Evaluation Overview

AmeriCorps VISTA’s Project Implementation Evaluation

The Corporation for National and Community Service’s AmeriCorps VISTA program has contracted JBS International to conduct a Project Implementation Evaluation focused on the best practices and challenges experienced by project sponsors. The knowledge gained from this evaluation will be used to improve program planning, implementation, and the development of technical assistance and training materials, which will benefit sponsors, new staff, and members. AmeriCorps VISTA has two goals for this evaluation.

Goal One:

Identify implementation challenges and best practices among a representative sample of VISTA project sponsors that can be utilized to make program improvement and to mitigate potential challenges.

Goal Two:

Use information gained to develop training and technical assistance materials to strengthen and enhance VISTA programming. Materials will be developed for internal staff and for external AmeriCorps VISTA project sponsors.

Five themes will help AmeriCorps VISTA better understand and improve our programming.

Project Implementation Evaluation Themes

Member Recruitment

• The specific challenges experienced and the factors that contribute to successful member recruitment.

Member Retention

• What contributes to successful member retention and which factors contribute to higher attrition?

Project Development

• Sponsors’ experiences with project development best practices and challenges.

• How and to what extent do projects adhere to community empowerment?

Project Management

• The successes and challenges sponsors face when managing VISTA projects to inform project policies and technical assistance materials.

Project Sustainability

• How do sponsors define, measure and work towards sustainability?

As part of the evaluation, JBS International will:

• conduct focus groups,

• disseminate a survey to all AmeriCorps VISTA sponsors, and

• complete case studies

Throughout this process, you may be asked to participate in various aspects of these evaluation activities. Sharing your experience and expertise will only serve to help us improve programming and further support sponsors, members and CNCS staff in achieving successful outcomes.