ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

ANDREA ROBLES: I’m going to start again. So, hi 

everyone. Thanks so much for joining us today. My 

name is Andrea Robles and I’m from the Office of 

Research and Evaluation and CNCS and, as you all 

know, our webinar series is one way we share our 

ongoing research and findings and today we are very 

excited to host a webinar that shares information 

about two of our CNCS programs, AmeriCorps NCCC and 

AmeriCorps VISTA. This gives our research grantees 

and the community partners an opportunity to learn 

more about these programs and how we may be able to 

link these programs to your communities. At a future 

date, we will also invite staff from Senior Corps and 

AmeriCorps state national to hear more about their 

programs. We believe this webinar to be informative 

for all our research grantees; however, we thought 

this might be of particular interest to our 2018 

community conversations grantees as they are in the 

midst of conducting participatory research with 

community residents and partners identifying 

community concerns and taking steps to engage 

stakeholders in developing action plans to tackle the 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

community identified concerns. We are hoping that 

the information presented today can help you and your 

community partners figure out how these CNCS programs 

may assist your work in strengthening your 

communities. But, before we begin, we’d like to 

cover a few housekeeping items for Adobe Connect and 

I’ll pass it on to Emily. 

EMILY REINAS: Alright. Thank everyone for joining 

today. We ask that everyone remain on mute during 

the presentation until the Question and Answer 

session at the end and if you experience any 

technical difficulties or have any questions during 

the presentation, just please let us know in the chat 

box below. We also want to let you know that this 

webinar will be recorded and posted on-line following 

the presentation. And I believe that covers our 

housekeeping for today. 

ANDREA ROBLES: Okay thanks Emily. So, just in terms of 

our format, NCCC will begin and we have Tanya GipsonNahman, the Deputy Regional Director for Programming 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

at the NCCC Pacific Region based in Sacramento, 

Amanda Cochran, Assistant Program Director NCCC 

Pacific Region, Kevin Anderson who is the Program 

Associate, he deals with social media and recruitment 

here at NCCC Headquarters. VISTA will follow and we 

have Craig Kinnear, Program and Budget Analyst from 

VISTA and Melissa McNeily, a Program Impact 

Specialist and then we have an example of how one of 

our research grantees, the University of Nevada-Reno, 

is working with our NCCC Pacific Region campus to 

develop projects that have been identified by the 

research they are conducting. So, we have Melissa 

Gouge, Jennifer Willett, Assistant Professor of 

School Social Work at the University of Nevada, Tanya 

Gipson and Amanda. We will then have just a very 

short remark from Dr. Melissa Gouge and then we’ll 

open it up to Q&A. So, I know webinars can be a bit 

awkward and we definitely want a chance to hear your 

questions and to hear from you directly. So, during 

the webinar, please feel free to ask any questions or 

provide comments in the chat box, but during the Q&A, 

you can raise your hand and Emily will tell you a 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

little bit more how to do that or I will at the end 

of this portion and you have chances to ask questions 

in the microphone directly. So, right now what I’ll 

do, is I’ll pass it on to Tanya and Amanda to talk 

about NCCC. 

AMANDA COCHRAN: Perfect. Thank you so much Andrea. This 

is Amanda Cochran and as Andrea noted, I’m an 

Assistant Program Director over here at AmeriCorps at 

NCCC’s Pacific Region and I’ll let Tanya introduce 

herself. 

TANYA GIPSON-NAHMAN: Hi everyone. My name is Tanya 

Gibson-Nahman and I’m the Deputy Region Director for 

Programming here at the Pacific Region in Sacramento 

and our office is responsible for developing service 

projects for our AmeriCorps teams in nine states in 

the western region. 

AMANDA COCHRAN: And AmeriCorps and NCCC is one of the 

programs under the corporation for national community 

service that you will be hearing about today as 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

Andrea noted. AmeriCorps VISTA is also here, so 

they’ll be talking about their program. So, we’re 

one of the branches and NCCC stands for National 

Civilian Community Corps. We are a residential, team 

based and direct service AmeriCorps program and we do 

short-term high-impact projects. That makes us a 

little different than other AmeriCorps programs. Our 

teams of AmeriCorps NCCC members live together, work 

together, travel together and they do about three to 

five projects during the 10 months in which they are 

serving. So, as you can see here, actually, if you 

want to go back to the map, we have actually four 

different regions throughout the country. We have 

headquarters in D.C. and then each region is 

responsible for a multitude of states, so we are out 

of Sacramento, California and you can see we have 

actually nine states in the western part of the U.S. 

We also have three other campuses, so one is in 

Denver, Colorado, one is in Vinton, Iowa and one is 

in Vicksburg, Mississippi, so each of those campuses 

is responsible for that region as you can see in the 

map. And then on the next slide, so, our members are 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

from all walks of life, all different types of 

experiences from around the country, they are 18-24 

years old and they might be high school graduates, 

they might be taking a gap year during college, they 

might have graduated from college, just kind of a

wide range and I know Kevin Anderson will be talking 

a little more about our members here shortly. As far 

as our projects, so, we have also a wide range of 

projects. There’s not too many limitations as far as 

what we can do so, we have projects with Habitat for 

Humanity building houses, we do fire mitigation work, 

we do mentorship in schools and after-school 

programs, we might support food banks, school 

gardens, student conservation work, it’s really, kind 

of, whatever the community need is, we want to help 

support that. So, as you can see here, and as I 

mentioned previously, we are a direct service 

program, so just like that extra people, power of 

hands and boots on the ground, getting things done 

and we are team based, which makes us pretty 

different from other AmeriCorps programs. Usually, 

our teams have anywhere between 8-12 members, one 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

member of the team is a team leader who is 

responsible for managing and supporting the team. 

