We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

568. Tackling Equity + Unleashing the Power of Volunteers + 30 Years of Impact at AmeriCorps - Michael D. Smith

• We Are For Good • Season 10

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Meet Michael. He has dedicated his career to social justice by reducing barriers and expanding opportunity for children and families in underserved communities, like those where he grew up. He’s the CEO of AmeriCorps, the federal agency that connects people and organizations through service and volunteering to tackle the nation's most pressing challenges, with over 200,000 AmeriCorps members serving in 40,000 locations across the United States. Michael is sharing his incredible personal journey and the story of AmeriCorps’ 30-year legacy of transforming lives and communities💪Tune in to celebrate the power of volunteerism with us🎉

💡 Learn

  • AmeriCorps 30 years of impact
  • How AmeriCorps meets urgent needs
  • The Importance of national service + volunteerism

Today's Guest

Michael D. Smith, CEO, AmeriCorps


Episode Highlights

  • Michael’s story and journey to where he is today (:00)
  • Overview + history of AmeriCorps (9:00)
  • How Americorps is meeting urgent needs (12:00)
  • Equity and inclusion in AmeriCorps (17:25)
  • The transformative power of service (21:50)
  • A powerful moment of philanthropy in Michael’s life (27:30)
  • Michael’s One Good Thing: People closest to the pain have to be closest to the power. (31:50)
  • How to connect with Michael and AmeriCorps (36:20)

For more information + episode details visit: weareforgood.com/episode/568.

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Speaker 1:

Hey, I'm John.

Speaker 2:

And I'm Becky.

Speaker 1:

And this is the we Are For Good podcast.

Speaker 2:

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

Speaker 1:

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.

Speaker 2:

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

Speaker 1:

So let's get started, becky, what's happening?

Speaker 2:

Well, if you love volunteerism, it is such a great honor to really invite Michael D Smith, who's the CEO of AmeriCorps, to the podcast AmeriCorps y'all. They're celebrating 30 years of impact and really celebrating the importance of national service and volunteerism. And, michael, I will say you have come to the right house, because this is a massive community who understands the power of what volunteerism can do for communities and not just for the person receiving the benefit. But we believe that philanthropy at its power, at its fullest potential, benefits everybody, the giver and the receiver, and so it is a delight today to talk about the 30-year footprint of AmeriCorps.

Speaker 2:

Michael has been appointed to senior leadership roles by not one but two US presidents. President Joe Biden nominated him for his current position in 2021, and he was confirmed by the Senate the next year. Even before that, he served in President Obama's White House as special assistant to the president and the Senior Director of Cabinet Affairs, overseeing the my Brother's Keeper Initiative and Interagency Tax Force. So that was like before that was kind of already in your wake, but today he is the CEO of the Federal Agency for Service and Volunteering. He's really dedicated his career to social justice by reducing barriers and expanding opportunities for children and families and underserved communities.

Speaker 2:

He's a proud Massachusetts native and a senior Atlantic fellow for racial equity and a member of the Boys and Girls Club of America's Alumni Hall of Fame. So prior to this appointment, he served on the board of directors of Results for America, venture Philanthropy Partners, public Allies, Idealistorg and Philanthropy for Active and Civic Engagement, which all leads up to saying I think Michael really knows his stuff and we are going to have a wild conversation today. We're so honored you're here, michael. Welcome to the we Are for Good podcast.

Speaker 3:

Becky John, thank you so much. I am so excited to be here.

Speaker 2:

Oh, we're delighted to have you. And before we dive into just three decades of understanding the power of what volunteerism has done for this country, we got to know the person behind the story. So we want to get to know Michael Like. Take us back, Introduce us to little Michael growing up. How did he get this heart for racial equity and doing justice in the world?

Speaker 3:

You know I would love to. So you know you mentioned I'm a proud Massachusetts native. I am a proud Springfield Massachusetts native. For folks that are from Massachusetts, everyone thinks that's around Boston where everyone says Taki Kha and Hava Yad, but there's this place all the way in Western Massachusetts where basketball was created, where Dr Seuss was born, where Friendly Ice Cream was established and that's where I grew up in Springfield Massachusetts. It's a small city of about 150,000 people, a working class community. In so many ways. My parents were both teenagers when I was born. They were both 16 years old.

