250 E Street, SW

Washington, D.C. 20525

202-606-5000 | 800-942-2677 | TTY 800-833-3722

TO: 

FROM: 

SUBJECT: 

DATE: 

State Service Commissions and AmeriCorps Direct Grantees 

Chester W. Spellman 

Director of AmeriCorps State and National 

2018.02: AmeriCorps State and National – Changes in the Enrollment Process to 

Facilitate SSN and Citizenship Verification and Promote Criminal History 

Check Compliance and Posting Member Opportunities on CNCS Recruitment 

Website

May 30, 2018 

Eligibility requires documentation of a member’s status as a citizen or as a Legal Permanent Resident. CNCS 

requires documentation to “manually” verify eligibility whenever eligibility is not automatically verified 

based on social security number. In order to keep children and vulnerable populations safe, clearance for 

criminal history requires that members be checked and cleared prior to the start of service on National Sex 

Offender Public Website and that state and FBI checks as appropriate for the member and their service be 

initiated no later than the day members start their service. 

Pre-enrollment 

Among the most common or recurring audit and monitoring findings for AmeriCorps State and National 

grantees are lack of documentation demonstrating member eligibility and late and incomplete NSOPW.gov, 

state, and FBI checks. 

In order to address these persistent issues, the timing of the automated Social Security Number and citizenship 

verifications for AmeriCorps State and National members is being shifted to an earlier stage in the invitation 

and enrollment process. These checks will now occur at the time an applicant or invitee accepts an offer from 

the program, instead of being the last step a program takes when it enters Placement Information to enroll a 

member. By moving up the validity checks to earlier in the enrollment process, the verification results will be 

ready for review by the program the morning of the next business day after the member submits their 

acceptance. 

This means that some programs may have to adjust the timing of their own applicant screening and selection 

practices to earlier in the process. CNCS is willing to adjust a program’s start dates if this is necessary. 

Title: AmeriCorps State and National Pre-Enrollment and Position Description Posting 

Date issued: May 30, 2018 

Date posted: February 28, 2020 

Unique identifier: ASN 010

Topic: ASN Member Enrollment Process and Posting Member Opportunities 

Summary: This communication addresses changes in the enrollment process to facilitate SSN and citizenship verification and promote criminal 

history check compliance; it also requires member opportunities to be posted to the CNCS recruitment website. 

The contents of this document do not have the force and effect of law and are not meant to bind the public in any way. This document is intended only 

to provide clarity to the public regarding existing requirements under the law or agency policies.
NationalService.gov

Grantees may also request approval for pre-award costs related to recruitment and screening if that would be 

helpful. 

We are also adding two boxes to the enrollment screen requiring program staff to certify they have conducted, 

reviewed and adjudicated a compliant NSOPW.gov check, and have initiated the state of service, state of 

residence, and FBI checks as may be appropriate for the specific individual in their proposed assignment. It is 

hoped that by compelling program staff to certify they have completed required pre-enrollment procedures, 

there will be greater compliance with these important applicant screening steps. 

These requirements will be included in a new section of the Enrollment Screen titled SSN, Citizenship, and 

Criminal History Check Verification Information that will display both the SSN and Citizenship verification 

statuses, as well as the two certification boxes for criminal history checks. 

The Enroll Member button in the Placement Information section (the place where program staff enter the start 

date, program year, program title, service location, and slot type) at the bottom of the Enrollment Screen will 

not activate until a member’s SSN and Citizenship statuses are Verified automatically or Manually Verified by 

CNCS Hotline staff, and program staff have certified completion of the NSOPW check and initiation of the 

State and FBI checks. This will prevent unfortunate financial consequences for programs by the inadvertent 

enrollment of ineligible individuals and we hope this will encourage greater compliance with criminal history 

checking requirements. 

Consistently over the past seven years of data, ninety-six percent of all members are verified for both SSN and 

citizenship in the initial screening by the Social Security Administration. Any cases where members are not 

able to be verified by Social Security will have to be resolved by the program submitting appropriate 

documentation that validates the SSN status and/or supports citizenship or Legal Permanent Residence status 

before the member can be enrolled in the National Service Trust and start earning service hours. CNCS is 

building additional capacity to handle the pre-enrollment screening for the four percent of individuals that 

can’t be confirmed by Social Security to address concerns by programs that this will unnecessarily delay their 

programs. 

Additional Requirements related to prompt reporting of enrollments 

Programs will be required to complete the Placement Information section of the enrollment screen and take the 

Enroll Member action within five days of a member’s start date. This is a reduction of the time permitted by

program to take this same action under the existing 30-day enrollment process. The changes in the screens will 

prevent programs from entering or selecting a date-value earlier than five days prior to the certification of 

enrollment date. 

For the Future 

Enhancements to the enrollment process including a method to process multiple records at the same time and 

to submit external records are under development. 
NationalService.gov

AmeriCorps Position Listings 

All positions for AmeriCorps members will be required to be listed in the MyAmeriCorps Portal for the 2018-

19 program year. AmeriCorps programs will need to list member positions as Service Opportunities by 

creating a Service Opportunity Listing in My AmeriCorps portal. 

This will enable all AmeriCorps open service opportunities to be publically accessible in one recruitment 

platform. We believe a centralized recruitment platform will be helpful with AmeriCorps State and National 

recruitment because all potential AmeriCorps applicants will be able to view all service opportunities in one 

location. 

If you have questions regarding the process of posting positions in the MyAmeriCorps Portal please contact 

your program officer. Additional resources about creating service opportunity listings and use of the on-line 

recruitment system can be found at: https://www.nationalservice.gov/resources/americorps/memberassignment-listings. 

Timing and Transition to the New Process 

At this time, the improvements to the system are scheduled to go into effect on July 2, 2018 for members 

starting after July. Programs should make their best effort to complete enrollment of all members that are 

pending in the Pending Enrollment Workbasket in the MyAmeriCorps Portal by July 1, 2018 to avoid possible 

transition challenges. After July 1, 2018, programs are going to have to request the Hotline to take action to 

have the member’s record sent to Social Security for the SSN and citizenship varication check. This could result 

in a delay in their enrollment. 

The changes being made are on the enrollment screen and will affect any members, regardless of program 

year, being enrolled after the modifications have been deployed. 

Going Forward: 

In order to assist programs during the initial period of implementation, I am assigning a single point of contact 

to work in collaboration with your program officer to address challenges you might encounter with enrollment 

of your members. If you or your program face challenges during this period, please contact your program 

officer and Jim Stone, Senior Program and Project Officer at jstone@cns.gov for assistance in resolving 

challenges encountered during the transition to the new process. 

I understand that changing the way programs process members may represent a change in the timing and 

sequence of grantee’s screening and selection of potential members. I recognize that on fairly short notice 

programs are going to have to change the way they are doing business. I am hopeful that through this new 

process that programs will be better protected from inadvertently enrolling ineligible members and by 

requiring certifications for criminal history checks it will reduce or eliminate the number of late or 

noncompliant criminal history checks. We are all working to ensure children and vulnerable populations are 

safe and that only eligible members are participating.