The members on the team are between 18-24 years old 

and our projects range between 6-12 weeks, typically, 

they might be a little bit shorter, but that’s our 

basic time frame. And then we have five major areas 

in which we serve, kind of steam areas, we work in 

disasters, national and other disasters, we do 

environmental stewardship and conservation work as I 

mentioned, energy conservation is one of our areas, 

we do infrastructure improvement, so, like I 

mentioned, Habitat for Humanity type work and urban 

and rural development. Those are our five different 

areas. Really, we can do pretty much any type of 

work though our limitations are, we cannot do 

anything inherently political or religious. We can’t 

do direct fundraising and we cannot do any direct 

work that is supporting a for-profit partner. Beyond 

that, not too many limitations. Alright, and then 

the next slide, our project sponsors, so, as I 

mentioned, there’s not a lot of limitations beyond 

really the for-profit side as far as who can be a 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

project sponsor, so, our sponsors are typically nonprofits, faith based organizations, we have a lot of 

governmental organizations whether it’s federal, 

state or local, that are project sponsors, public 

schools, colleges, universities, tribal councils, 

native corporations, as you can see, just a wide 

range of organizations that can be project sponsors 

and support a team. As far as the application 

process, really, it’s directly working with each 

campus, so as you saw in the map, there’s four 

different regions. Each region has a campus and 

staff, like Tanya and I, that work directly with our 

sponsors to help develop projects. So, the last 

slide I have will have some contact information for 

each of the regions, but basically, if you are 

interested in being a sponsor, you would reach out to 

the program office and they would help support you in 

developing a project. So, similar to what Jennifer 

will be talking about as far as our Reno, Nevada 

partnership, I’ve been working closely with her in 

that development. From there, you would submit a 

project concept form and that’s just a short 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

document, kind of, initially introducing the idea of 

a project and then really just working with the 

campus throughout that process for the full 

application and all the details of the project. And 

then the next slide talks about what teams receive 

from us and what we ask our sponsors to provide, so, 

form our program we have 15-passenger vans that are 

provided to each team, they have a food and a laundry 

budget so their needs are covered with that, camping 

and cooking gear so if camping is part of the

project, we have some camping gear. If a project 

requires some tools, we have some limited tools. 

They get personal protective equipment like hard hat, 

eye pro, all that fun stuff to keep them safe and 

then we also cover them with Worker’s Compensation. 

As far as what we ask of our sponsors, each project 

is very different so sponsors know what best to 

prepare ... how to best prepare the team, so the 

sponsors would provide orientation and training on 

the project, regular ongoing supervision, any tools 

and materials relevant to that project, housing is 

the big one and that can be very creative. If you’re 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

interested in being a sponsor, we can talk more about 

how ... I won’t delve into it too much here, but that 

can be a wide range of options, whether it might be a 

church basement, working with partners to see if they 

have some housing available, it could be YMCA, all 

kinds of different options. Really, they just need a 

safe space for the team, access to bathroom, shower, 

kitchen, are, kind of, the minimal space that we 

require. Of course, the team needs sufficient, 

meaningful work to keep them engaged in the 

community. Each member of the team, like I said, 

between 8-12 members, they need to be working 40 

hours a week. So, it’s a quite a bit of work, you 

can get a lot done in a short amount of time. And 

then another piece of our program is service learning 

so, not only are they going into communities and 

doing work, but they are also learning about the 

impact of that work and why it’s meaningful to the 

community. And then, the final slide here, as I 

mentioned, so, the four regions you saw on the map 

are broken down here, so we have the Pacific region 

which is us in Sacramento, and then each of the 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

consecutive regions there. You can see their email 

addresses and then we have a national request for 

applications document. It’s actually linked in the 

file section here on the Adobe Connect meeting page, 

so you should be able to see that and I definitely 

suggest that you check that out and look at the 

information on there because there’s some different 

dates and all the contact information is also on that 

document and I think that’s it. Thank you so much. 

I think we’re handing it off to Kevin Anderson now to 

talk a little more about our members. 

KEVIN ANDERSON: Great. Thank you, Amanda. So, obviously 

this webinar is talking a lot about programming, but 

I thought it would be valuable to give you guys a 

glimpse at who our members are. If you’re going to 

be potentially giving them a bunch of work, you 

should know what kind of young adults you’re signing 

up to have. So, as Amanda mentioned, these people 

are between the ages of 18-24 years old. 

We do have a team leader leading each team, which can 

be any age, there’s no upper age limit, they just 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

need to have a valid driver’s license to use the van. 

Our members also have to be U.S. citizens or lawful 

permanent residents of the United States and then, 

beyond that, that’s kind of the two basic 

eligibility, but then there’s more soft eligibility 

things, they have to be willing to relocate and serve 

for 10 consecutive months on a variety of projects. 

They don’t get to choose which projects they are 

going to go on, we assign those to them, so they have 

to be flexible and then, they do not have work or 

education or skills requirements, there’s no barriers 

to that in them joining, but they do have to have, 

sort of, motivation and altruism, which we review as 

part of our assessment of their application. So, 

there’s a lot of factors in that we look at their 

references, we look at a motivational statement that 

they write, and we use these to decide who is, kind 

of, fit to serve. Once they are invited, they 

receive a conditional invitation at which point we 

conduct a criminal history check and a medical 

history check to make sure that they are fit for 

service and this includes sex offender registry track 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

and felonies and misdemeanors and all that stuff. 

There are exceptions that allow us to let people in 

based on their history, but that’s too much to go 

over for right now, but we do our due diligence in 

that. One other quick thing that I wanted to mention 

that I didn’t get on the slide is that, just talking 

about in the character of our members, we actually 

did some informative audience research of our own 

recently and I just wanted to shout out a few things. 

So, one I have, over 90% of our members agree that 

volunteer work aligns with their personal values, 

which is just kind of saying that the people doing 

this work, the people who are applying to serve in 

our program, this is exactly what they want to be 

doing and then 95% of them say volunteer work is 

something to be proud of, which kind of helps to 

reinforce that. And then a larger majority of them 

are joining for the purposes of gaining life 

experience, wanting to make a difference, to be a 

part of some kind of meaningful work and then also, 

to learn new skills. So, these people who are 

joining our program and who are applying, by and 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

large, our mission is to serve communities and 

develop leaders and these are leaders that we are 

developing, so, we definitely have a lot of power 

behind the work that we’re offering. And that is 

about it when talking about our members, so I’m going 

to go ahead and pass it over to Craig and Melissa 

from VISTA. 