Speaker 3:

I grew up in a poor black neighborhood where we didn't have a whole lot of money, but what we had was a community that stuck together, that took care of one another, that would give you their last dime. So if my mother didn't have money to send me on that field trip, then there was going to be an uncle or an aunt or a cousin that was going to be there If one person didn't have food. My grandmother's kitchen was always open on Sunday. I don't know how she had a never ending pot, but you could bring anybody to that table and they were going to be there If someone lost their job, if someone needed a place to stay, there was a couch, there was another bedroom, and so I grew up in this community that didn't have a lot of financial resources but just had love and abundance.

Speaker 3:

And one of the things my mother did is she sent me to my local Boys and Girls Club. From the time I think I was about seven years old, she said she was just looking for cheap daycare. She liked to tell me all the time that she took six buses a day in order to get herself to school. She finished high school and then started going to college while raising a little baby as a teenager. And so to get herself to school, to get me to daycare, get her to work and all back again, it was six plus a day, and so she said she needed a place as I got older to go. So she found the Boys and Girls Club and she thought she was getting cheap daycare. But what she got was a whole other set of aunties and uncles, folks that were loving on me, that were inspiring me but also keeping me in mind.

Speaker 3:

And it was also at my Boys and Girls Club, where I first learned about service. I didn't know what it was, I didn't know what a foster grandparent was and that those folks are now part of AmeriCorps or a VISTA person was and they're now part of, but they were at my Boys and Girls Club. I didn't know that these folks that I looked up to that made such a difference for me and my family were probably not making the salaries that they deserved or getting the resources and support that they deserve, but they were the bridge over troubled water for me and my family and so many kids like us. And from an early age, whether it was at that Boys and Girls Club, whether it was at my church, I knew I wanted to give back and I wanted to be like those people and make life a little easier for those people and kids like me.

Speaker 2:

Can we get your mom's name?

Speaker 3:

My mom is Kim. She's still the best mom. I'm still a mama's boy.

Speaker 2:

Kim, way to go. I am so proud of you.

Speaker 1:

Look at the man that you have raised. Way to go, mama. Yeah, I mean I love we talk a lot about like figuring out what is our light and how we bring it to the world. Like this just emulates from you like this joy of what community has done, service has done in your life, and I love that you get to channel it in in such a massive way through AmeriCorps now. I mean, how lucky to be the steward of such an incredible organization. I'd love for you to kind of do some context setting for us. I mean, we're celebrating 30 years, right, 30 years of impact. What is the history of AmeriCorps? Kind of give us some background of what led and what the impact looks like today give us some background of what led and what the impact looks like today.

Speaker 3:

So you're right, americorps is 30 years old. So in 1993, president Clinton signed the legislation that created AmeriCorps as a federal agency. At that time we were called the Corporation for National and Community Service and then created AmeriCorps. We call ourselves AmeriCorps now because outside of a very small community in Washington, no one had any idea what the Corporation for National Service was. And then they're like are you a company? What does that mean? And so, like the Peace Corps, we just decided to be AmeriCorps. And so we now call ourselves just AmeriCorps, even though our legal name is still the Corporation for National Community Service, though our legal name is still the Corporation for National Community Service. So President Clinton signed the legislation that created the federal agency and created this new funding pool to support this thing that he was excited about.

Speaker 3:

You know, from a very young age President Clinton was someone that believed in the power of service, and when he had the opportunity to begin to think about how he could leverage the power of government to do something about it, he was seeing some interesting things popping up. So 31, 32 years ago, there was this city year thing that was getting created by Michael Brown and Alan Casey, two Harvard students, that created this city year thing. That was using young people who wanted to give a year of service to make a difference in Boston. Teach for America was getting started, public Allies was getting started, and there were these things where, you know, the president would say we're never going to have enough tax money to pay all the people to do all of the things that our communities need to be successful. But there's something about Americans that are willing to do more and give more. Maybe for a year, maybe for two years, they'll do it for less, and so how can we tap into that? Because if we can do that, we're not only making a difference for our communities but we're maybe even building out the civic and democratic muscle of our society.

Speaker 3:

So in 1994, a year after the president signed the legislation that created the agency, the first 20,000 AmeriCorps members were sworn in, and so today we have 200,000 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps senior volunteers that are serving in about 40,000 locations across the country. So everywhere there's a challenge in this country and there are people of goodwill doing something about it. Chances are AmeriCorps members are right at the heart, and what I love is. We're 30, but our legacy is so much older. So we have a program called the National Civilian Community Corps.

