About Corporation for National and Community Service
The areas of East and South Austin which we serve experience 2.2 times the national poverty rate, 2.4 times the unemployment rate, and 5 times the high school dropout rate. Over 50% of our members are adjudicated youth. Our ethnic profile is 40% Hispanic, and 17% African American. These young people require considerable time and considerable resources – more... to overcome the considerable economic and social disadvantage that their environment has imposed.
If corrected with extensive support/counseling, education, life and job skill training, and meaningful work for their community, these young people can go on to higher education, meaningful jobs and careers and become contributing members of society. If not, they have a high risk of becoming a financial/social burden on the community and nation of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Over the last 10 years, American YouthWorks' AmeriCorps programs have enrolled over 1,200 young people, with over 800 completions, over 500 diplomas, and over 900 moving on to higher education or well-paying jobs.
We very much appreciate the Corporation's decision to not impose time limits on funding and inclusion of allowances for fund-raising and capacity building.
As indicated above, the community we serve is poor. Also, our program is, by necessity, broad in its coverage, especially in regards to member stipends, which allow young people to take advantage of our services (otherwise they would have to work full time at low paying jobs). We enjoy excellent support from city and county agencies, local non-profits, foundations, and corporations. However, their contributions cannot come close to 50% match, now or 10 years from now. This includes match that is raised via contract work with entities for our service projects.
We are very dependent on other Federal funding to make up our AmeriCorps match. As we understand the current proposal, the 15% non-Federal match requirement will continue to apply to Member Support Costs, with the operating costs requiring a 25% (Federal & non-Federal) match for an aggregate of 33% total match. With the total/aggregate match rising over time to 50%, we assume that the 15% of non-Federal will remain for Member Costs only, and that the remainder of the match can be Federal or non-Federal. This situation is acceptable to us. Any increase in the non-Federal match is neither viable nor acceptable to our program.
Ours, as is true with all YouthBuild programs, is a service program but it is also a job development, crime prevention, and youth transformation program as well. These additional facets provide great additional value to the individuals and their communities, but they require additional funds for the services. AmeriCorps funds are vital to raising our match, both local and national.
Another item that deserves comment under the topic of match is Administration - currently at 5% of total Corporation Share. For most institutions (education and non-profit) 15% is generally accepted as a going rate for administration. Since, these are real costs, for real programs, the difference (10%) represented an additional or hidden match requirement. Administration or G&A is the most difficult match to raise. Our request is that the new guidelines allow 15% or at least 10% for Administration, to allow Grantees to recover this legitimate cost of running a grant.
As described above, ours is, by necessity, a program providing the many services for "at promise" youth. Stipends, health care, extensive counseling, job training, placement, life skills training, one-on-one support are all necessary and relatively expensive. Almost 1/2 of our budget is for member stipends, without which most of our members would not be able to attend our program, gain a diploma, get a job or get on to college. Having a major emphasis on cost per member would unjustly bias selection to lower risk members, from middle class communities for whom the services are not needed or where the individual or their family can provide support.
Being forced to lower cost per member would eliminate valuable services and stipends which would dramatically affect our results and the viability of our programs.
Mandated costs combined with emphasis on low cost per member are punitive and could be disastrous to programs such as ours. Suggestions are fine, but mandated health coverage, for instance, would be both costly and un-necessary. Many of our young people live at home, are dependents, and their parents work. In about 50% of our cases, the parent's health plan covers the children.
We do not agree with the proposed evaluation requirement, especially for programs to be evaluated in depth against a similar population that does not receive the benefits or services of the AmeriCorps program. Even in a good-sized city such as Austin, this control group would be hard to find, and the data gathering would be very difficult ands error-prone. External evaluation is a welcome feature but at a reasonable level. We would suggest a $2-4,000 maximum that includes both internal and external evaluation. $100,000 is an out of line figure, especially if it is to add to match, even local match.
Waivers should not be allowed in a new process. They should be allowed, after careful deliberation/discussion/decision to correct deficiencies in a set of guidelines as time goes by and conditions change. The analogy would be buying/allowing a new automobile inner tube with patches on it.
Waivers should be for all programs, publicly announced, and should be a part of the front end of a process. They should definitely not be granted after the review. – less – More from ZoomInfo »
