Corporation for National and Community Service

Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting

August 12, 2019

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The Board of Directors for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) convened in 

Washington, DC on August 12, 2019. The following members were present:

• Shamina Singh, Chair

• Mona Dixon

Chair’s Opening Statement

Chair Shamina Singh called the meeting to order and welcomed the other Board member and 

attendees. She expressed hope that the Senate would quickly approve the pending Board

nominations of Victoria Hughes, who previously served on the Board, and Heather Reynolds,

Managing Director of the Lab for Economic Opportunities at the University of Notre Dame.

Ms. Singh reviewed the agenda: She would deliver opening comments, Mona Dixon would be recognized 

with a resolution for her service to CNCS and the Board, and CEO Barbara Stewart would provide her 

report. Following the report would be a presentation celebrating CNCS’s 25th anniversary, then three 

speakers who would give comments about the positive impact of service on communities. The meeting 

would close with an opportunity for public comments. 

The Chair noted that the minutes of the previous Board meeting, in March 2019, were already approved 

and posted on www.nationalservice.gov, so no further action on them was needed.

Report on the Board’s Retreat

Chair Singh reported on CNCS’s Transformation and Sustainability discussions with the CEO and her 

senior team, including Brian Finch, Director of Business Transformation, and directors of other CNCS 
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offices, including Human Capital, Regional Operations, Information Technology, Government Relations, 

and the Acting Chief Operations Officer and Chief Financial Officer.

Topics included talent retention, employee training, information technology, shared services, 

regionalization, and the agency’s work with elected officials. Ms. Singh noted that Ms. Stewart and her 

team continue to get input from CNCS’s partners in the field, including state commissions, grantees, and 

projects around the country. She also discussed CNCS’s efforts to retain as many employees as possible, 

noting that that the hiring processes have been open and transparent, and CNCS is attracting and keeping 

strong talent, which has been an important goal.

The Board also met with Inspector General Deborah Jeffrey and a member of her staff. Ms. Jeffrey

provided feedback regarding oversight of the agency’s programs.

Recognition of Service

Chair Singh recognized fellow Board member Mona Dixon, who has served as the youth appointee to the 

Board since July 2015, and whose term ends in October, for outstanding service in her community and 

across the nation. She praised Ms. Dixon for being a powerful voice for national service and for her 

inspiring personal story of obstacles overcome. Chair Singh read the resolution and asked for a vote on it. 

Both members were in favor; the resolution was approved. Chair Singh invited Ms. Dixon to speak.

Ms. Dixon stated that it had been an honor and a pleasure to serve on the Board. Having been homeless 

for half her life, community service has always been significant for her and her family. She noted that she 

is grateful to have been able to give as much service in return as possible. She said that it costs nothing 

give back, and while she has never had an abundance of funds, she has always had a service heart and the 
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will that make the world a better place. She looks forward to seeing all the goodness that’s yet to come 

through CNCS. Ms. Dixon thanked everyone for their hard work, patience, and determination to help push 

forward CNCS’s mission.

Chair Singh noted CEO Barbara Stewart’s outstanding job over the past year and invited her to report. 

The Chief Executive Officer’s Report

Ms. Stewart first expressed her gratitude to Chair Singh and Ms. Dixon for their guidance, patience, and 

wisdom. As this meeting was the last for Ms. Dixon, she added a personal statement for the record (for 

which Ms. Dixon thanked her afterward):

On behalf of CNCS, Mona, I want to thank you for your service on our Board as well as your 

service to national service. You’ve generously given your time and talents to support our agency 

and the communities in your home state of Arizona. You live your values by standing with young 

people, especially through your exemplary work with the Boys and Girls Clubs, you’ve shown 

great compassion for individuals who are homeless individuals who are struggling, and you’ve 

empowered young people to succeed in life. Your leadership as a young adult is an inspiration for 

all of us and we’re really grateful that you spent some of your time and talents here with us at 