CRAIG KINNEAR: Thanks Kevin. As Andrea said, my name is 

Craig Kinnear, I’m a program and budget analyst at 

AmeriCorps VISTA. AmeriCorps VISTA is one of the 

oldest continuing federal anti-poverty programs, 

having been around since 1965. Over 220,000 VISTA 

members have served in high poverty communities since 

that time. VISTA has four core principles that guide 

our work and the work that sponsors and members 

accomplish in their community. The first principle 

is ending poverty. A VISTA process goal is to move 

individuals and communities out of poverty rather 

than making poverty more tolerable through short-term 

services. The second is empowering communities. As 

a way to empower communities, a VISTA project engages 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

residents of the low-income communities in the 

planning, development and implementation of the antipoverty project. The third principle is building 

capacity. To build capacity, VISTA members leverage 

resources, including financial resources and 

volunteers. They create effective management 

systems, build community partnerships and expand 

outreach to populations in need. The fourth 

principle is creating sustainable solutions. VISTA 

members build a capacity of organizations to continue 

to address poverty long after the VISTAs are gone. 

VISTA members leave behind new and expanded resource 

networks, management systems, communications networks 

and partnerships that continue to support antipoverty efforts. The annual impact of the work being 

done in the field is impressive. In FY 2018, the 

program placed over 8,000 members at 4,500 different 

sites across the United States and its territories. 

VISTA members leveraged over $195 million in cash and 

in-kind resources to support their projects. In 

addition, over 720,000 volunteers were mobilized to 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

work on anti-poverty programming. And now, I’d like 

to turn it over to Melissa McNeily. 

MELISSA MCNEILY: Thanks Craig. Hello everyone. So, now 

I’d like to talk a little bit about the VISTA sponsor 

application process. So, we have a two-step process 

for the VISTA sponsor application. First, the 

interested organization submits a concept paper in 

the e-grant system. E-grants is a separate system 

from grants.gov, so please be sure that you are using 

e-grants. The organization creates an account and 

uploads and submits a concept paper in this platform. 

CNCS reviews the concept papers to gain a better 

understanding of the proposed project and to 

determine if the activities and the organization are 

in alignment with VISTA’s programming priorities, 

which include, economic opportunities, education, 

health futures and veterans and military families. 

The proposed project must be focused on anti-poverty 

work and the concept paper must clearly demonstrate 

how the proposed VISTA project breaks the cycle of 

poverty and helps uplift communities. Concept papers 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

that do not clearly align with VISTA’s anti-poverty 

mission will not be approved. VISTA resources cannot 

be used to carry out activities for which an 

organization has already received CNCS or grant 

dollars to carry out. We’re happy to have VISTA 

resources support the work, particularly the 

implementation of action plans; however, this must be 

separate from what the community conversation’s grant 

money is supporting. This fiscal year, we 

implemented a new request for concept papers process. 

The concept paper submission deadlines are now on a 

quarterly basis and the next deadline is July 1st. If 

CNCS approves the concept paper, the organization is 

invited to submit a full application, much of which 

is exported from the responses that the applicant has 

already provided in the concept paper. CNCS field 

staff are available to provide technical assistance 

and guidance during the writing of both the concept 

paper and the full application. Now, I’d like to 

briefly touch based upon some member recruitment 

ideas. So, after the application has been approved 

and the CNCS field staff will help your organization 
ICF CNCS Transcription

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

develop a service opportunity listing to begin the 

VISTA recruitment efforts. All listings are posted 

on our AmeriCorps application portal. At that time, 

the organization will also develop a VISTA assignment 

description or a VAD. The VAD is a required member 

position description for each VISTA member. It 

serves as a power guide for recruitment, for planning 

and implementing activities. It can be used to 

assist with selecting a VISTA candidate, guiding and 

supporting members during their year of service and 

assessing performance by measuring their work against 

the stated goals and objectives. VISTA has marketing 

materials available for sponsors to use during the 

recruitment efforts, such as brochures, fliers, 

posters, postcards and an on-line photo library, just 

to name a few. You should promote the benefits of 

service such as the education award, non-competitive 

eligibility for federal jobs and relocation 

assistance. It’s important to emphasize how your 

organization and VISTA will provide professional 

development to members once they’re on board. You 

should post jobs on sites like: idealist, indeed, 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

Linked In and also use local job boards. You can 

also use social media and bulletin boards to get the 

word out. Lastly, develop recruitment contacts with 

local colleges, universities, career centers and 

community organizations. Forage connections with the 

Rotary club, Lions club, links, Hot Teens of America 

or other social organizations in your area and ask to 

give a presentation about your program and any VISTA 

openings during one of their meetings. And I’ll hand 

it back over to Craig. 

CRAIG KINNEAR: Thanks Melissa. The last thing we’d like 

to touch upon are benefits for both the members and 

sponsors. As you become a VISTA sponsor, you’ll want 

to know all of the benefits available to VISTA 

members so that you can support them and inform 

candidates during the recruitment process. In 

addition to benefits which range from a living 

allowance, health coverage and childcare support, 

non-competitive hiring eligibility for federal jobs 

and an end of service award, we have many others that 

aren’t listed, such as student loan forbearance and 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

relocation assistance. To learn more about VISTA 

member benefits, visit the VISTA webpage or VISTA 

campus. Sponsoring agencies also receive numerous 

benefits for hosting a VISTA member, such as 

strengthening their capacity, recruiting and managing 

additional volunteers, expanding partnership 

opportunities in their community. The impact that 

VISTA members make in their communities is 

invaluable. Please reach out to CNCS field staff if 

you have any questions and thank you for considering 

VISTA. And now, I’ll hand it over to the other 

Melissa. 

