"It's like a job. You have goals. You see results" -Yuriy, Experience Corps Member

If you are interested in becoming an affiliate and starting an Experience Corps project in your community, or if you are an organization interested doing so in several communities, please use these ten guideposts to consider whether your plans are a match for our model.

1. Program Purpose
2. Measuring Impact
3. Registered Trademark
4. Core Program Elements
5. Beyond Core Elements, What You Need to Carry Out a Project
6. Organization
7. What the Experience Corps National Office Provides You
8. Funding
9. Experience Corps Members
10. Both Local and National
11. Next Step – Contact Us

Experience Corps is designed to mobilize the time, talent, and skills of older adults to help meet serious social needs. We focus our efforts on improving the academic achievement and overall well-being of school-age children and strengthening institutions working to educate and develop these young people. Although Experience Corps has focused on school-based programs to date, we are interested in expanding to show the value of people over 55 in helping to meet other serious social needs.

Experience Corps works with external researchers to measure the program's impact. Experience Corps members make a direct difference in the lives of students, teachers, and principals. Plus, they enrich their own lives through the activity, contact, and fulfillment that come with the work they perform.

Experience Corps is a registered trademark. Therefore, you can only start an Experience Corps project with the consent and formal approval of our national office. We use this trademark to assure that local projects are a unified network, with the consistency and identity that reflect the Experience Corps core elements.

There are many wonderful programs, both locally and nationally, that involve older adults in helping to meet community needs. Experience Corps is a distinct model and approach that is defined by these six elements:

• Focus on outcomes
• High member commitment
• Rigorous member training
• Team-based approach
• Critical mass of members
• Leadership development
• Local host organizations

Starting a new Experience Corps project, or adding an Experience Corps component to an existing effort, is a complex undertaking.

To start and sustain an Experience Corps project, you need the:

• Strong commitment of the organization sponsoring the project, including senior management and the board.
• Partnerships with public and private organizations in the community critical to the project's success, including with those organizations with expertise in the social problem being addressed. If you are tutoring in schools, for example, you must have an effective partnership with the local education agency.
• The resources necessary to collect and analyze data related to program improvement and impact.
• Capacities to manage, finance, and sustain a project that will use older adults to help solve a serious social problem in your community.
• Financial resources (actual and planned) necessary for start-up activities as well as a sustained project that will typically last many years. A typical cost for a first-year Experience Corps project is $100,000; this varies according to project and community size.
• Ability to recruit and supervise older adults who want to to carry out a significant project and help to meet serious social needs.

To become an Experience Corps affiliate, you need to be one of the following:

• Nonprofit organization 501 (C)(3)
• Institution of higher education (public or private)
• Local government (including local education agency)
• State government

The local sponsoring organization has full responsibility for all financial, management, and program matters. Experience Corps projects must start with at least two service sites and twenty members.

Please note that we do not work directly with individual schools or single-site community progams.

If the decision is made that you should become an affiliate, you will enter into a legal agreement that sets forth the responsibilities of all parties.

We provide:

• Materials to help you establish identity in the community as an Experience Corps project. These materials support recruitment, branding, and communications goals; and include logos, presentations, brochures, banners, public service announcements, and a wide variety of web-based materials and information.
• Connections to the national network of Experience Corps affiliates, which have expertise in the full range of skills required to engage older adults in addressing serious social needs.
• Technical assistance in the areas of communications, program development, evaluation and fundraising.
• Opportunities to participate in prestigious research and evaluation projects.

Funding for Experience Corps affiliates typically comes from a variety of public and private sources, including businesses, individuals, foundations, and government. A local affiliate has the responsibility for obtaining the financial support necessary (at least $100,000 per year) to operate a program. A local affiliate's costs include:

• Personnel costs. Staff are required to manage the program and oversee the work of the Experience Corps members. Depending on the size of the project, first-year staffing may be half time, but an affiliate must commit to supporting a full-time position in the second year.
• Experience Corps member costs. These typically include:
  • Incentives or compensation for transportation and other expenses for those individuals who make a substantial time commitment to the program (typically 10-15 hours per week).
  • Out-of-pocket costs (e.g., transportation) for volunteers who do not receive a stipend.
  • Training and education, including training in tutoring.
  • Recognition.
  • Recruitment.
• Operating Costs. Think of these costs as being comparable to those typically required for running a social service program, including space, supplies, insurance, materials, transportation, and communications.
• Evaluation. There are costs associated with assessing the impact of your local project's efforts.

Members are the centerpiece of the Experience Corps program. They are truly local heroes, women and men devoting four or more hours each week to assisting children in some of the poorest communities in our country. These children all too often have little steady adult support, and Experience Corps members fill a critical need for a caring adult in their lives.

Experience Corps members are typically over 55, though some current members range in age from late 40s to early 90s. As a local affiliate, you are responsible for recruiting Experience Corps members from the community and providing the training, supervision, and support that will make them successful.

Experience Corps operates from the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Each new project is part of a national organization and a growing national movement to engage members in vital public and community service. In fact, many of our local projects have achieved innovations and successes that have helped to define the Experience Corps movement. In this regard, Experience Corps seeks to be both intensely local and intensely national. By joining Experience Corps, you are committing to becoming part of a national movement, sharing your experiences with others in our network, and committing to helping the network grow and thrive.

We have no national deadlines for becoming an Experience Corps affiliate. The timeline will depend very much on whether you are starting a new program or expanding your existing activities to include older members. It will also depend on a host of circumstances unique to your local community. Our typical timeframe takes at least six months of planning, though it is not unusual for a project start-up to take six months to a year.

If you think you meet these guideposts and want to consider partnering with Experience Corps, or if you just want more information, please send an email to Amy Zandarski-Pica, Associate Director, at azandpica [at] experiencecorps [dot] org. We are happy to talk to you, but prefer to receive information about your organization in advance of your call.

We look forward to hearing from you!