CNCS, so thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Ms. Stewart next to summed up CNCS’s history and impact, reminding listeners that 25 years ago, CNCS

united programs from the former ACTION Agency (VISTA, RSVP, Senior Companions, and Foster 

Grandparents) under one roof and established AmeriCorps as a cornerstone for nation-wide citizen 

service. National service is integral to the landscape of our country: it boosts education from cradle to 

career, aids in national disasters, protects our environment, improves the beauty of our public lands, and 

supports veterans and military families. As CNCS approached its 25th anniversary, it began a critical 

effort to strengthen its foundation through a Transformation and Sustainability Plan. Ms. Stewart 
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elaborated on the implementation of the Plan to date:

• Preparing CNCS for the future required a great deal of study, research, and reflection as CNCS 

reviewed business processes and functions with an eye to better serving its partners, grantees, 

members, and volunteers – and the tens of thousands of communities that rely on our service. 

• CNCS is moving from the conceptual phase transformation to reality. The agency has made 

agreements that will move accounting, procurement, and human capital functions to a shared 

services model over the next two years. 

• There has been significant use of our Truescreen vendor for criminal history checks, improving 

compliance in this critical area this spring. Approximately 97 percent of Senior Corps grantees 

participated in the new check system that was funded by the program.

• CNCS is building out our new Office of Monitoring to make sure we remain good stewards of 

taxpayer dollars.

• In just over a month, CNCS will open the first three of our eight new regional offices, helping the 

agency meet a goal of aligning our workforces to increase efficiency and better serve our 

customers. The agency is working diligently to prepare regional staff for their important new 

roles. 

• Importantly, CNCS has been able to retain institutional knowledge, as many current employees 

are transitioning into new roles created by Transformation. While not all CNCS colleagues will be 

on this new journey, their work contributes to its success and they deserve great thanks for their 

dedication to national service.

Ms. Stewart next highlighted stories that illustrate how CNCS’s programs and initiatives address the most 
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important issues of the day:

• Since the last Board meeting, Ms. Stewart has attended two of the three issue-based Senior Corps 

seminars that highlighted the important topics the RSVP, Senior Companion, and Foster 

Grandparents programs address, including elder justice issues, the opioid epidemic, and supporting 

education and intergenerational exchanges.

• Senior Corps is partnering with the Department of Veterans Affairs’ “Choose Home Initiative” to help 

veterans age in place and support their families and caregivers. This pilot program in five states 

makes a connection through Senior Corps that is a natural fit.

• Severe flooding this year across the Midwest and other areas kept AmeriCorps NCCC Disaster 

Response teams, and other AmeriCorps programs, very busy.

• AmeriCorps VISTA’s summer programming, nutrition and education efforts, and leadership in 

combating the opioid epidemic supported its poverty-fighting mission. VISTA just hosted its first 

national symposium of program sponsors, allowing nonprofit leaders to share knowledge.

• In May, CNCS announced $560 million in grants to support AmeriCorps national direct programs and 

others funded through Governor-appointed state service commissions. CNCS has allocated $172 

million for educational scholarships for program alumni – a tremendous asset that helps them reduce 

college costs or repay student loans.

Ms. Stewart observed that CNCS could not make such impact without the help of its partners. 

Representatives of CNCS partners Jumpstart, Habitat for Humanity, and Volunteer Prince William will 

highlight that reality in their presentations later in the meeting. National service demonstrates the 

strength in unity of our citizens and communities. She assured the audience that CNCS is grateful for each 
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and every partner that has helped make the agency’s first 25 years such a success.

Ms. Stewart stated that, as CNCS marks a major milestone in its history, it looks back in wonder at all that 

has been accomplished and forward with great optimism for the future. AmeriCorps and Senior Corps 

programs have been, and will continue to be, responsive to the nation’s challenges in ways that are 

flexible, engaging, and meaningful. She expressed thanks for the unsung heroes – the one million 

AmeriCorps members and millions of Senior Corps volunteers – who have opened their hearts during the 

last 25 years to serve their fellow citizens, united in one purpose to put others first. Ms. Stewart 

reminded those present that the agency has an important legacy to preserve and an important future to 

build. She is grateful to walk through the doors every day with those thoughts in mind and to support 

everyone at headquarters and in the field who shares the mission to “Get Things Done for America.”

