying to address those two objectives that 

AmeriCorps had about community strengthening. 

Okay, so the strengthening community studies will 

document outputs and short-term outcomes of NCCC 

service projects. The data will allow for measuring 

impacts at the individual level, including Corps 

members and community members and the organization 

itself that sponsors the project. Because the study’s 

time frame is so short, two data points over a period 

of almost two years, we will not be able to measure 

intermediate or long-term outcomes. Okay? 

So just a few words about the service projects 

database. This is a database that JBS collaborated on 

with NCCC and the Office of Research and Evaluation to 

actually create a database that will help all service 

projects completed by NCCC since 2012. And doing this 

evaluation, we will continue to add to the service 

project’s database of ongoing projects, especially 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

24

because we are going to be using that information to 

talk about member leadership and also to look at, to 

select case studies - to select service projects for 

the case studies. And currently the database has more 

than 5,000 completed projects and the database captures 

some basic information like issue area, project 

accomplishment and project outcomes. 

We have coded accomplishment and outcomes to quantify 

each project’s impact on community, organization and 

members. And as I mentioned, this information from the 

database we are going to use it to identify service 

projects for case studies. And we will use that 

information because we are also collecting information 

on which of those service projects Corps members have 

been assigned during their service. 

So we will be able to pull information from the 

database about those service projects that members are 

assigned to see what, if any, type of association 

exists between the types of projects members are 

assigned and the experience of NCCC and ultimately any 

association to the outcomes that we are measuring. 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

25

For the strengthening community studies, we also faced 

some challenges with that study also and it’s the same 

sort of challenges which is the external shock from the 

pandemic. So we are mindful that the pandemic is likely 

going to impact the mix and characteristics of projects 

that NCCC takes on and also might shift the 

characteristics for the communities in which NCCC is 

serving. 

And so what we have done, we have modified our focus 

groups and interview protocol questions to account for 

that, so we can capture some of that information. And 

also the questions that we added to the survey that we 

administer to members, those questions will collect 

information that will help us put a little bit of 

clarity around community impact that may be impacted by 

the pandemic. So in terms of data collection activities 

and next steps that we are engaged with right now. 

So ongoing data collection activities, in terms of the 

administration, we are enrolling North Central winter 

class 2021 and the Southern FEMA class winter 2021 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

26

also. Those two classes are now completing the baseline 

surveys. We have completed the first follow-up survey 

for that first North Central class that graduated in 

November. 

So currently we are doing the first follow-up surveys 

for the Southern FEMA, last year’s Southern FEMA class 

and we are planning for the first follow-up surveys for 

the summer classes in all four regions. Focus groups 

and interviews occur around the same time as the first 

follow-up survey. 

So in terms of focus groups and interviews, we are 

doing that with the Southern FEMA winter class from 

last year and we will be planning for the summer 

classes in all four regions and also planning for first 

follow-up focus groups and interviews for the four 

classes at Pacific and Southwest. 

In terms of the case studies for the strengthening 

communities, we are currently analyzing the service 

projects’ database to help us identify and select 

service projects for the case studies. Once we have 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

27

selected that sample, we’re going to start with the 

sample of twelve for the restricted case studies. 

Again, that has to do with restrictions around travel 

during the pandemic until we are allowed, we can move 

around and travel again. We will do the comprehensive 

case studies then, but right now we are focusing on the 

restricted case studies that do not require any travel. 

Once we have that sample, we will retrieve, review and 

code service projects, document and conduct interviews. 

As far as next steps, complete baseline survey for the 

leadership continue to enroll early exit members in the 

member retention study. We are going to begin to 

collect data for the strengthening community studies 

for the twelve service projects for the case studies. 

And in terms of timeline, when we will be able to begin 

sharing some preliminary results from that data 

collection. We anticipate that in July 2021 we will 

have preliminary results from the baseline survey for 

the leadership study and we will also have preliminary 

results for the case studies for the strengthening 

communities. And in September the Office of Research 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

28

and Evaluation is planning another webinar on the 

preliminary results, so we can share that information 

with you at that time. 

I can stop here. The next few slides basically I was 

going to just show you guys some of the questions that 

we will be able to initially answer with that baseline 

data collection that we did. So basically the type of 

questions we’re going to be asking that we can answer 

with that first round of data collection, looking at 

the profile of NCCC members, including the demographic 

characteristics, how they learned about NCCC, what are 

their motivators to serve with NCCC. 

How they perceived their experience prior to the start 

of NCCC, and where they are in terms of their 

leadership skills from the baseline of the key outcomes 

that we want to measure. And we will look at 

differences between traditional Corps and FEMA Corps. 

And another set of questions that we will be able to 

answer is how do members differ in their outcomes in 

interpersonal skills, life skills and being able to 

work as a team prior to their service and how 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

29

traditional Corps members differ from that. And then we 

will also begin to answer some of the basic questions 

about threatening communities. 

Definitely we have a lack of information on service 

projects outputs from the database that we will analyze 

and several of these questions we will be able to 

answer. And definitely we are looking forward to be 

able to share those preliminary information with you 

later this year. So Melissa, that concludes my 

presentation and I don't have anything else to add. 

Looking forward to your questions - thank you. 

