Highland Heights, Kentucky, September 15, 2023 – Kentucky Campus Compact (KyCC), a membership organization of Kentucky colleges and universities whose purpose is to support, promote, and find resources for community and civic engagement in Kentucky higher education, has received a three-year Volunteer Generation Fund (VGF) grant to support volunteerism on Kentucky college campuses.  KyCC has received a grant of $999,534 to fund their EngageKY+ program, the largest award of the 23 VGF and 25 Days of Service grantees across the nation.

AmeriCorps has invested more than $13 million in federal funding to support 45 organizations focused on engaging community members in volunteer activities through the Volunteer Generation Fund and Days of Service awards.  This initiative will support up to 185,000 Americans who will create service opportunities, recruit volunteers, and encourage Americans to participate in the country’s two national days of service.

The grant will provide funding to KyCC member institutions to increase their capacity for their volunteer work with students and community members, especially paying attention to reducing barriers to volunteering.  KyCC will partner with GivePulse, a technology platform for anyone to list, find, organize, and measure social impact initiatives in the community. Each participating member institution will be able to open a GivePulse account, where grant data related to volunteering and community service on each campus will be tracked.

The EngageKY+ program was launched on October 1, 2023 and will engage 3000 volunteers over the next three year who will meet locally-identified community needs aligned with the six AmeriCorps focus areas of disaster services, economic opportunity, education, environmental stewardship, healthy futures, and veterans and military families.  The goal of EngageKY+ is to increase the capacity of Kentucky secondary and postsecondary institutions and their community partners to use effective volunteer management practices.  The program will support campus initiatives that will do this for Kentucky secondary and postsecondary schools by reducing barriers to volunteering and increasing the number of people from underrepresented groups who serve as volunteers as well as strengthening and/or increasing high-impact tutoring, mentoring, and other school-based or out-of-school-time programs. Expected outcomes include creating a statewide platform to collect volunteer data, developing an effective volunteer practices resource, and increasing the quantity and quality of volunteering.

“We are thrilled to be awarded a Volunteer Generation Fund grant this year,” said KyCC Executive Director Gayle Hilleke. “It will help us fulfill a dream we’ve had of supporting Kentucky collegiate volunteering and having good data to show the important impact it has on the lives of so many in the Commonwealth.”

You can read more about each of the Volunteer Generation Fund and Days of Service grantees at https://americorps.gov/funded-grants/2023-volunteer-generation-fund-grants.

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Kentucky Campus Compact (KyCC) was created in 2005 by a task force of Kentucky college and university presidents and has been housed at Northern Kentucky University since January 2006. KyCC views colleges and universities as vital agents and architects of a diverse democracy, committed to educating students for responsible citizenship in ways that both deepen their education and improve the quality of community life. We challenge all of higher education to make civic and community engagement an institutional priority. Striving to advance the public purposes of colleges and universities by deepening their ability to improve community life and to educate students for civic and social responsibility is the mission of KyCC. We work towards this goal by addressing the areas of College Access, College Success, and Community Impact.

AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteerism, provides opportunities for Americans to serve their country domestically, address the nation’s most pressing challenges, improve lives and communities, and strengthen civic engagement. Each year, the agency places more than 200,000 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers in intensive service roles, and empowers millions more to serve as long-term, short-term, or one-time volunteers. Learn more at AmeriCorps.gov. AmeriCorps offers opportunities for individuals of all backgrounds to be a part of the national service community, grow personally and professionally, and receive benefits for their service.