On the Success of AmeriCorps Programs in Strengthening Communities: Evidence from Florida

In 1993 President Clinton signed into law the National and Community Service Trust Act, the centerpiece of which was a new national service initiative—AmeriCorps. The overall purpose of AmeriCorps was to promote community building through volunteer service. AmeriCorps was one high-profile program established in part to highlight government-nonprofit partnerships and their capacity to improve communities and service delivery to the most vulnerable in communities—poor children, frail elderly, and teenagers who are at risk of dropping out of school or getting into serious juvenile delinquency problems. AmeriCorps' programs nationally work to achieve three goals—Getting Things Done, Member Development, and Strengthening Communities. Few of the studies on AmeriCorps have explicitly studied their impact on community strengthening. This article reports on a two-year study of twenty two AmeriCorps programs in Florida from 1997–2000, emphasizing their objectives and success in community strengthening. Program results are limited. The programs increased the number of volunteers delivering their services and developed one or more community partner organizations at each site. Nearly all of the program staff and community partners believed that the AmeriCorps programs positively influenced the community's self-help capacity to some extent. However, data indicating broader community strengthening impacts were hard to find and difficult to track. Reasons for this relatively modest impact on broader community strengthening goals are articulated based on surveys, interviews, and site visits.