Speaker 3:

We have this new American Climate Corps thing that we launched, and both of those have their roots in President Roosevelt's CCC, and so that goes way back and we're the modern embodiment of that. We have AmeriCorps seniors programs. So many people think about AmeriCorps as right out of college or right out of high school, but our largest volunteer force are people 55 and older and our foster grandparents programs, our senior companions programs, our retired senior volunteer programs those are all about 50 years old. Your volunteer programs, those are all about 50 years old. And then we have VISTA, which President Johnson created right after Peace Corps was created Volunteers in Service to America.

Speaker 3:

So that goes back 60 years, and so we are building off of a rich tradition and making sure that we're prepared to be even stronger in the future.

Speaker 2:

I just learned so much more about AmeriCorps than I had previously known. You guys have done some amazing, big things. Thank you so much. I have to say, john, before you jump in here, that I did a little research before you came on about, because we've had this discussion before about the impact of volunteers to organizations and there's lots of ways that you can value that in the nonprofit space, in the social enterprise space, in a community to community, person to person base, and what I found is that in 2021, approximately 63 million Americans volunteered their time. It's 5 billion hours of service, which is saving nonprofits around $159 billion annually in labor costs. And I think we're looking at a microcosm of that with AmeriCorps, whose entire job is activating around this notion. And I just think what you are doing in the micro communities in which you're doing it are the way and it is sending ripples throughout the country that we will never see, that are going to change people's lives like the little Michael D Smith. It's just an extraordinary story.

Speaker 3:

Becky, thank you for saying that. I think sometimes Americans need to be reminded that we're a pretty special country. That French guy, alexis de Tocqueville, when he came over here in the 1800s and he was looking at what made America special, this idea that Americans didn't wait for their government to do something. They raised the barns, they took care of the community, they had the volunteer fire brigade that spirit that he saw, that made America rich and unique, is still alive and still powerful today, and that data that you shared show that. So when the going gets tough, americans don't look inward, we look outward and really believe in this idea that our neighbors' children are all of our children, and I think we need to do more to celebrate that beautiful American spirit.

Speaker 1:

So I love all this history of work. I would love to hear you talk about the urgent needs that y'all are on the front lines today. I mean, how are your mobilized volunteers showing up today? What does that look like?

Speaker 3:

You know, the beauty of AmeriCorps is we aren't stale or stagnant. We evolve with the moment, and that's why we're around 30 years later and that's why our legacy programs, like 50, 60 years, are evolving, and so we're not creating some master plan in Washington DC and disseminating it across the country. Essentially, what we're saying is how can we give you communities the resources that you need to stand up and address the greatest challenges that you're facing today? You know, before we started this recording, I was telling you about the fact that we have two indigenous AmeriCorps members that are serving with a tribal village in Alaska, in Scammon Bay, which is only accessible by snow machine in the winter or a very, very, very small plane that I'm glad I'm on the other side of that trip, and those AmeriCorps members are teaching subsistence living and how do you hunt for moose, how do you fish for salmon, how do you preserve the traditional languages and culture, and so I'm really proud that we are responsive to the local needs. And so today, if you look nationally, education is our biggest space that we have always been in. We have about 50,000 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps senior volunteers that are serving in nearly 10,000 schools across the country, coming out of the pandemic. We actually decided to double down on learning loss and supporting the fact that there aren't enough teachers. I think the last stat I saw we were 600,000 fewer teachers than the start of the pandemic. So, with the White House and the Department of Education, we launched the National Partnership for Student Success, which is going above and beyond what we already do to bring in 250,000 more tutors, mentors and success coaches to the schools, and I am proud that we are already past 180,000 new tutors, mentors and coaches and well on our way to get to our 250,000 goal before the end of this administration.

