Dear Community,
I am excited to announce that after five years of advising young people on how to add a year of service to their career path, the Next Generation of Service (NGS) curriculum, lessons learned, and other assets are being transitioned to Service Year Alliance.
Service Year Alliance is a national non-profit working to make a year of paid, full-time service — a service year — a common expectation and opportunity for all young Americans. Their programs include:
- Operating ServiceYear.org, a state-of-the-art resource hub and online marketplace that matches young adults with service year programs
- A national recruitment and awareness campaign and service year corps member support
- Expanding service years in strategic geographic locations and within specific issues
- Supporting a Washington, DC-based policy and advocacy operation and national grassroots movement
Service Year Alliance was formed in January 2016 as a result of a merger of three organizations: The Franklin Project of The Aspen Institute, ServiceNation at Be The Change, and the Service Year Exchange at the National Conference on Citizenship. I am grateful to have been working with Service Year Alliance leaders since NGS’ early days in 2011 when we all shared a vision for a country where a year of service is a common expectation and opportunity for all young Americans.
The Next Generation of Service has reached thousands of students from over 400 universities across the country through our online content and workshops. Our “guides” – alumni of national service programs like AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, and YouthBuild – have hosted over 200 one-on-one sessions with young adults, offering personalized guidance on how to navigate the search and application process for service year opportunities.
Service Year Alliance is excited to leverage the learning from the NGS mentorship program as a foundation to better engage alumni of service year programs in the recruitment of young people considering a year of service. Over the coming months, we expect to have much of NGS’ content transferred to ServiceYear.org and a process in place to have our NGS guides connect one-on-one with young adults.
Setting goals as big as the ones NGS (and Service Year Alliance) have envisioned is challenging and overwhelming, but every moment of the last five years has been worth it because the people who are involved in this movement truly live a life of service. Every bit of progress, every young person who came to NGS having never considered a year of service only to enroll a few weeks after meeting with us, every one of these wins is because of the support of our partners, donors and most importantly, our NGS volunteers.
Working with the NGS community has inspired me to move into a career focused on technology and democracy issues. I will be moving to Washington DC in September 2011 after completing my Masters in Public Policy from the University of Michigan Ford School.
I cannot thank you enough, and I hope you share in the excitement of this transition.