MELISSA GOUGE: Thank you so much. Thank you to Tanya 

and Amanda, Kevin, Craig and Melissa for providing 

very brief overviews of your very large program that 

you could have talked about for a very long time. As 

the program officer for all 16 of the community 

conversations grantees, I’ve worked with our newest 

cohorts of grantees. We’re conducting participatory 

research along side communities across the country. 

Drs. Jennifer Willett and Mary Hilton, P.I.’s at the 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

University of Nevada, working with their community 

partner, Communities in Schools and their amazing 

group of student scientists, are working together to 

address slow violence and its impact on the local 

community. More to come on what “slow violence” is 

in a minute. Their collaborative efforts to 

determine research questions, methods for data 

collection and analysis of these issues led them to 

identify the need for sidewalks in the Sun Valley 

neighborhood and they are currently collaborating 

with our NCCC program and local stakeholders to 

implement this much needed public infrastructure 

project. This is only a part of the action plan 

that’s been identified by the team that is exemplary 

of one way that the CNCS program can help you, as our 

Research Grantees, implement your action plans that 

are developed in the course of your project. 

Jennifer, I’ll turn it over to you to described your 

project in your work with NCCC so far. 

JENNIFER WILLETT: All right. Thank you. As, Melissa 

said my name is Jennifer Willett, I’m an Assistant 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

Professor at the University of Nevada-Reno. And along 

with my colleague Mary Hilton, we’ve been working on 

making the invisible visible. So this is most of our 

research team. We have two faculty members. You can 

see me in the back right there, and Mary is behind 

the camera, unfortunately. But the key to our work is 

we hire 15 high school students from local Title 1 

schools to be our co-researchers, and we call them 

Youth Scientists. So they help us determine the 

methods, and they collect data through photography 

and interviews. 

And what we’re working on is documenting slow 

violence through the photo-voice methodology. Slow 

violence focuses on the hidden environmental 

degradation that occurs in historically marginalized 

communities. So this is something like air pollution, 

which you can’t usually see that impacts at the rates 

in communities of color. By photographing these 

hidden slow violence problems, we can make them 

visible so we can start to work on them. 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

 We recruited our Youth Scientists from the Title I 

because they live in the impacted communities. So 

where you and I might not be able to see the hidden 

environmental problems, they live this every day, and 

they know how to document them appropriately. We 

definitely guide the youth in the process, but we do 

try to stay within topic that they want to work on 

and that they are passionate about. 

 So far we have been documented things like winter 

flooding and homeless populations, lake flooding in 

an elementary school, and inadequate garbage 

collection. Coming up tomorrow, actually, we’re 

taking a big field trip to look at wild fires and 

mining pollution, and we’re also going to meet with 

the Governor’s Office, which we’re super excited 

about, but for the remainder of this presentation I’m 

going to talk about what they’ve been doing with 

another one of their areas of focus, which is the 

lack of sidewalks and ditches and flooding in Sun 

Valley. 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

 So Sun Valley is an area near Reno, about half of the 

Youth Scientists live in this neighborhood. It’s 

really only 3 miles from Reno, many people walk back 

and forth from Sun Valley, but it is not technically 

considered part of Reno. It’s this strange situation 

where it’s an unincorporated area, so there is no 

local government. Instead it’s governed by the county 

government, which is not in Sun Valley, and they are 

focused on county-level initiatives rather than these 

hyper-local initiatives like sidewalks. 

 Sun Valley has a higher poverty rate than other 

areas. Sun Valley has a high Latino population. 

Mobile homes without infrastructure are common. And 

then other types of community level infrastructure, 

like drainage systems, sewers, and lighting are very 

weak. There are some really great non-profits in the 

area, but there really aren’t that many operating.

Because there isn’t a normal drainage system, there 

are ditches on the side of the road. You can see that 

on the right of this photo. So this is important 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

because we live in a desert, so there are flashfloods 

and then the water can flow into the ditch. However, 

as you can also see in this photo there are no 

sidewalks. So residents have to bike or walk on the 

road. So, as you can imagine this creates a really 

dangerous situation, particularly for kids, if a car 

comes too close to you there is nowhere to go except 

into the ditch. And then the water can fill up in the 

ditches because they got blocked, sometimes, or 

there’s just too much water because of the 

flashflood. And that makes it hard to see where the 

ditch is and then people fall in. So all of our youth 

scientists have a story of when they, or a family 

member, fall in the ditch and couldn’t get out. 

 Our youth scientists are particularly interested in 

the lack of sidewalks and the ditches around the 

schools in the area, which you can see here. A few 

years ago a student was hit and killed by a car while 

waiting for a school bus near a ditch. So that 

accident is often referred to when talking about 

these issues in this area. And the youth scientists 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

are also very concerned about the safety of their 

younger siblings, who have to walk to work alone 

because their parents are working 2 to 3 jobs. 

 So keeping this problem in mind, we began developing 

partnerships for solutions at our site visit, which 

is really great. In this photo you can see our youth 

scientists, along with Andrea, and Melissa, NCCC, and 

Nevada volunteers. So this was really the beginning 

of coming together to move towards a real solution. 

 So I think as Amanda, from NCCC, and I kept 

connecting, we felt that addressing the sidewalk was 

probably the easiest first win of all of the 

complicated issues the youth scientists wanted to 

work on. We were fortunate that NCCC, Sacramento 

office is just over the mountain, so Amanda can come 

over, and she’s been over several times, so we can 

meet with people together. 

 And NCCC has also built sidewalks in another Nevada 

community which gives us a model, and it also helps 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

Sun Valley feel comfortable that NCCC knows what 

they’re doing and can hold to their word and get this 

done. So together, NCCC and our research team, we met 

with the County Commissioner that represents Sun 

Valley, and had actually built sidewalks before. She 

connected us to the Sun Valley General Improvement 

District, which manages some of the infrastructure in 

lieu of a formal local government. We, Amanda, the 

Youth Scientists, and I presented to them, and they 

were very supportive, and they are actively trying to 

help us move forward with the county to get this 

done. 

