Nonprofits would feel pinch if feds ax service agency

For the past eight months, Urvi Patel has looked forward to working full-time as an AmeriCorps VISTA with Hope Center for Children in Spartanburg.

Every day, she helps the nonprofit, from managing the hours and schedules of 150 volunteers to organizing marketing materials like blue pinwheels for National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Patel’s favorite part of working with Hope Center for Children is championing a mission she’s passionate about.

“I delve deeply into volunteer engagement, grant writing, fundraising and things like that. It’s something I’ve been enjoying a lot,” Patel said. “I have grown exponentially in terms of my professional life, my social connections and my future career endeavors.”

President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget could put an end to AmeriCorps VISTA jobs like Patel’s. Several Spartanburg nonprofit leaders believe that will have strong repercussions for their organizations.

Trump’s budget would eliminate the Corporation for National and Community Services, the federal agency that administers national service programs including AmeriCorps VISTA, which began in 1964.

AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) members serve full-time for a year at nonprofits or local government agencies. VISTAs help these organizations to assist low-income individuals and poverty-stricken communities.

Since 2007, United Way of the Piedmont has overseen the majority of VISTAs who serve in Spartanburg County.

Paige Stephenson, president and CEO of United Way of the Piedmont, said if the federal agency is eliminated, it is unlikely that United Way of the Piedmont will be able to continue the VISTA program.

“Between the amount that the Corporation for National and Community Services provides to us for the grant and then what they pay directly to the VISTAs, that is not capacity that we have,” she said. “That resource for our community would be lost and, ultimately, the impact that those VISTAs have on the community would cease.”

Stephenson said the Corporation for National and Community Services allocates between $450,000 and $500,000 annually for United Way of the Piedmont to administer the VISTA program.

About $13,500 of this allocation is granted directly to United Way of the Piedmont to place around 18 VISTAs in Spartanburg, Cherokee and Union counties. The nonprofit is required to match a portion of the federal grant and chips in $60,000 of its own funding to cover expenses like office supplies and travel for the VISTAs.

The rest of the nearly half-million dollars in funds are paid by the Corporation for National and Community Services to these VISTAs for things like education and living expenses and basic health insurance. VISTAs also get a bi-weekly stipend from the federal agency, totaling $11,676 for the 2016-17 fiscal year in Spartanburg.

This story was originally published April 8, 2017 at 6:51 PM with the headline "Nonprofits would feel pinch if feds ax service agency."