Speaker 3:

I'm also proud that we're responding to the youth mental health crisis. Just in May, we launched our new Youth Mental Health Corps in partnership with the Schultz Family Foundation, howard Schultz of Starbucks and Pinterest, and what we are doing in that situation is we are saying to young people you are the closest to this work, we need you to be a part of the solution. So we are providing an opportunity for 18 to 29-year-olds to become AmeriCorps members, working in school settings, to be resource navigators, to help identify their peers that might be having problems, to do a little social, emotional learning and cognitive behavioral therapy, and while they're doing it, they're getting the training so that they might stay in youth mental health careers. We launched Public Health AmeriCorps with the Centers for Disease Control, who came to us and said you know what? We need 80,000 more public health workers and we need them to look like the communities that they're serving and AmeriCorps, you're good at that. So today, with 5,000 public health AmeriCorps members that didn't exist three years ago that are serving in communities they are more diverse than any workforce program CDC has ever had and 10 times the number of folks that they've had in this space, and we're providing them with world-class training so that they stay in public health jobs.

Speaker 3:

And lastly, you can't talk about the challenges we're facing today without talking about the existential threat of climate change. Americorps has always been in that space. Environmental stewardship has been something part and parcel to who we are. But President Biden launched the American Climate Corps with seven federal agencies and we're proud to be the hub, and so we're bringing in young people to say let's turn climate anxiety into climate action. You don't have to be in despair and distress, but we can give you a way to do fire mitigation, coastal erosion, environmental education, solar paneling. You can do that today we can provide you with skills and training so that you can then get the good, clean energy and green jobs of the future. And so we are staying on the curve. We are moving quickly and making sure that we are addressing the challenges that our communities are facing today.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I knew I would be inspired when I heard that you were coming on the show, michael, but I am amazed at how much hope I have inside my body right now as you talk, because, as people who have worked inside nonprofits and you think about John I'm thinking about maybe our largest scale effort on a volunteer initiative would be like like a hundred volunteers and you're talking about 250,000 who could come in and change the face of education in America, you know. Or taking on the youth crisis, mental health crisis my gosh, why are we not talking more about that? And even the climate issue is just such an important one.

Speaker 2:

And may I also just commend you for finding diverse people to come in as volunteers, because representation matters, and it's very important when we go into communities that people feel like they see themselves in the people who are coming to help them, and so this is part of the reason why we really wanted to talk to you, michael, because this commitment to equity has been grounded in your work, I feel like since the very beginning, and you have really sharpened the agency's focus on equity and investing in what works and uniting communities through this power of service. So talk to us a little bit more about that, what you've learned from it, and how our listeners can start to implement some of these ideals within their own communities and their organizations. I feel like there's so much hope in it.

Speaker 3:

You know, becky, I've been heavily influenced by the work that I did with President Obama's my Brother's Keeper Initiative, and you know we were looking at startling data when we created the my Brother's Keeper Initiative back in 2014. And the idea behind that was how can we expand the opportunity for boys and young men of color and make sure all young people can reach their full potential? And I remember in 2013, when we were starting to have those conversations, we were beginning to celebrate a turnaround on the high school dropout crisis. At the beginning of the Obama years, we were looking at a massive exodus of young people who were not graduating high school on time, and we doubled down. We did all sorts of incredible investments and we were celebrating that we were at 80% across the board. Finally, we had gone back up to 80% of high school students graduating. But when you looked at Black boys, latino boys, tribal boys, you were seeing sometime graduation rates of 50%. I think in Rochester that year, about 90% of their Black boys were graduating. When you looked at homicides in this country, black boys are 6% of the nation's population, but more than 50% of the nation's homicide victims, and so you started to look at these studies and we realized that in so many ways these young men were canaries in the coal mine. So how could we create policy interventions that not only made a difference for young men of color but then, through the doors of opportunity, wide open?

Speaker 3:

People in the equity space talk about the curb cut theory, this idea that in the 1970s, when they decided that people with wheelchairs needed a cut in the curb so that you could get your wheelchair up, that was amazing for people in wheelchairs, but it was also amazing for moms carrying a stroller or pushing a stroller.

Speaker 3:

It was also amazing for your grandma, who might have been taking her little cart to the grocery store. It might have been amazing for people with other mobility issues. And so one of the things that we look at at AmeriCorps is how do we center equity? Because if we think about the least amongst us, if we think about those that are having the biggest challenges, that are overcoming the biggest hurdles, if we can identify and hone in on those problems, then everybody benefits.

Speaker 3:

And so that's the mindset that we lead with every single day, and what you realize is you can't just talk about it, you have to have policy that backs that up, you have to potentially change systems. So one of the things that we did at AmeriCorps when I came in is we looked at the fact that AmeriCorps members are not episodic volunteers. They're not just showing up once or twice a month. Most of them are serving 1,500, 1,700 hours a year. They are in the school, the teachers are in the school, like this is a job, and so they get a living allowance like this is a job, and so they get a living allowance.