Melissa Gouge: All right, thank you, Annie and the whole 

JBS team for putting together such a thorough 

presentation. I hope you all found it really 

informative and excited about the next chapter of these 

studies. And as Annie said, we’re in a really intense 

period of data collection, many of you know that, by us 

reaching out to you. And we will have some initial 

findings to share with you all late in the summer, 

early in the fall. 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

30

And in the meantime, we will continue to keep you 

informed through our newsletter and we welcome your 

questions, comments, feedback. If you would like to 

reach out to me about anything with questions, my email 

is mgouge, m-g-o-u-g-e @ cns.gov, if you’d like to 

email me directly. And you’ll also have an opportunity 

to share your thoughts on this presentation in a survey 

that will follow. And I will pass this on to Jake for 

some closing thoughts. 

Jake Sgambati: All right, thank you Melissa - I appreciate 

it. As you said, I’ll repeat that, thank you Annie and 

the JBS team. Also our field working group, the 

technical working group, our data team and everyone 

else who participated in getting us this far. So I 

think that this has been a great presentation on the 

study’s structure, our theory of change and the 

hypotheses of the study. 

I think it was really insightful and certainly helpful 

for me and hopefully helpful for others participating 

in this webinar. I’m really, really excited to see the 

progress that we’ve made so far and to start to see it 

take shape. So I’m looking forward to the reports and 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

31

further information coming up this summer and into the 

fall. So thank you all again very much. Melissa, back 

to you. 

Melissa Gouge: All right, thank you so much, Jake. And we’d 

like to open the call up now to questions and answers. 

If any of you have additional questions for our online 

audience, you can ask a question by typing it in the Q 

and A box. You can also ask a question by using the 

microphone on your computer by selecting the raised 

hand feature from the menu above and you’ll be granted 

microphone rights in order to submit your question. So 

I’ll note we’ve received one question in the Q and A 

box. I think Annie may have addressed it, but if you 

want to elaborate at all on that. Rich Smith asked if 

incentives are paid to respondents directly by NCCC ORE 

or JBS? 

Annie Georges: So part of the contract that we have, it 

includes funds for the incentive. So when we - JBS 

directly sent the incentive to the participants. 

Melissa Gouge: Thank you, Annie, for that. And does anyone 

else have any additional questions, concerns, comments? 

Oh, we’ve got another question in the chat box. Does 

JBS reach out to every member who departs early? 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

32

Annie Georges: We only reach out to those members who 

enroll in the study. So if they had completed the 

baseline, part of completing the baseline is consenting 

to be part of the study. So if they completed the 

baseline, so now they are part of the study, we prepare 

a list for NCCC. And if any of those members on our 

list, if any of them leave early, [unintelligible] 

notifies us and then we connect with them to get them 

into the member retention study. 

Melissa Gouge: Thank you, Annie. So this is, as you 

mentioned during the presentation, somebody’s status in 

the study may change depending on whether they serve or 

don't serve, leave early, et cetera. So this is a lot 

of moving parts to this. Do you agree with that, Annie? 

Annie Georges: Definitely. So staying on the example of 

early exit, we’ve had some members who exit early. So 

I’ll use an example, they exit out of the FEMA class, 

the 2020 class, and then they enroll in one of the 

summer classes. So we want to make sure that we keep 

track of that. 

Melissa Gouge: Absolutely, thank you, Annie. So we have 

another question, too. Part of it - I can’t see the 

whole question, okay. Will regional program staff be 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

33

consulted before the twelve projects are selected, so 

those twelve particular case study items. I think 

that’s an excellent question and Rich, that that might 

need an answer from HQ folks in R&E, like myself, as 

well as Annie. I think that’s a very interesting point 

that you bring up about consulting before we pick the 

twelve. So we are in the process of making the 

selections now, something that we will need to think 

about. Annie, do you have any thoughts on that? 

Annie Georges: Yes, I think what we were planning is we are 

going through the service project database. We are 

analyzing all of the projects and try to come up with a 

group of twelve that kind of not only represent the 

regions, but the work that NCCC does. We have narrowed 

down the list and we are doing this in collaboration 

with NCCC and the Office of Research and Evaluation. 

We also have a field working group consisting of NCCC 

staff at each of the regions where we do want to have a 

conversation with you and say these are the projects 

that we are looking into, any insight, any thoughts, 

any guidance that you can provide in terms of having 

that project as part of our sample. 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

34

Melissa Gouge: Thank you, Annie. To the audience, is there 

anything, a particular interest that you would like to 

know more about? Is there any way we can improve 

communications, anything like that, anything that you 

feel might have been left out of the newsletter that 

also wasn’t covered today or any feedback on the 

studies or anything like that? You are welcome to 

mention those things today. I don't see any hands up or 

any additional question in the Q and A box. So since we 

are getting close to the end and I don't see other 

questions, Annie or Jake, do you have any very brief 

wrap-up comments or anything you would like to 

emphasize? 

Jake Sgambati: No. 

Melissa Gouge: All right, I want to be respectful of 

everyone’s time and it looks like we are going to give 

you back a few minutes of your day. So I just would 

like to thank our speakers and our audience today for 

just being present, listening and providing some 

insightful questions. Thank you to Janelle at ICF and 

all of your colleagues for your technical support and 

coordination. 
ICF Transcription 

Impact Evaluation of AmeriCorps NCCC Webinar 

35

We’ll send you a post-webinar survey, so please let us 

know your thoughts, and especially any ideas that you 

might have for anything else you would like to hear 

from us. And we’ll also post this recording if you’d 

like to listen again for more details or if you would 

like to share with anyone who was unable to make the 

call today. And I’d just like to say thank you all and 

have a nice day. 

[End of File]