by Amy Potthast

Emerging: Financial Services Corps

Recognizing the broad need for financial education among low and middle income earners, the New America Foundation proposes a Financial Services Corps.

Proposed in March, the New America Foundation‘s Melissa Koide published a policy paper describing the need for a new domestic corps of financial advisors and educators to help regular families sort through the morass of complex issues involved in personal financial management.

According to Koide’s proposal:

The creation of a Financial Services Corps (FSC) would help these households address their personal finances and plan for their future by:

enlisting financial experts and advisors to deliver personalized financial counseling and planning to low to middle income households;

providing the tools, resources, support to local, regional, and workplace based initiatives to ensure these families are effectively reached;

collecting and analyze data to understand the short-, medium-, and long-term financial education, counseling, and planning needs of these households; and

exploring new strategies and approaches to financial education and advice through an innovations fund.

The Corps could be modeled after the Legal Services Corporation — the Congressionally-mandated entity that oversees legal aid organizations. In that model, “the FSC would provide the infrastructure, resources, and support to engage and connect financial experts with low and middle income households and communities.”

In a New York Times piece today, M.P. Dunleavy reports that the Corps was inspired by Peace Corps.

If the concept interests you, or someone you know, also check out the separate Financial Services Volunteer Corps (established in 1990). The program sends skilled volunteers overseas for one or two weeks to educate people in “emerging market countries” about financial systems. The program is a partner of Volunteers for Prosperity.

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12.11.08

by Amy Potthast

Global Citizen Year founder named Mind Trust Fellow

Last week The Mind Trust named Abigail Falik an Education Entrepreneur Fellow. She is the founder of Global Citizen Year.

The fellowship is a two-year “national incubator for transformative educational ventures.” Fellows earn a $90,000 annual salary plus health benefits during the fellowship term, and an additional $20,000 to spend on their work.

In the announcement, The Mind Trust explains Falik’s program — which will launch its first group next fall:

Ms. Abigail Falik was awarded The Mind Trust Fellowship to launch Global Citizen Year (GCY). GCY will engage thousands of diverse young Americans in a transformative “Bridge Year” of global service between high school and college. Falik, who won first prize at Harvard Business School’s 2008 Social Enterprise business pitch competition for GCY, is focused on America’s urgent need to prepare students for leadership in an increasingly globalized world.

To do this, GCY will recruit and train cohorts of high-potential high school students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds as GCY fellows; support fellows through apprenticeships throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America; and build a dynamic network of alumni who remain engaged in global issues during college and beyond. During the “Bridge Year,” students will receive intensive leadership and foreign language training, complete six-month international service projects, share their experiences virtually with K-12 classrooms in America, and, during their final month, lead activities about their experience in their home high schools and communities.

While GCY will prepare fellows to succeed in college, Falik also aims to use GCY to create incentives for students to graduate from high school, prepare K-12 teachers to more effectively teach about global issues, and ultimately to transform the global education landscape in the United States.

GCY’s advisory council includes the founders of Teach For America, City Year, Room to Read, Kiva.org, and Share Our Strength, the head of the National Peace Corps Association, and the Provost of the School for International Training. Falik holds a B.A. and M.Ed. from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Read the fellowship’s F.A.Q.

Global Citizen Year is also part of the Change.org Ideas to Change America contest.

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12.11.08

by Amy Potthast

Green Jobs and Infrastructure Act of 2008

Act introduced that proposes funding a new service corps for clean energy.

Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) has introduced a clean energy bill that includes a provision to fund the Clean Energy Service Corps, to fall under the work of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The Clean Energy Service Corps would be modeled on AmeriCorps and Senior Corps, and would focus on creating a diverse corps, and recruiting corps members who are economically disadvantage and need marketable job skills. From the Apollo Alliance, an organization that supported the creation of the act:

[From their article:] “The Clean Energy Service Corps (CESC) … would engage rural and urban young adults, students, and seniors, in a combined service, training, and job creation effort to build the green economy. Corpsmembers will earn a stipend while improving energy efficiency through large-scale greening projects, including construction of, and improvements to, low-income housing, public buildings, neighborhood parks, and public lands. Priority will be given to programs that enroll Corpsmembers who are economically disadvantaged and that provide those Corpsmembers with job training linked careers in the green economy. Older Americans and students will also engage in service as volunteers, sharing their skills and gaining experience while providing valuable service to their communities.”

[From the press release:] “The Clean Energy Service Corps will support the participation of 25,000 young adult corps members in its first year. An additional 200,000 seniors will mobilize as full- and part-time corps members and volunteers during the first year of the program. Finally, over 600,000 students will engage in community-based service learning, and volunteer projects coordinated by the CEC.”