Speaker 3:

And we have almost doubled the living allowances across the board, because what we were providing folks you couldn't keep a roof over your head, you couldn't keep food in your belly and if we weren't careful, americorps was then going to become something that was just for people whose parents could support them while they were serving, and so those are the sorts of changes that we made. Language access you know, I was in Puerto Rico and some AmeriCorps members said you know, none of your guides are translated in Spanish for this certain curriculum? I said, really, I didn't know that, and so we have a whole new language access program. And so it's about making sure that your policies match your rhetoric and, just like corporate America has seen, when you have diverse C-suites and you have diverse boards, they see better profits. When we have AmeriCorps members that look like our communities, we have better impact and better solutions, and that's why we focused on equity.

Speaker 1:

Well, I gotta say it starts with leadership that is leaned in and is open and is having these conversations, is open to evolving. So kudos, too, to the way you're showing up and leading and willing to, you know, use your influence and capital in that direction to uplift and to solve some of these problems that you're hearing on the ground, on the front lines. So I mean, I feel a kinship with everything that you're saying, because we started we Are For good after our non-profit careers of 15 plus years, because we were captivated by this idea of an impact uprising we say it at the beginning of the podcast and this idea that you know, if we could just get more people involved in philanthropy and that's not just giving money, that is giving time and service and just a way you show up generously in the world. So I'm curious from your point of view and from your perch, like how have you seen this service and national service and volunteerism really transform communities and people in the journey that they're kind of on? What does that do within somebody that you've seen?

Speaker 3:

I mean you can't understate the benefits of what we're seeing across the country. The lives that we see change. Of course you hear from young people all the time. We're now in this beautiful space, 30 years in, where you have young people that were City Year AmeriCorps members who are now getting phone calls from their students saying bank that was being run essentially by AmeriCorps members, who that made all the all the difference for them. People that are getting served in a public health clinic. People that are participating in environmental programs who like, oh, I didn't know the environment was about me, but you came to my community meeting and you told me that, oh, are there higher incidence of asthma in your family? Oh, maybe that has something to do with climate. Oh, do you have higher incidence of diabetes or heart disease in your family? Maybe that has something to do with access to food and nutrition and that has something to do with climate. So we hear those stories all the time, but I have to tell you what I am really excited about today is the transformation that happens with our members. We now have about 1.3 million alums that have served in AmeriCorps and hundreds of thousands more seniors. And those AmeriCorps alums, so many of them started as a tutor or a mentor in a school and are now principals and superintendents or leading state education policy. You have AmeriCorps members that were working in food banks and now they're getting to the root causes of hunger and homelessness and are helping to write legislation.

Speaker 3:

I met an AmeriCorps member when we were launching our Public Health AmeriCorps program who was a doctor in Milwaukee who was going to be running this expansion of Public Health AmeriCorps program.

Speaker 3:

Who was a doctor in Milwaukee who was going to be running this expansion of Public Health AmeriCorps, and he told me 10 years ago he was a student and his parents were pushing him to go into medical school and he wasn't sure. So he heard about this AmeriCorps VISTA program that he could do for a summer at the community health clinic, and 10 years later he's a doctor, expanding with many more opportunities. And so you know we talk all the time about the fact that service is selfless, but there is a beautiful selfishness that can come from it as well. It increases physical health, that it decreases social isolation, increases social cohesion, increases mental health and wellness and accelerates career pathways and careers that are happy and healthy and fulfilling. 75% of our AmeriCorps members actually end up staying in the social sector, compared to 25% of their peers, and so when I think about the value proposition of AmeriCorps, it's definitely the impact that they're having today, but maybe even more the impact that they're going to have for decades to come.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, the compounding interest of it to me feels limitless.

Speaker 2:

When you think about 1.3 million people who are in the thick of whatever it is that they're helping and volunteering for, every single person they meet along that journey is a potential ripple. And now that you're sort of growing up and you have these alums that are coming back in, I just wonder about the generations that will come in, whether they're serving or whether they were just impacted and it that is such an overwhelmingly beautiful and, to your point, selfish thing. And I want to say keep writing that selfishness, because philanthropy, generosity, service, these things have so many effects in our lives. And I want to say to you listener, right now, if you don't have a way to pour into something that you deeply care about, find it, find it. And if you find the time I mean even 10 minutes you can do all kinds of things.