Ms. Stewart closed her remarks by introducing a new video from the agency’s creative services team. She 

noted that CNCS will use it to open conversations about the impact of national service over the last 25 

years.

(25th Anniversary video shown.)

Chair Singh thanked the Office of External Affairs for the video and CEO Barbara Stewart for her report 

and introduced the people who came to speak about the impact of national service on individuals, 

organizations, and communities.

Remarks by AmeriCorps Alumnus Caleb Torres
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Caleb Torres, an AmeriCorps alumnus, spoke about how his experience in AmeriCorps affected his 

career. Mr. Torres said that he came to Washington, DC in 2014 to study international affairs at the 

George Washington University (GW) and, while there, served four terms with Jumpstart. He interned in

CNCS’s Office of External Affairs and Peace Corps’ Office of Gifts and Grants Management. He served with 

Habitat for Humanity after graduation and now works for Jumpstart at GW as Associate Site Manager.

Mr. Torres explained that Jumpstart is an early education nonprofit that works with preschoolers aged

three to five. It recruits and trains college students to teach English literacy, language, and socialemotional development skills to the children. He found it challenging but fulfilling to be a full-time 

college student and serve 300 hours in an academic year. At the end of the year, the children’s parents 

thanked all the Corps members for the notable progress their children had made. For many of those 

families, the children were first or second generation citizens and Jumpstart was vital to helping them 

integrate into the D.C. community.

Mr. Torres described how his AmeriCorps service helped him meet people, get past homesickness and 

feel committed to staying at college in DC, and gave him a chance to see much more of the city than he 

would have had he been just a student. He spoke of “a huge paradigm shift” because of his service:

I studied International Affairs and had always dreamed about traveling the world, serving with 

the Peace Corps. Maybe someday I will do that, but it was through my [AmeriCorps] service that I 

realized that I did not need to travel the world to look for problems to solve, because it became so 

evident there’s so much that needs to be done in my own community, and I gradually shifted my 

focus from international service to domestic service. I completely reconsidered my future goals. 

Rather than pursuing a future in International Diplomacy, I am considering going back to school 

for a Master’s in Public Administration. [I]t’s more apparent now than ever that there’s so much 

work to be done here and I attribute that realization 100 percent to my service through 

AmeriCorps. 
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He concluded his remarks by highlighting the confidence he had gained in his leadership abilities, his

deeper sense of responsibility for his community, and his agency to make a positive difference in it. He 

now feels empowered to hold elected officials accountable for the promises they make and to demand 

more transparency. Having met so many like-minded youth serving in AmeriCorps, he is more optimistic 

about the future. Most of all, he is grateful for everyone who entrusted him with leadership roles, 

mentored him, and gave him a chance to serve his country and his community.

Remarks by Mary Foley, Executive Director, Volunteer Prince William

Mary Foley, Executive Director of Volunteer Prince William (VPW), spoke of how Senior Corps volunteers 

are addressing a range of community needs in Prince William County, Virginia – a county with a diverse 

population of approximately 450,000 people. She described three Senior Corps programs in the county, 

and then spoke about VPW’s outreach efforts:

• RSVP volunteers in the VETS program give veterans and their spouses rides to medical

appointments, filling a need for 70 clients in their rural community. The volunteers stay with the 

veterans and spouses during the appointment and keep an eye out for what’s happening in the 

veterans’ homes. The 43 RSVP volunteers – 9 of them veterans themselves – donated 1,476 hours of 

service last year. One volunteer who has been with VPW’s RSVP from the start is a veteran, and, with 

his wife, was essential in getting the VETS program going. Ms. Foley said that VPW nominated him for 

the Cabot Cheese National Volunteer Award and “darn if he didn’t win.”

