Overview of Service Year Programs

A service year is a paid opportunity for an individual to gain in-demand skills while also helping to address pressing community needs. These include programs supported by federal resources such as AmeriCorps, YouthBuild, and Peace Corps, as well as programs independent of federal support such as faith-based programming and state-sponsored service year initiatives.

Service Year Alliance's recent partnership with the Cisco Foundation to advance the Service Years + Climate Project found significant alignment and opportunity for weatherization agencies to partner with service year programs to help meet their talent development needs. Below is a synopsis of some of the aligned interests that were identified.

Service year programs within the environmental stewardship focus area are typically composed of ~40% of participants who identify as women and ~50% who identify as a minority population. Recruiting youth who have participated in a service year program presents an excellent opportunity for diversifying the current weatherization workforce.
Service year participants commonly gain and demonstrate employability skills that weatherization agencies are seeking. Skills such as communication; compassionate customer service and community engagement; ability to work well with others and within a team; punctuality; ability to excel in a demanding work environment and in adverse weather conditions; tool use; safety protocols; basic math skills; and data entry, etc.
Program participants are also often mission-driven and passionate about taking action to address climate change, which can equate to a higher retention rate down the line as a weatherization employee.
Some service year programs infuse trainings and certifications valued by WAP agencies (i.e. OSHA 10/30, BPI Building Sciences Principals, Department of Energy HEP certifications, driver safety training, etc.)
Travel is commonly a component of many service year programs advancing environmental stewardship programming and participants are often experienced and receptive to traveling for project-based work.
Service year programs advance a wide variety of models in terms of corps member training, interests, and skills; some programs produce graduates that are well suited for field or trade-based positions, while other models produce talent ideal for office-based, logistical, customer service, or administrative roles.

As a result of these findings, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Partnered with Service Year Alliance to produce the Growing the Weatherization Workforce Through Service Year Partnerships Toolkit that provides an overview and accompanying resources for how Weatherization agencies can partner with Service year programs in the following ways:

Growing Career Awareness and Establish a Talent Pipeline
Sponsoring a Team of Service Year Corps Members to Expedite Projects
Increasing Agency Capacity by Hosting One or More Service Year Corps Members
Applying for Resources to Administer Your Own Service Year Program

To supplement the resources provided in the toolkit, Service Year Alliance has also developed the following three templates that can be used by weatherization agencies to enhance their ability to apply to host an AmeriCorps NCCC team or submit and AmeriCorps State/National Grant Proposal.

Additionally, WAP agencies can also review the February 2023 memo issued by the Office of State and Community Energy Programs that approves the use of certain U.S. Department of Energy Funds to be used to help support Service Year Programming here.

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