We’ve also been able to meet jointly with some of the 

resources that need to be in place from NCCC’s team, 

like housing. And we’re continuing on moving this 

forward, we just met with the General Improvement 

District, again, last week, and they’re connecting us 

to other county members who then give us the proper 

authorization to build sidewalks. 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

And I really feel like this is coming together. We’re 

making progress because we are a legitimate team. You 

know, the problem came from the local residents. The 

University supports the residents, and we have a 

resource, NCCC that wants to work on these issues. I 

think this goes really, really far when working with 

communities that are sometimes skeptical of 

outsiders, like a lot of communities in Nevada are. 

And I thought that we would have to argue for this 

issue in advancing solutions a lot, but we really 

don’t. They see us as a team that can get things done 

and provide a solution or their needs. 

So I’d like to conclude fast by talking about the 

benefits for our research team. Clearly we are 

involved in more than just the research, and that 

does create more work. But it has been hugely 

beneficial for our research to have the backing of 

AmeriCorps behind us. We have been able to get into 

other communities to do research by discussing 

AmeriCorps, and the potential that we can certainly 

clean things up together. And this are communities 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

that I’ve never been able to get in with just the 

University backing. 

It’s also been really beneficial for our Youth 

Scientists who see that they can create change in 

their communities. And it’s helped them frame how to 

see the hidden environmental problems. These are 

sometimes hard for them to grasp because you can’t 

see them, right, so you have to think about how to 

photograph them creatively. So when we think about it 

from a solutions-focused perspective we can see these 

issues easier and that makes our work just more 

trustworthy which is making the research better, too. 

And then it’s also just been really fun. I think 

that, probably anybody who has been an assistant 

professor can say that research is a little isolating 

sometimes. So having a team behind me is great. And 

accomplishing things is fun and seeing what these 

kids do is just really inspiring. So, thank you for 

the support. And I will pass it along. 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

FEMALE: Thank you so much, Jennifer. We cannot wait to 

hear updates on this work and we’re so happy that 

this partnership is proving fruitful for progress on 

this one element of your action plan. And I’ll hand 

this off to Andrea to facilitate the Q&A session. 

ANDREA ROBLES: Okay, Tanya and Amanda I do want to hear 

from your perspective of the University of Nevada. So 

let me just open it up. And then I’ll just ask you to 

talk a little bit more about that. So, we want this 

to be an informal and a discussion. I know this was 

webinar was a little at the last minute, and a lot of 

people are off. But I do some of you on. So take this 

sudden opportunity to as all the questions you wanted 

and how you would be able to hook up with your 

community, or anything you ever wanted to know about 

NCCC’s existence. But, anyway, for our in-person 

audience, which means the people in this room, just 

state your name before responding or asking a 

question. I mean, we do have two Melissa’s, so 

[laughter – unintelligible] And for those of you 

online, you can either type a question, or if you 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

don’t mind just use the microphone which – Let’s see, 

do you want to say how you do it, Emily. 

EMILY REINAS: Yeah, if you see on the top bar there’s 

an icon of a person raising their hand, if you click 

that it should give you microphone access to your 

computer, so you can ask a question verbally, or 

there’s also a pipeline if you’re dialed into that, 

and then you can just un-mute yourself and ask a 

question. 

ANDREA ROBLES: Okay, great. So before we take any 

questions I just want to turn again to Tanya and 

Amanda, and you heard from the perspective of 

Jennifer, so again you all have a different take on 

this, can you say a little bit about what the project 

has been like for NCCC in terms of how the research 

proceeds project development or any other benefits 

that you see from doing this, or challenges? 

AMANDA COCHRAN: Absolutely, yeah, I mean you heard kind 

of the introduction to NCCC and how we work in all 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

these different communities, but we’re located out of 

Sacramento, and we’re not really experts in all of 

these different communities. We don’t see the day to 

day needs, and we don’t necessarily know what the big 

issues are that we can help support. So having people 

like Jennifer and her folks on the ground in Reno, 

where we’ve tried to have more projects, and we’re 

really interested in expanding our support into some 

of these more rural communities and states, like 

Nevada, it’s been beyond amazing to just be a part of 

because we’re – You know, I’ve been able to – and 

Tanya has too – to interact with these scientists and 

meet with them and hear what their stories are, and 

it’s much more impactful, and really exciting to see 

what kinds of projects we can develop from actual 

true need, and hearing, you know, especially from 

youths on the ground, but really anyone in the 

community that’s stating what they’re needed.

 And saying, hey, like Jennifer said, we have this 

resource. How can we perfectly matchup this team to 

come and help support the community with the need 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

that you’re saying that you have? So it’s not us 

going into a community and saying that we see 

something that we can help fulfill, but it feels just 

much more impactful. So it’s not just on Jennifer’s 

that’s been amazing, it’s been a perfect partnership 

on our side as well. Tanya. 

TANYA GIPSON-NAHMAN: Yeah. And I’ll just add too, you 

know, we’re still in obviously the planning stages of 

getting this project off the ground. And we’re really 

excited at the level of community involvement. So the 

other component to think about when our teams come 

and do these short-term projects is that they’re not 

just extra workers. They are also young people and 

they are really, as Kevin was talking about, they 

really want to see the meaningfulness of their 

project work. So when you have a project like the one 

in Nevada where you’ve got youth that are engaged. 

You’ve got the City Council that’s engaged. You’ve 

got a lot of different people really invested in the 

success of this project, and explaining to our team, 

why are you doing this work? 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

I’m sure when people think about joining AmeriCorps 

they’re not like, “Oh, you know, building sidewalks 

is why I want to do this work.” But if they can see, 

like, there is a huge issue in this community, and by 

coming in, bringing in NCCC team, and doing this 

work, I really see the value in how it’s connected 

and why it’s important, and when we can find a 

project that can connect those pieces, so what we 

call service learning, it makes it just so much more 

impactful all around. So we get absolutely – The 

priority is getting the work done, but also providing 

an experience where our members get to learn and see 

how communities solve the issues that they’re trying 

to address. That’s just icing on the cake when we can 

find a project that has all of those components. 