Speaker 2:

I just think about John. We were mentors in a school for a decade. John and I were mentoring different kids at one of our old jobs and it's like the experience with those children. I think of them as an extension of my family and I will follow those kids forever.

Speaker 2:

So I just think the legacy impact of AmeriCorps is a beautiful thing and I want to make sure that people don't think it's untenable that people can come and get involved and it takes all kinds of people to show up, whether it's in AmeriCorps or the way that you show up in your community. So I we've really valued story on this podcast, michael, and I've loved the ones that you've shared. But I wonder if you would take us to a moment of philanthropy, generosity, maybe a moment of random act of kindness that has stuck with you in your life that you'd like to share here.

Speaker 3:

Oh my goodness, there are so, so many.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're going to have to pick one like a favorite child.

Speaker 3:

Look, I am a byproduct of these just Americans that gave so much of themselves to make a difference for kids that weren't theirs. I think about Mama Morgan, who I just saw. Mama Morgan was the cook at my local Boys and Girls Club. We were a state daycare program, so in the summer we fed hundreds of people in the city and at our various day camps we provided those after school services. And you know, at the Boys and Girls Club, when boys wanted to be in the gym I was never that gym kid Mama Morgan used to let me come in and bake cookies with her in the kitchen and give me some life lessons and advice as she was going along about growing up in the South and making her way up to the North, and she'd eventually run me out of the kitchen because I was making too much of a mess and then she'd give me a hug and welcome me back in the next day and I think about those generous moments that she gave me. Mama Morgan is now 93. I got to see her a couple months ago. She's not cooking as much anymore, but she still gives me those hugs. So I think about those people in my life, but I also think about what I see with AmeriCorps.

Speaker 3:

I think about Grandma Elnora. Grandma Elnora I met in Tennessee and she's a part of our foster grandparents which works with low income mostly women of color actually but it's low income individuals who are providing kind of one on one supports to students and high need schools and providing supports to teachers as well. And Grandma Elnora was telling me that she had only had one child, a son, who was killed in gun violence when he was 19 years old. And she said, as she was approaching retirement age, she was starting to mourn him all over again because she would never have grandchildren. And so she talked about how she became a foster grandparent and she loved on these kids and she hugged on these kids and she said sometimes when I hug them, I say a little prayer over them as well. And how she would go to the store and use her own money because someone didn't have a coat or she'd go to the Goodwill. And she said you know now, every time I go to the grocery store and little kids come out of, nowhere and they yell out grandma.

Speaker 3:

And I know that God gave me the grandchildren I wasn't going to have and that that is the kind of America that I get to see every day and I'm going to like I get choked up just thinking about it.

Speaker 3:

But I tell folks all the time in Washington who are worried about polarization and worried about the state of our democracy. I tell members of Congress that are having rough days come with me, come with me, me for a week and see America at its true, true, true best. And I think that's who America is. And these are the acts of service, of kindness, of love and action that we get to see every single day.

Speaker 1:

Golly, I mean, I'm on this family road trip, we're on a mission to see 50 states, 50 national parks, the whole bit, and we've got.

Speaker 3:

I've got four States left.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I'm going to try to beat you. No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 3:

How many do you have left, John?

Speaker 1:

Oh, we still got a lot. We're 20.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we've got 25, 25 national parks in. But you know, we've our families looked for like service opportunities because I guess just got to say, like those moments when you can come together, figure out what your nudge is. Our kids love the environment, love animals. Finding ways for them to have this interaction of service with something that you're passionate about. I think of, like Elnora's passion, how that's gotten to be carried through Like this is the stuff that brings us together and I keep getting taken aback that the media feels like we're so divided as a country.

Speaker 1:

But you get out and you meet people and you're picking up trash next to somebody on the beach, you know cleaning up together and you're like actually, man, we're really in this together, like we have so much more alignment than we realize and it just feels like this is a great gateway to to building those relationships and figuring out our similarities and building empathy for one another too. So I just love this portal that it provides. I'm so grateful for the way that you lead and the way that you're creating these opportunities for people. So as we round this out, michael, I got to kick it to you. We call it a one good thing. It's a last piece of advice. It could be a secret to your success, or maybe just something that's stirred up in this conversation that you want to leave our community with today. What have you got for us?

