Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA Program
VISTA Leaders Gwen Peyton and Megan Newell serving in Boston, MA
Data
Data Collection and Evaluation VISTA Leaders (VL) fulfill
the need to review, assess and collect data collected and
submitted by the AmeriCorps members to meet the
requirements of progress reports to AmeriCorps.
The impact of gathering data by the team helps support the
progression of the VISTA projects but also the importance
of the AmeriCorps program under Campus Compact. The
qualitative and quantitative data collected by VISTAs and
amassed by the team demonstrates advancement done by
the members.
Challenges that come with data collection and evaluation
include assisting AmeriCorps members who have specific
needs for their projects and may require unique tools as a
part of their service. The Data Collection and Evaluation
team have updated a sustainability binder that includes
comprehensive information about the roles and
responsibilities of a Data Collection and Evaluation VL.
Training and Member Development
T&MD Leaders plan and execute programming for
AmeriCorps members. Our members come from diverse
backgrounds with unique experiences. Through our
programming, we enable them to use those experiences to
help themselves and each other, while also growing their
skill sets. We plan webinars, retreats, and events based on
professional development needs identified during the
member onboarding process.
One significant challenge for the team was developing
programming that corresponded to the needs of our
members. Our members are at various stages of their
careers, and therefore have different needs. It was
important to take this into consideration to make sure
programming would fulfill the needs of every member.
We recorded all of our webinars and archived all materials
from our programming. They are stored on the VISTA Team
Google Drive or the VISTA Resource Drive for use by future
leaders and members. Additionally, we used Asana to
create templates for planning specific events.
VISTA Leaders Stephanie Diaz and Nathan Wiesehan serving in Chicago, IL
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Circles initiative
was a response to the need for racial justice education and
efforts within the corps and its relevance to the anti-poverty
work of members. Through optional and mandatory
training and discussion sessions on topics related to DE&I,
we can create an inclusive and educated corps.
This allows AmeriCorps members to carry out their work in
more thoughtful ways, being aware of the disproportionate
impact poverty can have on Black, Indigenous, and People
of Color communities in the United States.
Participation has been lower than expected. To increase
attendance, we have used data gathered from pre-surveys
to market programming to those who specifically indicated
interest. This has driven up attendance slightly.
We have kept records and notes of all executive team
meeting agendas, and sessions, as well as their
accompanying presentations and presenter’s notes.
Evaluations have also been crucial for sustainability as
they are helpful in informing next year’s executive team on
ways to improve this first year’s programming so that it can
be even more meaningful and impactful to the 21-22 corps.
Communications
Being virtual presented new challenges with regards to
Unexpected aspects of working during COVID
building community and Corps identity. We used this as an Traditionally, a large aspect of the Campus Compact VISTA
opportunity to build our communications strategies to program involves gathering in-person to learn from one another, to
effectively pull our corps together in a virtual context. share experiences, and to give members the opportunity to get to
Through the implementation of newsletters and blogs, we know one another. While gathering in-person was not possible, we
worked hard to create a rich community for our members and we
have been able to share stories to our corps as well as to a
are proud of the strong community we were able to build while
wider audience. This is valuable to bring our corps together
overcoming these unprecedented challenges.
and allow our corps members to gain a stronger
understanding of the Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA
program and their own role within the corps.
Our biggest challenges have been figuring out how to best
represent not only the VISTA program but all CC
AmeriCorps programs as well as building out a unified
strategy from which to approach our external
communications.
This has been a learning curve as we have not previously
engaged much with these platforms. However, we have
learned a lot and documented our work for future teams.
The communications team is amassing data from VISTA
Advice to Future VISTA Leaders
members and supervisors to compile an impact report. The
“VISTAs are your greatest resource! VISTAs have all kinds of diverse
report will be a visual representation to succinctly
expertise and experiences- As VLs I feel we were often doing our best
demonstrate the work the AmeriCorps members and team
work when we were providing platforms to VISTA’s to support other
have done for the 2020-2021 service year.
VISTAs”. -- Gwen
“Connect with AmeriCorps members; they all have interesting stories
to share and keep on top of sustainability binders. You are also an
AmeriCorps member and do capacity building as well”. -- Megan
“Believe in your own abilities. This role has so many faces, and so
many things you could never prepare for. Just trust that you can
handle anything this role will throw at you and you’ll be set”. -- Nathan
“Communicate with each other as much as you can. While you will
have someone in your city, the other half of your team is across the
country-- have fun and get to know each other.” -- Stephanie