The Roosevelt Institution
The Challenge: expand the AmeriCorps program to provide a majority of young Americans with the opportunity to develop skills and participate in civic service projects.
How the proposed Challenge meets the challenge criteria:
Since it was founded in 1994, the AmeriCorps program has engaged over 400,000 young people in national service throughout the US, but still only engages about .2% of the youth population every year. Attempts to increase the reach of the program on the national level have been stalled by political battles, and there has been no new thinking on how to engage government in expanding the opportunity to more young people and thereby provide greater services to communities.
Creating incentives for strengthening and expanding AmeriCorps projects that address environmental, educational, health and poverty alleviation problems are a responsibility in the domain of all government officials, from city councils, to county officials, state legislatures, and federal government agencies. If the program can be expanded to incorporate the majority of American young people, stemming from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and working on projects of service to support underserved areas and individuals, the impact can have a significant impact on national poverty reduction and bridging socio-economic divides. Thus social policy, educational quality, and poverty alleviation are all directly targeted by the challenge of scaling up AmeriCorps.
The challenge also presents the opportunity to diversify funding for the program beyond the public sector. AmeriCorps, through the federal Corporation for National and Community Service, has the unusual position whereby money can be raised from the private sector for its support. Expanding the financial base for AmeriCorps by developing more public-private partnerships is a significant policy opportunity.
Why Roosevelt should take on this Challenge over others:
The contributions of the Roosevelt Institution to increasing AmeriCorps participation would use the means of youth participation to reach the end of increased youth civic engagement. By utilizing the knowledge of the student population to create specific incentives for increased participation, policy solutions would be superior to incentives coming from the minds of policy wonks and generation X-ers.
Additionally, the current political climate is marked by greater polarization and politicization than that seen throughout recent years. A solution to national needs from young people to be carried out by young people will not only have greater weight on the political stage, but also gains credibility for the appropriateness of the policy solution.
Finally, the current major incentives for young people to participate in AmeriCorps are the ability to contribute to communities, to gain training and skills, to work with a group of diverse young people in a team environment, and the educational award. Determining if the best path to scaling up AmeriCorps is through strengthening these incentives, adding additional incentives, or focusing on improved outreach and targeting in order to increase participation are questions best answered by students. Combining the knowledge of the opportunities for youth and the pressing needs of social policy is an asset that only a student think tank such as the Roosevelt Institution can bring to this challenge.
This is good, but we need to be sure we focus on the policy aspects -- how do we encourage young people to engage in national service, how do we make national service affordable and realistic for all families, etc -- rather than just being champions for the program.