by Amy Potthast

Help Atlas Corps win $20K

International exchange corps for nonprofit professionals stands to win $20K in Ideablob.com contest.

Sometimes identified as a two-way Peace Corps—because volunteers come to and from the United States—Atlas Corps “facilitates an international exchange of nonprofit leaders in which ideas and talent cross borders to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges such as HIV/AIDS, human trafficking, poverty, care for the elderly and disabled, and education of underprivileged youth.”

Ideablob.com allows nonprofit and business entrepreneurs to submit their good ideas and to earn $10,000 towards funding them.

Each month, readers vote for their favorite idea — the idea with the most votes two weeks in a row wins. Because Atlas Corps is an Advanta customer their prize will double, to $20K, if selected.

According to their entry on Ideablob:

Atlas Corps’s new model of international cooperation brings talented professionals from developing nations such as India and Colombia to the U.S. to volunteer for one year in established nonprofit host organizations. Host organizations receive an experienced mid-career professional with specialized knowledge and unique perspectives. Fellows learn best practices, impart their professional knowledge, and then return to strengthen the nonprofit sector in their home countries.

Last year, Colombian Maria Duenas was a Fellow at TechnoServe, a nonprofit in Washington, DC. She now heads up TechnoServe’s flagship project in Bogotá, Colombia, creating business solutions to rural poverty.

In Atlas Corps’s second year, the program has doubled with four Colombian Fellows and five Indian Fellows in Washington, DC, and three U.S. Fellows in Bogotá, Colombia. In the coming year, we plan to increase the number of Fellows again to increase our scale, impact and sustainability. To do so we need this money and we need your vote.

All [prize money] will go directly towards the placement of new Fellows, since Host organizations cover the administrative costs. This prize money will put us well on the way to achieving our goal of promoting international cooperation in the nonprofit sector in a unique and sustainable way. See www.atlascorps.org/2008-fellows.html.

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12.13.08

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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12.09.08

by Amy Potthast

Top Ten Policies to Strengthen the U.S.

The Aspen Institute has recently weighed in on the top ten nonprofit policies that would mobilize change and strengthen the United States. Among them, tax policies and an emphasis on service.

Three of the ten policies the organization mentions imply national service. The Aspen Institute’s document Mobilizing Change: 10 Nonprofit Policy Proposals to Strengthen U.S. Communities promotes these policy ideas:

Expand recruitment and retention of a new generation of leaders for the nonprofit sector
Make a Summer of Service a rite of passage for every middle-schooler
Develop a MusicianCorps

The paper cites these programs as examples of “ideas [that] would help build overall nonprofit capacity and improve their integration with government agencies and services.”

Download the paper and read it for yourself!

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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: Service News

Help Atlas Corps win $20K

Emerging: Financial Services Corps

Global Citizen Year founder named Mind Trust Fellow

Top Ten Policies to Strengthen the U.S.

MusicianCorps: the Musical Peace Corps

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