We wanted to thank WIBW, the Topeka Capital Journal, the Lawrence Journal World, and the Lawrence Times for sharing the local impact of recent federal cuts to the AmeriCorps network of service programming. (Special thank you to Ballard Center CEO Kyle Roggencamp for his words and coordination skills.) We did want to acknowledge that our grant termination, just at $20,000, feels almost insignificant in the light of actual AmeriCorps member cuts to agencies like the Boys and Girls Clubs in Lawrence and Manhattan, where the sudden loss of current members and future hires has immediate and possibly irreparable consequences for the agencies, the children and adults they serve, and of course the AmeriCorps members themselves.
Volunteer engagement is a core part of our community impact mission. The basic work of helping people overcome poverty is intense, emotional and expensive, especially when our national economy is in flux. Donations and grants pay not just for the resources—food, job training sessions, financial literacy education, dollars for rental and utility assistance—but also for the people who deliver those resources to our neighbors in need. Paying enough staff to do that work, at a wage that keeps them out of instability themselves, is a constant struggle. Only with the help of volunteers, and service programs like AmeriCorps, can any community ever hope to keep pace with the need.
The loss of AmeriCorps members at the Boys and Girls Club in Lawrence threatens their afterschool and summer programming. Every child that was getting support, food, mentoring, before their parents were able to pick them up after work could be left without those resources. Working parents would lose the reassurance that their child was well cared for in the hours after school and might have to choose between spending money they don’t have for after-school care or leaving their kids home alone and hoping everything works out.
And that’s just one agency. AmeriCorps members provide vital community services. They stock and organize clothing banks. They tend community gardens and supply food pantries with local produce. They keep kids safe after school. They provide critical support during disaster response. Nonprofits have already budgeted for their presence at a pay rate far below market value for a similar employee. It’s likely that volunteers will be the only way to ensure that service continues. And even that won’t be enough to keep some programming alive. Click here to see the full effect of cuts on AmeriCorps State Programs in Kansas.
The devastating effects of these unprecedented cuts are immediately visible for programs like the Boys and Girls Club. But what’s harder to see is how much can be at risk from the loss of even a $20,000 grant that supports volunteer capacity generation—the grant that we lost.
Our VGF grant, which also required a dollar-for-dollar match from our own funds, was helping us expand volunteer capacity on several fronts:
Supporting the salary of two part-time Volunteer Coordinators. These coordinators, one in Topeka and one in Lawrence (who just started this year, in part thanks to funds from this grant), help strengthen connections between agencies who need volunteers and organizations and individuals who have time to give. This looks like helping agencies create and update their account on KawValleyVolunteers.org, which United Way pays for with a combination of donor dollars, sponsorships and grants. We then offer the platform free of charge for agencies and volunteers to use. It allows agencies to post their volunteer needs and engage directly with volunteers who respond to those needs through the online portal or with a phone call or email.
There is a bit of a learning curve for using the system to its full ability, and our volunteer coordinators provide training and technical support free of charge.
Our volunteer coordinators also help coordinate corporate requests for volunteer projects. Volunteering with one’s coworkers is an incredible community-building experience, and nonprofits work hard to make that experience run smoothly for the volunteers. What you don’t see is the behind-the scenes work to find an opportunity for the requested amount of people with an agency that also has the capacity to manage those volunteers on site in the requested time frame. We love connecting the businesses in our community to the many nonprofits who could use their help. Our coordinators work with agencies to identify the best fit for such requests.
Coordinators are also boots on the ground for events like our Shawnee County Volunteer Expo, which required months of planning, logistics, setup and teardown for a four-hour event featuring 50 local partners. Our annual Nancy Perry Day of Caring, which coordinates opportunities for close to 1,000 volunteers, doesn’t happen without them. The VGF grant also helped us cover some of the expenses for the volunteer expo, which included a free professional development session for all the nonprofit partners who were tabling at the event.
They also help manage resource distributions from our national partnerships with Baby2Baby (diapers and supplies) and Subaru (shoes and other items for kids).
Sound like a lot? It is. Ideally, these would be full-time, benefit-eligible positions. But for now, part-time was what’s possible. Without the VGF grant funds, United Way now has to find even more money just to keep the part-time positions viable.
Board Leadership Training
Our VGF grant also helped us cover the cost of providing Board Leadership Training. Our 9-hour course is currently offered twice a year in Topeka and prepares volunteers to step up to board service, helping them understand the roles and responsibilities of nonprofit board members. Grant funds make the budget more manageable as we plan for presenter expenses, materials, and facilities. One of the plans for this year’s grant money was to start offering Board Leadership Training in Douglas County.
The VGF grant loss won’t kill this training, but it may mean that we either cut back on the number or capacity of existing trainings and/or delay any expansion to Douglas County. And we’ll have to pull money from an already tight budget to cover expenses that we might otherwise have been able to charge to the grant.
Board Leadership Training is what we call an “upstream” intervention—an investment in the future. Educating current and prospective board members may not have an impact today or next month, but the forty or so participants each time have the potential to positively impact our nonprofit ecosystem for decades to come.
How You Can Help
Now is a great time to give, especially to nonprofits affected by these cuts. You can donate to United Way of Kaw Valley any time at https://www.uwkawvalley.org/give (and we still take donations the old-fashioned way at our offices). But you can also advocate on many levels for programs you believe in. Find advocacy help for supporting AmeriCorps and its members here.