• In VPW’s Safe at Home, Safe Alone program, volunteers go to local schools to teach 10-year-olds a 

curriculum developed by Virginia Polytechnical Institute and State University (better known as 

Virginia Tech) in coordination with the Prince William Sheriff’s Department. The volunteers train

children to be prepared for disasters. In VPW’s first three-year grant cycle, 29 volunteers trained 
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more than 2,500 children. One of their lead volunteers, a retiree from corporate America, was 

nominated last year for the Virginia Senior Corps Volunteer Award, and she won.

• VPW’s RSVP Meals on Wheels volunteers make up half of the local volunteer pool for Meals on 

Wheels. Their 57 RSVP volunteers deliver meals to 239 clients every day, five days a week, 52 weeks 

a year – and like the VETS program, they also provide companionship and eyes on the community, to 

make sure that the seniors they serve are safe in their homes. Recently an RSVP volunteer had the 

local fire chief with them as a “ride along” when they went to deliver meals. One of the clients had a 

broken smoke detector. Thanks to that meal delivery, the fire chief noticed the broken smoke 

detector, got it fixed – and canvassed the whole neighborhood.

• Two award-winning RSVP volunteers were present at the Board meeting: a VETS driver, Kay Kendall

(in attendance at the meeting) who is a veteran herself, and always willing to pick clients up at the 

last minute, and Dinu Patel, who serves at Novant Hospital. Ms. Foley said that “Our hospital 

volunteers are no longer the “pink ladies.” They work in the ER, they work in radiology. They make

sure services are provided throughout the hospital. Dinu is a big part of that.”

• VPW runs public service announcements about their Senior Corps programs, in both English and 

Spanish, 20 times a day in prime hours. A short piece airs at the Potomac Nationals home games,

reaching a quarter of a million people a year. They’re on Facebook and Instagram, and Ms. Foley 

writes a weekly newspaper column about VPW RSVP that reaches about 75,000 readers. That 

outreach allows them to be strategic in their volunteer recruitment. They are also strategic in the jobs 

their volunteers do and as a result, the volunteers feel they have accomplished something. 

Remarks by Emily Stock, Associate Director for Strategic Partnerships,

Habitat for Humanity International
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Emily Stock, Associate Director for Strategic Partnerships for Habitat for Humanity International, has 

been with Habitat for 13 years, all of them with the AmeriCorps program. She spoke of how AmeriCorps 

has been vital to Habitat’s mission and vision:

• Habitat’s mission is to bring people together to build homes, communities, and hope; its vision is a 

world where everyone has a decent place to live. It began having AmeriCorps members to help fulfill 

the mission and vision starting in 1994, with 122 members placed in five communities across the 

country.

• In the past 24 years, AmeriCorps members – state, and national, and VISTAs – have helped Habitat 

provide improved housing to more than 115,000 people.

• Habitat is about to swear in its more than 11,000th AmeriCorps member in its 25th class. Over the 24 

years of its partnership with CNCS, members have engaged more than 3.9 million volunteers and 

served 17 million hours of service.

• In the past year, 525 AmeriCorps members served across the country, helping more than 5,000 

people, which is almost a third of the people Habitat served across the country. Those members 

mobilized, trained, and engaged 175,000 volunteers.

• Habitat recently re-competed for funding for its AmeriCorps National Program, which required an 

external evaluation. As in previous evaluations, this one showed that having AmeriCorps members 

significantly increases Habitat affiliates’ ability to serve families in their community. Evaluators

compared Habitat affiliates that hosted AmeriCorps members with affiliates that did not, matched by 

budget size. The key finding was that AmeriCorps allows Habitat affiliates to serve more families. 

• Besides building new homes, Habitat also rehabs homes. The largest affiliates that hosted 

AmeriCorps members and did rehabs were able to rehab 33 percent more homes than those that did 
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not have AmeriCorps members. Small-budget Habitat affiliates were able to rehab 162 percent more 

homes than affiliates that did not host AmeriCorps members. 

