Table of Contents
Application Deadline
Required Documents
Frequently Asked Questions
Resources for Applicants
Training and Technical Assistance Webinars
This information is intended to support the AmeriCorps Seniors Senior Companion Program Replacement and Expansion Opportunity. The actual level of funding is subject to the availability of annual appropriations.
AmeriCorps improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. AmeriCorps brings people together to tackle some of the country’s most pressing challenges through national service and volunteerism. AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers serve with organizations dedicated to the improvement of communities and those serving. AmeriCorps helps make service a cornerstone of our national culture.
Established in 1974, the AmeriCorps Seniors Senior Companion Program engages adults aged 55 and over to provide companionship and support to other adults in need of extra assistance to remain at home or in the community for as long as possible. AmeriCorps Seniors’ volunteers in the Senior Companion program serve with most of the volunteer service taking place in the homes of their clients. Among other activities, they provide companionship to ease loneliness and social isolation, assist with transportation and light chores, help to serve as eyes and ears to professionals who can intervene in the case of medical or other deterioration on the part of the clients, and give support to informal caregivers. While serving, AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers in the Senior Companion Program improve their own lives by staying active and civically engaged.
The AmeriCorps Seniors Senior Companion Program focuses grantmaking in the healthy futures focus area. Under this focus area, grants must establish programming that engages adults fifty-five (55) years and older to serve as volunteers who help seniors live independently. Activities may include providing support and/or facilitating access to services and resources that contribute to independent living.
AmeriCorps Seniors Senior Companion Programs that include the following programmatic characteristics will receive priority consideration:
- Organizations leading service in communities with concentrated poverty, rural communities, tribal communities, and those organizations serving historically underrepresented and underserved individuals, including but not limited to communities of color, immigrants and refugees, people with disabilities, people who identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, and religious minorities.
- Projects that propose to raise public awareness about the challenges and needs of family caregivers and the role that older adult volunteers can play in helping to overcome some of those challenges. Innovative service projects that can be executed by older adults will be given priority consideration. These projects can include those that:
- Optimize well-being of family caregivers by strengthening services and supports, i.e., services to help caregivers manage their own health/emotions/physical stress, helping to find and secure other trustworthy/affordable services or supports, and those that prevent caregiver isolation.
- Develop volunteer roles that integrate older adults as volunteers who serve as part of a care coordination for clients and ongoing support for family and other caregivers.
- Develop interventions where elders can support caregivers in tribal communities.
- Spur innovations that engage older adults in intergenerational activities that help increase access to information and services for caregivers.
- Projects that propose to serve states listed in Appendix A: Priority States and Territories.
- Support organizations that serve people with arrest and conviction records and provide meaningful reentry opportunities.
- Programs that support civic bridgebuilding projects (meaning projects that foster respect among diverse communities, strengthen relationships across lines of difference, forge a sense of common civic purpose, and seek to solve a community program and diminish polarization) and provide training in civic bridgebuilding skills and techniques to AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers.
Application Deadline
Application Deadline: Applications are due by 5:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. Successful applicants will be notified prior to the start date.
AmeriCorps Seniors Senior Companion Program Replacement Opportunity
Senior Companion Program Replacement Opportunity Notice of Funding Opportunity
Grant Application Instructions
Appendix B: Senior Companion Program Performance Measure Instructions
Appendix C: Terms and Definitions
Appendix E: Cost per Volunteer Service Year Calculator - posted Nov. 29, 2023
Sample Budget- posted Nov. 13, 2024
Senior Companion Program Federal Regulations
Required Documents
All applicants regardless of funding level are required to submit an Operational and Financial Management Survey (OFMS). This link is to an online form, where you will be required to submit your response electronically.
Frequently Asked Questions
Foster Grandparent and Senior Companion Program Replacement and Expansion Opportunity FAQ - posted Nov. 13, 2024. Updated Dec. 15, 2023
Resources for Applicants
National Service Criminal History Check (NSCHC)
Senior Companion Program Regulations
Uniform Guidance § CFR 200
Training and Technical Assistance Webinars and Resources
AmeriCorps Seniors will host a series of webinars to introduce potential applicants to the AmeriCorps Seniors Senior Companion Program funding opportunity. Webinar topics will include an overview of AmeriCorps, examples of funded programs, a review of the Notice of Funding Opportunity, budgets, performance measurement, and submitting your application using the eGrants platform. AmeriCorps strongly encourages all potential applicants attend these sessions.
All training and technical assistance webinars will be recorded. The recordings and other related resources will be posted to this page shortly after the webinar’s conclusion.
All pre-recordings and recordings are listed below.
Introducing AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps Seniors, and Its Programs
Pre-Recorded
This pre-recorded webinar briefly introduces AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps Seniors, and all its programs.
AmeriCorps Seniors in Action: Mobilizing a Generation
Recorded on Nov. 29, 2023
This webinar provides an overview of programs funded through AmeriCorps Seniors opportunities with a focus on how the program operates to meet the needs of communities and provides examples of volunteer activities.
Tour of the Notice of Funding Opportunity
Pre-Recorded
This pre-recorded webinar reviews the details of each section of the FY 2024 AmeriCorps Seniors Senior Companion Program Replacement and Expansion Opportunity.
Identifying Funding Priority Areas in Your Community
Recorded on Dec. 6, 2023
This webinar provides an overview of community needs assessments, community asset mapping, and theory of change to assist applicants with proposing projects that are aligned with both the funding priorities of AmeriCorps Seniors the needs of their communities.
Tour of the Notice of Funding Opportunity – Selection Criteria Review
Recorded on Dec. 13, 2023
This webinar reviews the FY 2024 AmeriCorps Seniors Senior Companion Program Replacement and Expansion Opportunity selection criteria.
AmeriCorps National Performance Measures Curriculum
eLearning courses
This series of self-paced eLearning courses provides an overview of performance measurement. AmeriCorps expects all applicants to use the National Performance Measures as part of a comprehensive strategy that relies on both performance and evaluation data to learn from their work and make tactical and strategic adjustments to achieve their goals.
AmeriCorps National Performance Measurement Core Curriculum
National Performance Measures and Work Plans
Recorded on Jan. 10, 2024
This webinar provides an overview of the funding opportunity focus areas, national performance measures, and suggestions for creating a successful work plan.
Presentation Slides
Best Practices in Budget Development
Pre-recorded
This pre-recorded webinar, hosted by AmeriCorps Seniors and Office of Grant Administration, review best practices in budget development for AmeriCorps Seniors funding opportunities.
Senior Companion Program Office Hours: Budget Q&A
Recorded on Jan. 17, 2024
During this live event, staff from AmeriCorps Seniors and the Office of Grant Administration will answer budget-related questions about the funding opportunity.
Presentation Slides
Senior Companion Program Office Hours: General and Performance Measurement Q&A
Recorded Jan. 18, 2024
During this live event, staff from AmeriCorps Seniors will answer questions related to the general programming, performance measures, and work plans.
AmeriCorps Due Diligence Review and Compliance Training
Pre-recorded
This pre-recorded webinar provides insights to the function of the AmeriCorps due diligence process and how to obtain and maintain compliance, prior to receiving an AmeriCorps award and throughout the lifetime of an AmeriCorps grant.
Submitting Your Application in eGrants
Pre-recorded
This pre-recorded webinar walks through eGrants, AmeriCorps’ electronic grants management system, step-by-step.