So we’re really appreciative of the Office of 

Research and Evaluation for making the connection. 

For Jennifer and her team, for being so open and 

willing to educate us on all the different things, I 

know so much more about Nevada now after having gone 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

there. And then I’m just really hopeful that this 

project will get off the ground, and I’m sure it will 

be a success when we can do it. So, yeah, it’s just a 

real win-win partnership. So we’ve appreciated the 

opportunity. 

ANDREA ROBLES: Thank you so much. I’m not trying to sell

any – But I really, again, this webinar is about how 

do we with the research that’s going on, how do we 

best send – make that link to either NCCC or VISTA. 

And I think the recruiting is important, what’s Kevin 

is talking about, just because as researchers you 

work in universities, you have access to undergrads, 

some of you are working in high schools like 

Jennifer. And this is also – These programs are just 

really good, like use that as a gap year, or someone 

who doesn’t know what their next step is, or someone 

is graduating from college and is waiting for their 

next thing. So that’s why we want to make sure that, 

you know, both how one becomes the sponsor to do the 

work that you want to do. But then how you might, how 

the recruiting happens, and so I know with VISTA also 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

you all recruit from the community. Can you say 

something about that? So let’s there’s a communitybased project going on, are you able to recruit. So 

let’s say the students graduate high school here in 

Reno. Could they become a VISTA member and stay in 

their communities to do some of the capacity building 

work at one of the non-profits? 

FEMALE: That’s a great question. And we’ll tag team, I 

think. So we definitely do encourage that sponsoring 

organizations reach out to community members because 

they definitely are aware of what’s happening where 

they live. And they’re able to really help guide and 

impact the work that the sponsoring organization is 

going to do, that anti-poverty work, and those 

projects. And so we think it’s a really valuable 

experience, and we find that we have many different 

types of members. Whether they’re members that come 

straight out of high school, as you mentioned, or 

they can be members that sign-up after college, or 

sometimes you have people in the community that are 

maybe changing careers, or just people in the 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

community that are leaders that really want to be a 

part of this type of project, and so CNCS field staff 

definitely will work with sponsoring organizations to 

help them think about ways to recruit the most 

impactful members, if you will, and definitely 

community members are great. 

 And even if a project does not have community members 

serving on their projects as members, we definitely 

require that the community has a say in the planning, 

the implementation, and the evaluation of VISTA 

projects. So it’s very important.

ANDREA ROBLES: So I just want to see if there are any 

questions from some of you. If you’re interested in –

I think Kesha, I think Kesha had her hand up. 

KESHA MOORE: Hi, yes. Yes, I have a question, or a 

series of questions. So, thank you so much. It’s been 

– Can you hear me? Hello? Can you hear me? 

FEMALE: Yes, we can hear you. 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

KESHA MOORE: Okay, great, sorry. So it’s helpful to 

see how the CNCS research and the volunteer 

activities can come together, particularly in the 

example in the University of Nevada-Reno. My question 

really revolves around the timeline of that. So, it 

sounds like the – Is the work that’s going on now 

with the NCCC and the project, is that like – it’s 

already been through the application process or is 

this part of the application process? Because I’m 

trying to think about in-terms of our timeline, when 

do we being to engage the programs that we think 

could really support us in our community work? 

AMANDA COCHRAN: Hi Kesha, this is Amanda with NCCC. 

That’s a great question. And depending on which 

region you’re in we have different project timelines. 

So I’ve been working with Jennifer and her team just 

kind of on a rolling basis. And we have a few ideas 

as far as the timeline in which this project might 

happen, but we’re kind of wanting to get everything 

in place as far as who is the sponsor, and getting 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

the housing together, and all of that good stuff 

before we really get it off the ground. So definitely 

still in the planning phase of everything, no 

application has been submitted or anything like that. 

But in the attachments of the Adobe, Adobe Connect 

thing, there is a schedule on the 2nd page of that 

NCCC document, and it shows basically per region what 

the timelines are for our project dates. So it’s 

different, like I said, for every region. Here in the 

Pacific region our year kind of starts in the 

beginning of November and goes through the end of 

July. So we look at different timeframes within that 

period of time. 

ANDREA ROBLES: So Amanda, Kesha is in New Jersey. So, 

what would – Her campus is Southern Region? 

AMANDA COCHRAN: Yes, it is actually Southern Region. So, 

that would be the campus in Vicksburg, Mississippi. 

So it looks like their project year starts in August 

and it goes through May. So you can see based on 

which timeframe within that year you might be 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

interested in. I would say, if you have a project in 

mind or just want to get connected to the campus, go 

ahead and just start doing that and they’ll help you 

kind of develop that, and think about what the best 

timeframe might be, and kind of walk you through that 

application process. 

KESHA MOORE: Okay, that’s helpful to know. We were 

looking to connect with the VISTA program, and is 

that the same? Because I’d doubt we’d be able to make 

a July 1st deadline for our Concept Paper, but should 

we still just reach out and at least begin the 

conversation and do more collaborative planning or 

should we wait until we’re further along in the 

process? 

MELISSA MCNEILY: Hi, this is Melissa from VISTA. So we 

have a brand new request for Concept Papers process 

that we implemented this year. And as we’ve mentioned 

our next deadline is July 1st, but you can definitely 

reach out to the CNCS field staff in your state and 

begin having those conversations, you can propose the 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

project that you are thinking of, and you can work 

together, and then you would have to wait until the 

next deadline which will be October 1st. 

KESHA MOORE: Thank you. And I won’t take up too much 

time. My one last question, can a government agency 

be a sponsor for a VISTA project? 

CRAIG KINNEAR: Yes, we’re exactly the same as NCCC, 

except that we can’t place VISTAs at Federal 

Government offices, but state and local we can. 

KESHA MOORE: Great. 