• Another key finding was a statistically significant increase in the number of volunteers that 

AmeriCorps-hosting affiliates were able to engage compared to affiliate that did not host members. 

Hosting AmeriCorps members provides continuation of leadership on home-build sites, allowing 

affiliates that host them to have more return volunteers.

• Habitat affiliates value AmeriCorps – they know it builds their capacity and that they’re engaging the 

future members of the organization, whether staff members, volunteers, donors, or advocates.

• Hosting AmeriCorps members has allowed Habitat to create new programs. Their Veterans Build 

program, which engages veterans and families in all areas of the work Habitat does, was created by 

an AmeriCorps VISTA member about eight years ago and continues to this day. 

• Hosting AmeriCorps members not only builds the capacity of Habitat affiliates, it also increases the 

skills of the members who serve. They are more connected to housing as an issue, more connected to 

issues in their community, more confident that they’re able to long-term address those issues, and 

they gain valuable skills in leadership, volunteer management, and project management. Members 

perceive that their year – or years – of service with Habitat AmeriCorps will help them get a job 

thanks to connections they make with the affiliate or its volunteers. Often, members’ service 

motivates them to shift their career path. Approximately 30 percent of members opt to do a second 

year of service with Habitat or get a job with either the affiliate they served with or Habitat 

International. In short, besides helping communities and people, the program is a leadership pipeline 

for Habitat and for the cause of affordable housing.

• Habitat International has on staff four people who served in their very first class of AmeriCorps 
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members. One is vice president over Habitat’s microfinance program, and thanks to the international 

work he is doing, Habitat expects to engage millions more people in that program

• Having AmeriCorps members allows Habitat affiliates to have robust disaster response and recovery 

programs. Jim Pate, former executive director of New Orleans Habitat, started there about a year 

before Hurricane Katrina hit the city. He regularly says: “The best thing the U.S. government sent 

after Katrina arrived in a gray shirt with the AmeriCorps logo.”

• Many rural and smaller Habitat affiliates use AmeriCorps NCCC teams before large builds because 

they don’t have the capacity to get everything in order and ready for large volunteers. This introduces 

the affiliates to AmeriCorps in general and increases the likelihood they will apply to host a full time 

service member, compared to affiliates that have never previously engaged with AmeriCorps.

Affiliates also use NCCC teams for rehab and disaster work.

Habitat affiliates also use the RSVP program. We know that small and rural affiliates highly value RSVP 

volunteers. 

Review of 25 Years of Service through CNCS

Chair Singh thanked the speakers for their inspiring words, then observed that the anniversary is an 

excellent opportunity to build awareness of the value and importance of national service. She invited Ms. 

Dixon to share a component of the 25th anniversary celebration that has already begun.

Ms. Dixon reported that CNCS’s Office of External Affairs has compiled a list of 25 ways national service 

has made an impact. She said it was likely hard to limit the list to 25, but that is was her pleasure to share 

five of these accomplishments with the audience:
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1. AmeriCorps is launched. On September 12th, 1994, at the White House and simultaneously at other 

places across the country, 20,000 first-ever AmeriCorps members took the pledge to “get things done 

for America.” By 2016, AmeriCorps reached the one million member milestone, and every year, 

another 75,000 members take this pledge. 

2. Improving the health of seniors. It is often said that Senior Corps service “adds years to your life and 

life to your years.” A CNCS research study found empirical evidence of this saying: Senior Corps 

volunteers self-report much higher health scores than do older adults in similar circumstances who 

do not volunteer. The research also found that, compared to non-volunteers, Senior Corps volunteers 

feel significantly less depressed and isolated.

3. Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through service. In 1994, Congress designated the Martin Luther 

King Jr. Federal Holiday as a national day of service and charged CNCS with leading this effort. Making 

the civil rights leader’s birthday “a day on, not a day off” has moved hundreds of thousands of 

volunteers each year to use the holiday as an opportunity to serve in their communities. 

