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              Engaging Volunteers: A Comprehensive Literature Review
      Back
                As the nation’s largest grantmaker in support of service and volunteering, AmeriCorps plays a vital role in supporting the American culture of citizenship, service, and responsibility. The agency engages more than 5 million Americans in service each year through its AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps Seniors, and Volunteer Generation Fund (VGF) programs. Launched in 2010, VGF funds state service commissions that administer initiatives to expand volunteering, strengthen the capacity of volunteer connector organizations to recruit and retain skill-based volunteers, and develop strategies to use volunteers effectively to solve problems and enable people in the United States to effect change through service.

AmeriCorps has encouraged innovation among its VGF grantees. As the program is gaining momentum and has received larger funding, the agency is interested in documenting and synthesizing the program approaches, best practices, and lessons learned.

**Goals:**

The study will examine:

Program design, which will largely be descriptive and utilize qualitative methods (interviews and document review) to document the overall program designs for each selected state;
	Program implementation, using qualitative methods to assess how program implementers work with volunteer organizations, schools, and youth programs; and
	Program outcome, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods to look at impacts of the programs on beneficiaries (i.e., volunteer organizations, schools, youth programs, and volunteers).**Research Questions:**

What are state commissions’ approaches for utilizing VGF funds to improve volunteer recruitment, retention, and support of volunteers within their states and among volunteer organizations?
	What are promising practices and challenges in implementing these approaches?
	What are preliminary outputs and outcomes of these approaches on volunteer organizations and volunteers?For more information, download the:

**FULL REPORT**

**RESOURCE GUIDE**

      Full report
      

      Full Report
            Literature Review for Volunteer Management_508_2024
        Further information
    



      Program/Intervention
                        Literature Review
  

      Implementing Organization
                        AmeriCorps Office of Research and Evaluation Commissioned Report
  

      AmeriCorps Program(s)
            Volunteer Generation Fund
  

      Focus Population(s)/Community(s)
            Nonprofits
  

      Outcome Category
            Disaster assistance provided
                  Financial literacy
                  Housing
                  Employment
                  School readiness
                  K-12 success
                  Post-secondary educational support
                  Energy efficiency
                  At-risk ecosystems
                  Awareness of environmental issues
                  Green jobs
                  Aging in place
                  Obesity and food
                  Access to care
                  Veterans and military families served
                  Benefit to national service members/volunteers
                  Nonprofit development
                  Improving AmeriCorps
                  Other
  

      Study Type(s)
            Case Study or Descriptive
                  Outcomes
  

      Study Design(s)
            Non-experimental
  

      Researcher/Evaluator
                        ICF International
  

      Published Year
                        2024 Back to main content Sign up to hear about our latest news, events, and opportunities.
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