To this day, I am a big admirer of the legislation that created AmeriCorps, the 1993 National Community Service Trust Act. The authors of the act were brilliant. They believed in the idea of reinventing government through entrepreneurship – and so created a system of AmeriCorps that fosters competition and innovation. Two Minnesota legislators, Senator Dave Durenberger and the late Senator Paul Wellstone, were chief authors of the bill, helping to spark our state’s dedication to service.
Even before becoming a nonprofit, our commission has been dedicated to innovation and change. We have a willingness to try something else if the status quo isn’t working – launching ServeMinnesota as a nonprofit is just one part of that. Since then, our openness to change has led us to many of the hallmarks of what we do: our dedication to program research, our willingness to pitch in and respond to statewide challenges, and our determination to scale our programs across the country.
I’ve been so grateful to witness ServeMinnesota harness the power of service. After starting with just four programs, our 20 programs are now nationally recognized, in some cases replicated in over [TBA] states, and serving Minnesota across issue areas aligned with state priorities – education, recovery, climate change resilience, health, refugee response, and more. We’ve backed up each of our programs with research and tripled the number of AmeriCorps members who serve in Minnesota.
We believe justice, equity, and inclusion, and have been committed to changing and growing to uphold those values. We’ve worked hard to underlie everything we do with connection to the communities we serve, drawing on community expertise to build programs that work. We’re also building career pathways to connect members to long-term careers after their service and working on other solutions – like affinity groups – to support our members.
I’m proud of our story and of the AmeriCorps “people power” we’ve built in Minnesota. I’ve been reflecting on the last 20 years. Here are some reasons why I think we got here today.
- Innovation through structural change: Becoming a nonprofit was one of many innovations and changes that helped benefit our programs. We have created an infrastructure that supports over 20 programs, including an intermediary organization that helps build our capacity.
- Investment in excellent, proven programming: Early on, we decided that our programs needed to be backed up by evidence and research. We make sure that each program we fund gets results for the communities we serve.
- Alignment with government and community partners: As a State Service Commission, we are closely aligned with the state government, and work carefully to align our work with state priorities. We have built programs around what issues are important to our state and legislators – for example, recovery, health, education, and climate. We listen to the communities we serve and make sure our programs are in sync.
- Spirit of change and possibility: We aren’t afraid of making a change to the way we do things. We’re constantly figuring out how we can change how we do things so we can better serve Minnesota.
I’m so looking forward to sharing what we do next with you. If you want to follow what we do, sign up for MNfocus, our monthly newsletter that goes inside the power of AmeriCorps service in Minnesota! And if you want to hear more about ServeMinnesota’s history, read this interview with me from 2019 or take a look at our history timeline.
Gratitude, always,
Audrey