4. National Service response to Hurricane Katrina. After Hurricane Katrina devastated a wide swath of 

communities along the Gulf Coast, AmeriCorps and Senior Corps programs began a recovery 

response across the region that continues to this day. In the first decade after the disaster, CNCS 

awarded more than $333 million in grants to support the recovery effort. These funds helped 40,000 

national service participants serve nearly 10 million hours and leverage an additional 650,000 

volunteers. 

5. Combating the opioid crisis. To help address the growing national opioid abuse crisis, CNCS has made 

it a priority focus area and devoted $27.9 million to opioid-related AmeriCorps and Senior Corps 

grants to support substance abuse prevention, education, and recovery programming.
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Ms. Dixon encouraged listeners to go to CNCS’s public website to find the other ways national service has 

made an impact since CNCS’s creation and to share them on social media. She said that she is proud to 

have served on the Board and salutes the great work that national service has done during the last 25 

years and continues to do today. The agency is in great hands with Ms. Singh and Ms. Stewart as leaders. 

Comments from the Public

Chair Singh invited comments from members of the public. She first called on Gene Sofer.

Mr. Sofer introduced himself as the Washington [DC] representative of the National Association of RSVP 

Directors. Because Mr. Sofer submitted comments in writing on behalf of Betty Ruth, President of 

NARSVPD, before the meeting, his comments are not summarized in these minutes. Instead, they 

appended to the minutes for the record.

The next speaker was Kelly Daly. Ms. Kelly introduced herself as the president of the CNCS Employee’s 

Union, representing AFSCME Local 2027. She made the following points:

• The staff does not feel that the Transformation process has been transparent. The recent 

announcement of a decision to again RIF additional staff – 10 to 12 people –for a budget neutral 

transformation process, was ascribed not to regionalization, but, among other issues, to IT costs, yet 

OIT returned $2 million in S&E funds last year. 

• Staff feels management is not looking at all the places where CNCS could find savings as it moves into 

FY 2020 and that they have chosen the easiest, yet most demoralizing, way out. If there is about to be 

a large increase in AmeriCorps members, eliminating Trust staff when they have worked hard to not 

fill slots seems antithetical to what is needed in terms of risk management. 
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• Employees have been told that workforce planning will take place after the RIFs, which seems to be a 

matter of “go, set, ready” instead of “ready, set, go.”

• Per the mention of keeping staff earlier in the meeting, “most of the staff being hired have one to five 

years of experience and more experienced staff are not staying.” There have been 55 departures since 

the beginning of the fiscal year, with 24 new hires. Thirteen of these hires were in the Office of 

General Counsel, the ___ (? The transcriber missed the specific office reference – will check with Kelly 

when she’s back on Tuesday) Immediate Office and the Office of the Chief Risk Officer – none of which 

offices were asked to RIF staff. 

• Management is not abiding by precedent and looking at contract staff, and instead has moved straight 

to eliminating permanent staff. These decisions are tearing apart the foundation of national service. 

Staff have expressed that one of their biggest concerns is how all of this will affect “my sponsors and 

my grantees and my members.” Although staff are being hurt by this, by losing their jobs, by having 

to relocate, their main concern remains national service.

• She applauds all the employees. They are doing their best. AmeriCorps State and National, CNCS’s 

largest grant-making organization, is down to 40 percent of its staff, with others waiting to hear back 

from clearance processes at other federal agencies. There is one office “that will probably not have a 

single staff person remaining in six months.”

• CNCS needs to work harder at being transparent. Until the agency has that transparency, AFSCME 

supports the moves of the [U.S. House] Appropriations Committee to stop funding Transformation 

activities. AFSCME has been asked to call for a hearing before the Committee. The Union believes 

CNCS can accomplish the goals of moving national service forward, but it has to be much better at it.
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Final Comments by the Board Chair

Chair Singh thanked Ms. Daly and Mr. Sofer for their comments and for taking the time to share their 

views with the Board. She also thanked Ms. Dixon, the CNCS staff, and members of the public for joining 

the meeting. The discussion was important she expressed appreciation for everyone’s attention. She 

adjourned the meeting at 1:43 p.m.
STATEMENT OF BETTY RUTH, PRESIDENT, THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RSVP 

DIRECTORS TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE CORPORATION FOR 

NATIONAL AND COMMUNITY SERVICE, AUGUST 12, 2019

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. As you know, RSVP is the 

largest program that the Corporation administers with more than 200,000 senior 

volunteers.

