126 | How AmeriCorps Uses Data to Support Communities Through National Service and Volunteerism

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of AmeriCorps, On the Evidence hosted a discussion on the role of data and research in helping AmeriCorps and its grantees deliver on their respective missions. The guests for this episode are Dr. Mary Hyde, Stephanie Garippa, Diana Gioia, and Scott Richman.

Hyde is the director of research and evaluation at AmeriCorps.

Garippa oversees the AmeriCorps program at Maggie’s Place, an Arizona-based nonprofit and AmeriCorps grantee serving mothers through housing, education, and direct support services.

Gioia is a former AmeriCorps member who works with Stephanie at Maggie’s Place, where she is the data and evaluation coordinator.

Richman is a senior researcher at Mathematica who co-authored a report for AmeriCorps synthesizing five years’ worth of studies describing the state of the evidence where the agency seeks to make an impact. The report is part of AmeriCorps LEARNS, an ongoing project where Mathematica helps AmeriCorps share the growing body of evidence on the impact of national service and resources for building that evidence.

On the episode, they discuss the important but complex task of measuring the impact of AmeriCorps, given that it seeks to not only spur higher levels of civic engagement and community service, but to simultaneously help its service members, partnering organizations, the communities in which both operate, and society as a whole. They talk about the kinds of evidence that AmeriCorps and grantees like Maggie’s Place collect, how that evidence is used to drive impact, and how the role of evidence in guiding AmeriCorps’ work has evolved over time.

Read the 2023 AmeriCorps State of the Evidence Report: https://www.mathematica.org/publicati...

Find the full transcript for the episode at https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/how...

0:00 Teaser clip
0:16 Intro
3:55 What is the mission of AmeriCorps?
5:30 How has the mission of AmeriCorps has evolved over time?
8:12 What is the Office of Research and Evaluation and what is its role in the broader context of AmeriCorps’ work
10:38 Who are the target audiences and consumers of evidence generated by AmeriCorps's Office of Research and Evaluation?
12:09 What is Maggie's Place and how does AmeriCorps support its work?
15:01 What role is Mathematica playing in supporting the Office of Research and Evaluation at AmeriCorps?
18:32 How AmeriCorps measures its impacts
26:24 How Maggie's Place uses data and evaluation in its work
29:09 The role that AmeriCorps plays in supporting Maggie’s Place
31:37 Is it scary to evaluate the impacts of programs when the results might be bad news?
35:54 What is the AmeriCorps State of the Evidence report and what did the 2023 edition find?
41:24 What does the evidence suggest in terms of the benefits of being an AmeriCorps member?
44:45 How the State of the Evidence report influenced the agency's thinking about data and evidence
48:54 How and why AmeriCorps commissions return-on-investment studies, and what those studies have found
51:18 Why is a return-on-investment study or even evidence of impact more generally important for communicating the work of AmeriCorps?
55:53 Goals for generating and using data to further the work of AmeriCorps and Maggie’s Place
1:02:16 Outro