ANDREA ROBLES: Are there other questions? So I’d like to 

ask about a couple of things. I mean, I’ve worked 

here now several years, and I’m still learning every 

time I hear about Keith’s program. So there is a lot 

of detail. But can you give us some examples, both 

programs, about the range of different types of 

projects that maybe you’ve developed in the last year 

so people have a better idea? I mean, Amanda you 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

talked about a range of a project, but give us some 

specific ones that you’ve done in the past year or 

that you’re developing this year for your team.

AMANDA COCHRAN: Yeah, sure. So we do have a wide-range 

for sure. I cover in my role, I do outreach and 

coordinate projects in Idaho, Nevada, and Southern 

California. Those are my areas of my region, so 

specifically as far as my experience. We actually 

have a team working in Harrington, Nevada, that’s our 

Nevada project currently, working with the Boys and 

Girls Club. So the team is a team of eight and they 

separate out into actually three different Boys and 

Girls Clubs, very rural spots in that area. So the 

team kind of separates out each day to each of those 

club offices. And they mentor and do some programming 

development for the different offices. So they work 

individually with youths in the communities. That’s 

one project that they’re doing. They’re also helping 

do some event planning for a country music festival. 

That’s kind of the main fundraising for the Boys and 

Girls Club there. So that’s one project.
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

 Also have a project up in Idaho working with a 

national forest up there, [unintelligible] National 

Forest, and the team is working to protect Riparian 

river communities, river areas in this very rural 

ranching community. And they’re working alongside 

ranchers to put in fencing and clean up some postfire issues in some of those remote, like, 

campgrounds. That’s another project. 

 And then in Southern California we had a team working 

with Mojave Desert, a land trust down there, and they 

were doing some conservation work. They were counting 

desert tortoises and protecting habitat. And they 

were working with community members and just 

education type work. Those were just a few examples. 

And, [unintelligible] that’s a good example, too.

 So another project, actually, that just ended. We had 

a team up in Idaho, in Lapwai, Idaho, on the Nez 

Perce reservation working with the Nez Perce Tribe. 

And the team was actually living in a church and then 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

working in the community doing some medicine garden 

builds. Doing some bilingual signage, some 

infrastructure improvement for the community, working 

with a little bit of mentorship with some of the 

youth, and cleaning up like elder homes, and kind of 

whatever the needs were in the community. Those were 

some of the few wide range project examples. 

ANDREA ROBLES: Thank you, what about VISTA? 

CRAIG KINNEAR: So we have everything from large national 

intermediary projects like Habitat for Humanity 

International. And while the VISTA project, one 

single project generally lasts from 3 to 5 years, 

we’ve had a relationship with Habitat for Humanity 

for years and years. And the way it works is that 

they have various sites throughout the country, and 

after one site has the VISTA for that 3 to 5 year 

period, they’ll close that site down, and then start 

a new one with a new VISTA project. 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

 So we have those kinds of projects. We have Habitat 

for Humanity, NeighborWorks USA, and several others. 

There are also projects that are multisite within a 

specific state, Ohio has a few of those. Ohio 

Community Development Corporation-Coalition is one of 

those. Again, same thing, they have multiple sites 

throughout the State of Ohio, and they rotate those 

sites in and out for VISTA projects. And then there 

are lots of single site projects. 

 Just one location, multiple VISTA members. And some 

examples of the kinds of projects are we do a lot in 

education, a lot of tutoring, mentoring, college 

access kinds of programs, in housing we do a lot of 

homeless prevention, housing for temporary housing 

for homeless. Housing development projects, housing 

preservation projects, helping futures. We do a lot 

in obesity prevention and opioid and other addiction 

prevention programming, access to healthcare, and 

those kinds of things. 

ANDREA ROBLES: Great, thank you. 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

TANYA GIPSON-NAHMAN: Andrea, this is Tanya from NCCC. If 

I could just use the Habitat example and just kind of 

distinguish the different AmeriCorps programs because 

it gets very confusing when you hear all of these 

different – like AmeriCorps VISTA and NCCC, and I 

know you’re going to have another call that’s talking 

about state and national. The best way I’ve been able 

to describe it, is you were thinking about Habitat. 

So as I was just talking about, the organization who 

was building homes for, you know, low income 

individuals, right? So the AmeriCorps NCCC, we would 

be that short-term resource, so say Habitat, you know 

has a really hard time recruiting members over the 

winter months because, you know, people don’t want to 

work in the cold. They can work with their local NCCC 

campus and get a team of 8 to 12 members to come in 

there for six to twelve weeks. They’re the ones who 

are hammering the nails, putting up the drywall, 

pulling the concrete, you know, laying roof shingles, 

or whatever. 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

 AmeriCorps VISTA might be working with that same 

Habitat, but they’re working behind the scenes. 

They’re working within the organizations office, 

maybe recruiting volunteers, or helping them setup 

systems, kind of that capacity building of the 

organization. And I know we’re not talking about 

state and national, but when we get to them, that 

same Habitat organization might say, hey, we really 

love this AmeriCorps, we really want our own 

AmeriCorps program. So they would apply for a grant, 

and they would get money to fund their own AmeriCorps 

members. So that Habitat would get money to recruit 

and train and supervise a full-time or part-time set 

of AmeriCorps members that they themselves are 

directly managing and supervising and operating. 

So that’s just kind of one example of an organization 

how each of the three strings of AmeriCorps programs 

could be utilized to achieve different program goals. 

ANDREA ROBLES: Thank you for that clarity. So I just 

want to ask a little bit about recruiting before we 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

go. So can you tell us, again, these are professors 

dealing with maybe college students or that age 

group, or maybe working with [unintelligible] 

transitioning to college. How do you recruit that 

age? I’m asking NCCC, Kevin.

KEVIN ANDERSON: Yeah, this is Kevin. 

ANDREA ROBLES: Who by the way was also a VISTA, Habitat 

for Humanity. 

KEVIN ANDERSON: So, really quickly. One thing I did want 

to mention on the topic of recruitment is that NCCC, 

we do all of our recruitment. We are a wholly owned 

and operated program here at CNCS. So we do the 

recruitment selection and placement of our members. 