We believe that RSVP has never been more relevant to our Nation than it is today. 

According to the Pew Research Center, “ today, and for every day for the next 19 

years, 10,000 baby boomers will reach age 65. The aging of this huge cohort of 

Americans (26% of the total U.S. population are Baby Boomers) will dramatically 

change the composition of the country. Currently, just 13% of Americans are ages 65 

and older. By 2030, ... fully 18% of the nation will be at least that age.” 

We believe that the power of RSVP to help solve serious social issues has been 

underappreciated and that a relatively small investment, combined with 

administrative relief, can reinvigorate RSVP. What needs to be done to more 

effectively harness this power?

I want to acknowledge Deborah Cox Roush, Director of Senior Corps, and her team 

for working closely with me, and my team, to ensure that the funds that remained 

after Criminal History Background checks were completed are being allocated to 

existing RSVP programs, throughout the country. This additional $7500 will allow 

programs to recruit additional volunteers to address such significant community 

problems as opioid abuse, helping seniors to continue to live independently, 

disaster relief, and supporting veterans and military families. I hope that these 

additional funds will reduce the number of relinquishments and help existing 

programs achieve a greater degree of stability. 

While these additional funds are most welcome, more needs to be done to revitalize 

RSVP. I propose 10 steps for you to implement to strengthen RSVP:
• First, programs need to see concrete evidence that they will not be 

adversely affected by the closure of State Offices and the transition to a 

regional structure. We remain concerned that staff will not be assigned to 

Senior Corps programs, which have specific needs and face unique 

challenges. We urge you to assign portfolio managers whose sole 

responsibility is Senior Corps.

• Second, CNCS needs to focus on results that are achievable and 

quantifiable and raise the profile of RSVP volunteers in the community while

addressing high priority community needs.

• Third, it should deploy volunteers to help seniors to live 

independently and improve the quality of their lives as they age through the 

value they receive from volunteering. Helping people to continue to live 

independently will reduce Medicare and Medicaid costs to the federal 

government and make RSVP’s value clearer.

• Fourth, it should incentivize programs to deploy volunteers to help 

local communities, local law enforcement, families, and the health care 

system combat the effects of the opioid epidemic. It should work with other 

agencies to ensure that RSVP programs are informed of available funds, and 

that those funds are in amounts that make sense for RSVP programs. 

• Fifth, it should invest in the marketing and branding of Senior Corps 

so that the programs and the Corporation can better enjoy the programs’ 

success. It should ensure that every RSVP program has a functioning and 

regularly maintained website.

• Sixth, to make it more attractive for sponsors to participate in RSVP, 

CNCS should reduce the RSVP match to 10% and be prepared to entirely 

waive the match in extreme circumstances. 

• Seventh, CNCS should collect only the data it needs and use the data it 

collects. Data collection and reporting is a burden on programs. If you don’t 

use it, don’t ask programs to collect it. 
• Eighth, CNCS should continue to retain the statutory protections for 

programs that are included in the Serve America Act, while it continues to 

simplify the competition process so that smaller programs are not 

disadvantaged. 

• Ninth, CNCS should allocate relinquished funds to existing programs 

rather than compete them. It is imperative that CNCS continues the policy, 

implicit in the allocation of these $7500 augmentation grants, of 

strengthening existing programs

• Finally, CNCS should ensure that Senior Corps programs are properly 

represented on this Board.

One final word about the Transformation Plan: Our collective success depends on a 

transparent process, marked by collaboration, free give and take, and mutual 

respect. Otherwise, the process cannot achieve its goals, no matter how important 

they are. I hope that going forward, we see a greater degree of true collaboration 

than we have seen to date.

Thank you.