Getting a Grip on National Service: Key Organizational Features and Strategic Characteristics of the National Service Corps (AmeriCorps)

Getting a Grip on National Service: Key Organizational Features and Strategic Characteristics of the National Service Corps (AmeriCorps)* I. INTRODUCTION Of all the initiatives and programs that President Bill Clinton has supported during his Administration, the National Service Corps1 (sometimes referred to as "AmeriCorp," but hereinafter also referred to as "the Corps") is arguably the program that the President regards as the most important and personally fulfilling,2 as well as the most historically significant.3 The National Service Corps organization is somewhat unique in that every aspect of the institutional design is spelled out in minute detail by statute.4 Although national service and the Corps have been widely discussed and debated in the political arena and in the media, those discussions have generally been conducted at a broad level of analysis. Little effort has been made to describe, in an accessible and scholastically documented manner, how the Corps is structured and what the Corps is designed to accomplish. Such analysis is important because the National Service Corps could have a profound and tangible monetary and organizational impact on scores of nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, governmental entities, neighborhoods, ethnic groups, and religious proselytizing programs. This Comment attempts to provide an overview of the key organizational features and strategic characteristics of the National Service Corps. The overview rests almost entirely upon (1) an analysis of the lengthy and intricate body of legislation creating the Corps; (2) Clinton's own public comments about the Corps; and (3) the comments of and reports about prominent Corps supporters through the media. Although issues and controversies related to the Corps are examined for the convenience of the reader, no attempt is made to exhaustively explore the tangential legal issues related to these criticisms and controversies. The purpose of this Comment is primarily to assist the reader in understanding the unique design of the Corps, its relationship to the national service agenda, and the various criticisms of the National Service Corps voiced in political and media circles. Toward fulfilling this purpose, Part II of this Comment will provide an overview of the Corps. This overview provides insight into the amalgamation of mediating institutional characteristics found in, inter alia, the military, law enforcement, scouting, the Peace Corps, the Civilian Conservation Corps, business corporations, religious proselyting programs, Boys Town, the civil rights movement, the New Deal, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, World War II educational programs, and the federal executive branch of government. In the interest of clarity, however, this Comment will not attempt to overtly cross-compare all of the distinctive institutional characteristics shared between the Corps and other institutions. After a general overview of the National Service Corps concept in Part II, Part III of this Comment sets forth nine characteristics of the National Service Corps that are distinctive from the standpoint of organizational strategy and culture as they relate to legal and policy debate surrounding the Corps. Understanding these distinctive characteristics will help readers determine which issues of the organization are deserving of their own additional in-depth inquiry.5 Part IV of this Comment sets forth some of the legal and policy objections that have been raised in response to the National Service Corps and the National Service movement embodied by the Corps. Part V concludes that the public needs to be better educated about the policy debates associated with the National Service Initiative generally and the National Service Corps particularly because of the potential the Corps has to assume a powerful role in the nonprofit sector of the economy. II. A SHORT OVERVIEW OF THE NATIONAL SERVICE CORPS The National Service Corps has been billed to the public as "sort of a domestic Peace Corps. …