And then of course we manage them throughout their 

service here. Whereas VISTA, I know that they are 

involved in recruitment, but the community 

organization that are hosting VISTA members will also 

be involved in that recruitment process themselves. 

So for NCCC, having full control over it is a little 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

bit different in that we are – outside of marketing 

we do a lot of social media and email marketing and 

things of that nature, but also have on the ground 

recruiters both through a recruitment organization, 

excuse me a recruitment contractor, as well as we 

engage our alumni who are our biggest champions in 

recruitment efforts, as well. 

 But they are going to a variety of high schools and 

universities all across the country. We are of course 

a very diverse program, so we try to make sure that 

our recruitment efforts are focused in, you know, not 

just high population schools, but also hitting up all 

of the HBCUs, HSIs, and just everywhere across that 

we can really get the word out. 

Recently with this disaster season, we have had a 

presence in Puerto Rico because that’s a community 

that has a lot of need both in youth who might be 

inspired by the work that needs to be done around 

them, and also might be a job market of people who 

are impacted and might need opportunities. 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

So we’re pretty exhaustive in all of the recruitment 

avenues that we approach. There’s not really any 

single answer for us, but we’re always looking for 

people. So if you know anybody 18 to 24 just let us 

know.

ANDREA ROBLES: I’m just mindful of the time, but I do 

want to give everyone a chance. I don’t think there’s 

any questions right now from people listening. So I 

wanted to start with Jennifer. Jennifer, any 

recommendations for any of our research grantees or 

other universities who might be interested and are 

working with communities who identify an issue and 

can reach out to kind of like the way you’re working 

with our programs? 

JENNIFER WILLETT: I think their recommendation is – I 

didn’t realize all of the things that they could 

possibly do. I thought AmeriCorps was more like 

VISTA. They would go in to an established 

organization, build capacity, which is great in many 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

cases, like where I’m from Connecticut, that would be 

great. But there is no organization working in 

Nevada, so I wasn’t really sure how it works. But 

they could do so much more than that. Also, when 

Amanda was talking about how they can build on 

sidewalks, and I was shocked that they could do that 

type of labor. And then explaining how they go in and 

help with firefighting sometimes, and also can wear 

hazmat suits. So there is such a wide variety of 

things that the teams can do that are very impactful 

for local communities. 

I think just don’t write anything off. Let them know 

what’s going on in the community, and maybe you can 

make a plan on how to address it, even if it seems 

completely wild. They can probably figure out a way 

to make it happen. 

ANDREA ROBLES: Amanda and Tanya, any last words or again 

how the research helps inform the project? 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

TANYA GIPSON-NAHMAN: Yeah, I was saying before, and 

Amanda too, we’re based out of Sacramento, and so 

that in-depth knowledge about communities. Like who 

are the community leaders? What are the real issues 

that are affecting the community, why are some 

initiatives successful and others not? Which 

communities have resources and which don’t, those 

level of details is just – we try to do our research, 

but it’s just difficult when you don’t live in a 

place and so, having a partner like a research 

grantee that is just really, you know, enveloped into 

a community and researching and looking at these 

issues, not just living there, but also deeply 

researching them is just a valuable partner for us to 

have that on the ground knowledge, and be able to 

open some doors and gateways. I know that Jennifer is 

saying that AmeriCorps was helping her open doors, 

but she’s helping us open doors. So, again, it’ just 

a really great partnership that we’ve appreciated. 

AMANDA COCHRAN: And I really hope that it can become a 

model, potentially, for other partnerships like this. 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

I know there’s other research projects that we’ve 

connected with already in Washington and Southern 

California just to see if there’s some potential, 

whether it is partnering with those grantees or, like 

Tanya said, just becoming more knowledgeable about 

the community, what the needs are, and maybe getting 

connecting to partners. I think there is a lot of 

opportunity for moving forward with that, and we’re 

really excited. 

TANYA GIPSON-NAHMAN: Yeah, and I think what is beautiful 

about it, as Jennifer is saying for the youth, you 

know, it’s not just doing the research. Their actions 

are actually going to help impact their community, 

and so I think just for that empowerment of making 

the research applicable, so taking the research out 

from behind the data and graphs, and pictures, and 

saying, “Okay, how can we really use this information 

to impact our communities?” I think is a really 

beautiful piece of this as well. 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

JENNIFER WILLETT: I think it’s almost in full circle 

as far as recruitment too. We’ve been able to connect 

with some of the students, some of the youths in the 

community, share what AmeriCorps is, not just NCCC, 

but VISTA and the other streams, and really garner 

some interest in the future generations, the younger 

members wanting to become AmeriCorps members as well, 

so that’s exciting.

ANDREA ROBLES: Thank you. And you’ve got one right? An 

undergrad. So that’s great. Thank you and the last, 

VISTA, I turn to you. 

CRAIG KINNEAR: So I just wanted to speak real quickly to 

Jennifer’s point about the lack of established 

nonprofits, especially in rural areas. It is a 

challenge that VISTA’s had for years trying to do 

that. So we’re trying to use the intermediary model 

more. Having an established nonprofit, educational 

institution, government agency, something that can –

that has the capacity to manage a VISTA project that 

can place members in those rural areas where there 
ICF CNCS Transcription 

Q&A Session: Connecting ORE Research Grantees 

With AmeriCorps NCCC and VISTA Programs 

aren’t those established nonprofits. So we’re always 

on the lookout for those. And there are college and 

universities who might be interested, we’d like to 

know.

ANDREA ROBLES: All right, well, thank you everyone. For 

those listening, please just connect Melissa or I, 

and then we can help you connect with the VISTA folks 

at the NCCC campuses that are most appropriate. And 

we will put this on our website and hopefully it’s a 

place to go to just learn more about this and if 

there are other community partners who you think 

might be interested you could just – we’ll send you 

the link, and they’re always free to listen to this. 

It’ll be publically available. So anyway, thank you 

for everyone and for being enthusiastic. And I’m 

really looking forward to seeing how all of this 

works out. Have a good day. Thank you so much. 

 

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