One of the groups backing the bill is the The Corps Network, a group of conservation service corps working throughout the United States.

Read about The Corps Network’s green service corps in New Orleans.

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12.10.08

by Amy Potthast

Human Rights Prize to Dorothy Stang, SND

On International Human Rights Day 2008, the United Nation honors several peace activists and groups, including Sr. Dorothy Stang, SND.

I want to highlight the work and courage of Dorothy Stang, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur — the same order of Catholic sisters who operate the AmeriCorps program in which my husband and I served — Notre Dame Mission Volunteers AmeriCorps.

Sr. Dorothy was born in the United States and became a naturalized citizen of Brazil. According to the U.N. announcement, “Despite numerous death threats Sister Dorothy had defended the rights of the poor, landless and indigenous populations of the Anapu region of Brazil for nearly forty years.”

Her brother David Stang published this story in Maryknoll magazine a few months after her death:

Dorothy was murdered for her outspoken defense of peasant farm families, who had moved into the rain forest region in a government-sponsored resettlement plan. Besides forming each settlement into small Christian communities that prayed and studied the Bible together, Dorothy established agricultural and rain forest preservation projects. Her initiatives outraged the big landowners who wanted the forest for logging and the land for cattle grazing.

The day before she died, Dorothy telephoned me. “Just hearing your voice,” she said, “makes me feel the cool fresh air of Palmer Lake (where I live in Colorado), even though it is so hot and humid here in Anapú (where she worked).” Then she told me, “I can’t talk long because there are people outside my door, asking me to go down the road with them to show support for several poor families who had their crops and houses burned down by hired hoodlums.”

Armed with her Bible and government documents granting peasants rights to the land, she accompanied the people to the Bõa Esperança Settlement near the rural town of Anapú in Pará State. Confronted by Dorothy, the pistoleros, backed off this time. When my sister returned the next day with clothes and food for the homeless families, the fatal confrontation took place.

See the trailer for the documentary They Killed Sister Dorothy:

Other Human Rights Prize honorees this year include Human Rights Watch and assassinated, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Read about others who’ve won the 2008 prize. Read more about the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Universal Human Rights and International Human Rights Day.

Notre Dame Mission AmeriCorps Volunteers is a national AmeriCorps program with service sites in 16 U.S. cities. My loving and amazing aunt Sr. Anne Colette, SND, introduced me to the program and sent me its newsletters, even as I was starting my term of Peace Corps service. I ultimately chose to apply for NDMVA — to work with immigrants and refugees in Lowell, MA — as a transition home from Peace Corps. Read more about the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

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12.09.08

by Amy Potthast

MusicianCorps: the Musical Peace Corps

Kiff Gallagher

AmeriCorps-type program for musicians has received seed funding and plans to launch its first group in the fall of 09.

The Aspen Institute has named MusicianCorps — a developing AmeriCorps-type program that will enable musicians to serve in low-income schools — one of the top ten public policy proposals that would strengthen the United States.

The program is led by Kiff Gallagher, one of the creators of AmeriCorps.

The Institute has more to say on national service initiatives. But this is their rationale for backing MusicianCorps in particular:

Music reaches youth. … Music education develops habits of self-directed learning that drive lifelong success, and it can inspire community cohesiveness and service. Yet, most schools are experiencing significant cutbacks. Particularly effective at reaching disengaged youth, music can be an effective vehicle for a public service corps that meets social and civic goals.

The project has recently received $500K from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to pilot a 10-month fellowship program in the Bay Area. Barack Obama called for an artist corps when he was campaigning; apparently MusicianCorps is a model for the notion.

After a summer training institute, Fellows would take up their service in public schools, engaging in these kinds of activities, according to the Music National Service Fact Sheet:

• Teaching Musician: Plan a curriculum and lead a class or small group;
• Music Mentor: provide one-on-one support for gifted and special needs students (IEPs);
• Music Lab Leader: Teach music educational software self-directed learning activities;
• Classroom/Clubhouse Assistant: Assist the lead teacher or afterschool director with classroom
management, transition facilitation, and ensuring a safe environment;
• Resident Artist: Provide performances and performance workshops;
• Music Volunteer or Guest Coordinator: Manage musical guests and volunteers;
• Band, Ensemble or Choir Director: Lead groups in collaboration and performance;
• Community-based, public performances and volunteering for “hidden audiences.”

The program is set to launch its first cohort in August 2009.

Also check out this story on NPR.

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The New Service

Catalyzing citizen service

Category Archives: Corps & Coalitions

Emerging: Financial Services Corps

Global Citizen Year founder named Mind Trust Fellow

Green Jobs and Infrastructure Act of 2008

Human Rights Prize to Dorothy Stang, SND

MusicianCorps: the Musical Peace Corps

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