Speaker 3:

Oh my goodness, you know the one thing that I have led by, and I learned this from leaders that taught me, including President Obama, is just this idea that people closest to the problem, closest to the pain, have to be closest to the power. I remember working with President Obama. You might be in a meeting in the Roosevelt Room talking about some big policy and he's going around the table and at the end, if there was an intern that helped get us prepared for that meeting, he's like what do you think? And so you know everyone has something that matters and you know, I think far too often in the nonprofit space we look at people that have multiple degrees, that you know studied this or wrote that, and that's wonderful and they have something to contribute. But I think the best solution that we have, if it's an environmental solution, it's someone that's dealing with the impacts of climate change. If it is a solution on dealing with underfunded schools, it's someone who went to an underfunded school.

Speaker 3:

So how are you making sure that those folks are not only on your website but a part of the decision-making process? Are they on your board? Do you have a pipeline to make sure that they're going to become a part of your senior leadership? Who's coming in after you? Are you going to be in this job for 30 to 40 years? Or have you thought about how little John or little Becky that you're working with every day is going to get the education, the qualifications that they need so that they can begin to replace you? And we've tried to replicate that model in every single thing we do, from our board to our staff. I am so proud when I shout out my staff at any sort of AmeriCorps convening and I say how many of you served in AmeriCorps where AmeriCorps grantee, more than half of them raised their hands and that's important. So when we are deciding on increasing the living allowance, someone on my team can say you know, I really struggled that year.

Speaker 3:

In my last week I was eating rice because I couldn't do anything else that matters, or when someone, when we're looking at a rule change about what qualifies as service and what doesn't. Someone has that experience, and so that's the thing that I try to live by and realize, even for me, like I grew up poor, but, thank God, I haven't been poor in a long time and how are we bringing in people that are fresh, experiencing those challenges, to help impact the policies that we're making?

Speaker 2:

I just wish there were like a thousand Michael D Smiths out there to reimagine what really is possible, if we can just shift the kaleidoscope, the lens, just a little bit, because we agree with you, michael, we talk all the time about not only is the person who is experiencing the problem, not only do they need power, but they likely are the one that have the solutions because they live it.

Speaker 2:

And so creating this loop, this feedback loop, has got to create not just healthier communities, but healthier cultures, healthier people, and anytime you can just like casually drop Biden and Obama's names, as I was over there hanging out with that guy like we are living for that as well.

Speaker 2:

So I'm just so glad you're in the world and I just can't help thinking about Mama Kim and like this legacy of love that was just rippled from what you continue to do and your team, it gives me such tremendous hope and I think it also underscores something I guess I'm adding.

Speaker 2:

A one good thing here, john, is that like, what currency are we looking at? Because and I know many of you saw my rant about this on LinkedIn recently but if we're only measuring dollars in this sector, we are leaving so much currency on the table, because people have so much that they can give to your mission, and it's not just volunteerism, it's not just their story, it's not just their time or their shares or their social media attention or their peer-to-peer People have something to peer, people have something to give, and if we can turn the lens on how we look at the way that people give us currency, I think the world will open up and our communities expand. So thank you for allowing us to kind of talk about that. Feel such alignment, michael. Tell people how they can connect with you, tell them how they can connect with AmeriCorps, and we always want to create space for you to say what does AmeriCorps need right now? Because this is an activating community and we want to amplify it.

Speaker 3:

Well, becky and John, thank you so much. Folks can follow me at AmeriCorps CEO on X, twitter, twitter, x, whatever we're calling it today and you know. If you are looking to serve, if you are 18 or 80 or anywhere in between, if you care about the environment, economic opportunity, education, if you don't want to be around people and you want to go build trails in Montana, we've got something that you can do. So all you have to do is go to AmeriCorpsgov. We have a tool called Fit Finder, where you can plug in a few things about your interests. Do you want to serve full-time, half-time, do you want to stay in your community? Do you want to go somewhere else? And we will help you find a service opportunity that is just right for you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what a rich conversation. Grateful for your service and your team that made this conversation possible today. Michael, you got new fans in us. My friend, thanks for being here.

Speaker 3:

John and Becky. Thank you for your continued service. This was such a joy to spend time with you today.

Speaker 2:

Oh same and rooting for you and the entire AmeriCorps community. Keep going and happy anniversary.

Speaker 1:

Thank you.