All right, all you prospective Peace Corps applicants I’ve been talking with lately: here is your chance to get expert insider advice on how to ace your Peace Corps application.
Tomorrow, 12/19 at 10 am PST (1 pm EST), Kate Kuykendall — a former Peace Corps Volunteer and recruiter, who is now the Public Affairs Specialist in the Los Angeles Peace Corps regional recruitment office — is sharing her best advice on “Getting into the Peace Corps” via an online webinar.
Here’s the description:
With approximately one in three applicants entering Peace Corps service and the recent 18% increase in applications, applying to become a Peace Corps volunteer is more competitive than ever.
Please join us for a webinar that will suggest ways in which future and current candidates can strengthen their Peace Corps application. A staff member from the L.A. recruitment office will cover general application tips, as well as specific volunteer experiences or language study that will make your application more competitive.
More Peace Corps may be in the stars — and the budget.
Yesterday evening, Jonathan Pearson of the National Peace Corps Association’s Advocacy Program announced that According to Congressman Sam Farr, speaking tonight at an event in Washington to celebrate the Peace Corps, negotiations on the State/Foreign Operations Fiscal Year 2010 appropriations bill have closed.
Peace Corps advocacy groups like the National Peace Corps Association‘s More Peace Corps campaign, and the informal group Push for Peace Corps have been urging Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and other supporters to contact their elected representatives this week to voice their support for expanded Peace Corps funding.
Yesterday the NPCA sent a letter to President Obama asking him to increase his suggested Peace Corps budget for his 2011 budget request. That letter was signed by almost 60 RPCV affiliate groups.
Last year, Atlas Corps won America’s Giving Challenge, and this year it’s in the running again — but it needs the support of people like you who care about service, crossing borders, and professional development for people dedicated to working in social impact careers from all over the world.
Atlas Corps, a year-long international service fellowship which sends U.S. residents abroad as well as brings foreign nationals to the United States to serve in nonprofits, is currently in sixth place in the overall competition that rewards the number of daily donors, not the total amount raised through the competition. Your daily donation of $10 can help Atlas Corps win, as it did last year.
$50,000 will be awarded to the cause with the highest total number of unique daily donations over the 30 days of the Challenge. $25,000 will be awarded to the causes with the second and third highest total number of unique daily donations over the 30 days of the Challenge. $10,000 will be awarded to the next five causes with the highest total number of unique daily donations over the 30 days of the Challenge.
So far, over $1.3 million dollars has been donated to 7,600+ organizations, through the competition—by over 70,000 donors. Atlas Corps’s had nearly 2000 donors.
Last year Atlas Corps not only raised $33,000 through America’s Giving Challenge, but also won the $50,000 grand prize for having the most donors. The organization, headed by Scott Beale, went onto to win $20,000 from an online Ideablob competition. (Read more about these online contests here.)
I plan to donate daily this week because I believe that Atlas Corps’s mission of bringing nonprofit professionals from the Global South to serve in the U.S. nonprofit sector stands to strengthen our perspectives as well as help us discover new ways of solving problems. As a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I also admire Atlas Corps’s efforts to send mid-career U.S. nonprofit professionals overseas — people who have a great deal of targeted skills, and who already speak the host country language fluently and can jump into short-term, high-skill roles at partner organizations. Atlas Corps is completely privately funded, and has only recently emerged from its pilot phase.
The New Service podcast from Idealist.org features the national group of Peace Corps alumni. Listen here.
As Peace Corps nears it’s 50th Anniversary in 2011, applications are on the rise, fewer Volunteer positions are getting funded, the Senate just confirmed a new agency director, and the number of Peace Corps alumni is nearing 200,000.
Helping connect the dots among the agency’s fiscal needs, and Volunteers past, present, and future is the National Peace Corps Association—the independent organization of former Peace Corps Volunteers, known as Returned Peace Corps Volunteers or RPCVs.
The National Peace Corps Association offers the Peace Corps community tools and resources to stay informed and engaged, and advocates for Peace Corps funding and support.
Finally, we discussed the new Peace Corps director — and departing NPCA board member — Aaron Williams, and how online communication tools are changing the Volunteer experience.
A live, online chat to help you sort out the differences among several service corps.
You knew that Peace Corps Volunteers serve abroad and AmeriCorps members serve in the States. But…
Did you know that Peace Corps Volunteers receive a readjustment allowance at the end of their term totalling around $6,000 — but that AmeriCorps members earn an Education Award (around $5,000) that can be used for tuition and student loans?
Did you know that some AmeriCorps VISTA terms are as brief as 8 weeks, while Peace Corps lasts around 27 months?
Did you know that AmeriCorps members can take on part-time jobs during their term, but Peace Corps Volunteers and VISTAs can’t?
All right, all you prospective Peace Corps applicants I’ve been talking with lately: here is your chance to get expert insider advice on how to ace your Peace Corps application.
The New Service 