Americorps National Service 

The Homegrown model is unique in that the recruited service members will be young adults (18-24) from the home community, in many cases graduating high school seniors.

While not restricted only to graduating high school seniors, the training, professional development and staffing inputs will focus on young people with a high school diploma as their most advanced degree. The model will be designed to accelerate the service members' own career pathways.

Homegrown Pathways will focus recruitment on young people most interested in staying in their home region, with an emphasis on those from under-resourced families and communities. We intend also to reduce rural “brain drain” by revealing regional economic opportunity, while simultaneously expanding the social capital networks necessary to access that opportunity, and thereby retain homegrown talent.

The year of service becomes a multi-discipline, apprenticeship experience that will accelerate the members’ own career pathways as regional workforce entrants, post-secondary degree seekers, entrepreneurs, teachers and workforce development professionals.

AmeriCorps members would serve in a unique implementation role that would include three primary functions:

I. Implement the innovation experiences within the Spark Day model(LINK), with support from a lead Homegrown Pathways educator

II. Conduct career advising listening sessions with individual high school students and young adults (near-peers)

III. Support StartUp Day (LINK) implementation and provide 1:1 support, including project management and thought partnership, to youth entrepreneurs in the Pre-Accelerator (LINK)

We are actively designing the appropriate training to support these functions, keeping in mind the limited professional experience of the target service member profile. In aggregate, these functions create an exceptionally unique AmeriCorps role that will advance economic mobility not only for the young people served through the overall model but also the AmeriCorps members themselves.

AmeriCorps members will participate in unique onboarding and ongoing training that would support their community impact and individual professional development. They will continually train and collaborate with their peers both within their own region and across the state. The role creates unique experiences for individuals interested in different career pathways themselves, including teaching, career advising, workforce development and regional industry. A service member - Pathway Fellow - will have a specific sector that would develop as their area of expertise, for example, “Energy & Environment.” The Fellow would support the delivery of this station within the Spark Day model and we will aim to pair them with Pre-Accelerator participants within their sector of focus.

We are actively exploring how the AmeriCorps experience may become a registered apprenticeship and/or industry-recognized credential that can further support the career pathway of the service member.

Given the multi-school district implementation model, AmeriCorps members will have a unique opportunity to develop relationships across several rural school districts, and potentially identify the fit for a future teaching career. Simultaneously, they will be establishing connections with local post-secondary institutions that could provide the educational pathway into teaching.

Meanwhile, we believe the model can help to define the emerging field of “Career Advising.” There has been recent recognition, including by Colorado’s Office of Economic Development & International Trade, that as a state we must evolve from academic advising to career advising. We believe the Homegrown Pathways model can support that evolution and build a pipeline of talent into this new career, with an emphasis on career advising that is region-specific.

AmeriCorps members will experience an exceptionally unique professional development opportunity that would create the experiences and social capital that enables them to pursue their own pathways as future teachers, entrepreneurs, workforce development professionals, career advisors, business leaders and/or regional industry professionals. Members will gain a variety of transferable skills, including leadership and teamwork skills, that will benefit them in any career pathway.

Imagine the skills, experiences, social capital, self-awareness, agency and financial assets that a 19 year-old graduating Homegrown Fellow will have relative to their 18 year-old selves just one year earlier. This includes:

• Professional experience working in teams, collaborating, public speaking and persuasive presentation

• Agency and self-efficacy through the empowerment that comes from knowing that you have advanced opportunity for near-peers in your home region, in addition to the empathy and listening skills necessary to deliver that impact

• Social capital – one of the most important assets to build a career, and one of the hardest to establish, especially for those from underinvested communities, is social capital. The Homegrown model will build the AmeriCorps members’ social capital across regional businesses, higher education, schools, nonprofits and workforce partners

• Knowledge of the region’s post-secondary credentials, degrees and other offerings from the local higher education institutions

• Experience going through the new business development process, potentially with multiple businesses/youth through the Pre-Accelerator

• Awareness of regional, state and national resources to support entrepreneurial pathways

• Increased self-awareness of your own interests, strengths and opportunities, better positioning you to determine your next steps on a higher education / workforce pathway

• Apprenticeship-like (and potentially formal apprenticeship) experience across multiple disciplines, including teacher, career advisor/case worker, workforce development professional, and partnership developer

• Training in career-relevant technologies – AmeriCorps members will be trained to deliver multiple regional innovation experiences, which will develop technical expertise in different, career-relevant 21st century technologies

• Financial assets for higher education and/or workforce entry – given the focus on graduating high school seniors, we anticipate many young people continuing to live with their parent/guardian home, which, depending on the financial situation, will enable them to develop their own financial security before making decisions on higher education and/or workforce pathways. Without primary direct expenses, assuming a young person can save approximately 75% of their 12 month AmeriCorps stipend, a member could save approximately $21,400 (estimate based on the average monthly salary of $2,374 cited by Indeed). The AmeriCorps Segal Education Award was $6,985 in 2023 and will likely be ~$7,000+ in 2025. A service member that can save a significant percentage of their salary by continuing to live with their family for one more year could have financial assets for $25,000-$30,000 to use towards future higher education and/or to jumpstart their own workforce/entrepreneurial endeavors.

• Up to a semester in college credit/courses – through the planning process we will identify a portfolio of post-secondary courses offered by institutions in the regions that can support the professional development and program delivery abilities of the service members - for example, Introduction to Small Business and Entrepreneurship or Accounting. The hours spent in class can count towards their AmeriCorps hours and the cost will be covered by Homegrown Pathways (pending funder support). We will design a model where service members may complete between 2-4 courses (depending on the length) over the service year.

The combination of the last two bullets - financial assets/savings + post-secondary credits - means that a young person could potentially be positioned to cover the direct expense of an associate's degree or more at one of our region’s post-secondary institutions. Or they could have the financial resources to pay for a postsecondary credential and have the start-up capital to launch their own business.