AmeriCorps NCCC Sponsor Survey

The five AmeriCorps NCCC regions – Atlantic, North Central, Pacific, Southern, and Southwest – routinely collect feedback from their regional sponsors to learn about their perspectives and experiences with the NCCC program and teams working at sponsor organizations’ service projects. These findings are used to make evidence-informed program improvements. This report highlights responses to the closed-ended questions of the AmeriCorps NCCC Sponsor Organization Survey sent to AmeriCorps NCCC Traditional Corps who completed projects beginning in June 2016 and through September 2019 (941 total sponsors across all five regions). The report is organized around seven topic areas, plus a miscellaneous section. It also includes recommendations for NCCC sponsor feedback and revising sponsor surveys, and a discussion around how to interpret the findings and sample representation from each region.

Key Findings by Topic Area Include:

• Overall: The majority of AmeriCorps NCCC sponsors were very positive about the NCCC program and teams across North Central, Pacific, Southern, and Southwest regions, while Atlantic region sponsors reported slightly less positive experiences in some cases.
• Community Need and Impact: The majority of sponsors (80% to 92% in each region) reported that AmeriCorps NCCC teams, either to a large extent or completely, met the primary community need (as identified by the sponsor) through their service and contributed to the achievement of the projects’ primary objectives.
• Project Quality and Engagement: The majority of sponsors (80% to 90% in each region) reported the overall quality of work performed on the projects by the AmeriCorps NCCC teams was exceptional or high, and about two-thirds of sponsors reported that the overall quality of work performed by AmeriCorps NCCC teams was somewhat to significantly better than other team-based support that their organizations received.
• Team Training: Most sponsors (90% to 95% in each region) reported that, to a moderate and large extent, AmeriCorps NCCC teams came trained as a cohesive and functioning team. Teams also received additional training by sponsor organizations across all five regions.
• Team Member Skills and Abilities: About three-quarters of sponsors reported a moderate to large positive change in a variety of NCCC teams’ professional skills.
• Team Attitude, Responsibility, and Inclusion: Across all five regions, responses to questions asking about teams’ attitudes towards their projects’ work, timeliness, preparation, flexibility, adaptability, inclusivity of the communities they served, inclusivity within the sponsoring organization, and safety conscientiousness ranged from about 73% positive to 99% positive, with the majority in the range of 88% to 99%.
• Benefits to Your Organization: Nearly all of the sponsors (92% to 97% in each region) agreed or strongly agreed that AmeriCorps NCCC teams supported the mission of their organizations, and many reported that teams increased the number, speed, or quality of services provided, the number of individuals served, or community awareness of the organization.
• Involvement and Satisfaction: Nearly all sponsors (92% to 96%) across North Central, Pacific, Southern and Southwest were satisfied to very satisfied with AmeriCorps NCCC teams, and the majority of sponsors (83% to 91% in each region) indicated their interest to sponsor another AmeriCorps NCCC team in the future.
• Miscellaneous: Sponsors considered the greatest strengths of AmeriCorps NCCC to be flexibility and adaptability, team work ethic or dedication, and level of team engagement, and considered the greatest areas for improvement to be travel logistics, lodging or housing logistics, and “other.”

AmeriCorps NCCC Sponsor Survey Factsheet

Regional Survey Findings

AmeriCorps NCCC North Central Region Survey Findings

AmeriCorps NCCC Pacific Region Survey Findings

AmeriCorps NCCC Southern Region Survey Findings

AMERICORps NCCC Southwest Region Survey Findings