Did the agency have senior staff members with the authority, staff, and budget to build and use evidence to inform the agency’s major policy and program decisions in FY19?

1.1 Did the agency have a senior leader with the budget and staff to serve as the agency’s Evaluation Officer (or equivalent)? (Example: Evidence Act 313)

• The Director of the Office of Research & Evaluation serves as the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) evaluation officer. The Director of Research and Evaluation (R&E) oversees R&E’s FY19 $4 million budget and a staff of 5.

1.2 Did the agency have a senior leader with the budget and staff to serve as the agency’s Chief Data Officer (or equivalent)? (Example: Evidence Act 202(e))

• CNCS hired a new Chief Information Officer (CIO) in FY19. The CIO was appointed by the agency’s CEO as the Acting Chief Data Officer (CDO). The CIO has a long-term plan for standing up a department overseen by a permanent Chief Data Officer. The plan will likely be formalized in FY20.

1.2 Did the agency have a governance structure to coordinate the activities of its evaluation officer, chief data officer, statistical officer, and other related officials in order to inform policy decisions and evaluate the agency’s major programs?

• CNCS established a Data Council in FY19. The purpose of this Council is to improve data governance and evidence-building activities within the agency. Members of the Council include the Director of R&E, the CIO/Acting CDO, the Chief of Staff, as well as representatives from the Chief of Program Operations and the Chief Operating Officer.

Did the agency have an evaluation policy, evaluation plan, and learning agenda (evidence-building plan), and did it publicly release the findings of all completed program evaluations in FY19?

 2.1 Did the agency have an agency-wide evaluation policy? (Example: Evidence Act 313(d))

• CNCS has an evaluation policy that presents five key principles that govern the agency’s planning, conduct, and use of program evaluations: rigor, relevance, transparency, independence, and ethics.

2.2 Did the agency have an agency-wide evaluation plan? (Example: Evidence Act 312(b))

• In FY19, CNCS finalized and posted a five year, agency-wide strategic evaluation plan. The CNCS CEO’s goal is to use the plan to guide FY20 budget planning.

2.3 Did the agency have a learning agenda (evidence-building plan) and did the learning agenda describe the agency’s process for engaging stakeholders including, but not limited to the general public, state and local governments, and researchers/academics in the development of that agenda? (Example: Evidence Act 312)

• CNCS uses the terms learning agenda, evaluation plan, and evidence-building plan synonymously. CNCS has a strategic evidence plan that includes an evergreen learning agenda. The plan will be reviewed and updated annually. While the agency is open to the feedback of external stakeholders, it has not engaged external stakeholders in the development of the evidence plan.

2.4 Did the agency publicly release all completed program evaluations?

• All completed evaluation reports are posted to the Evidence Exchange, an electronic repository for evaluation studies and other reports. This virtual repository was launched in September 2015.

2.5 What is the coverage, quality, methods, effectiveness, and independence of the agency’s evaluation, research, and analysis efforts? (Example: Evidence Act 315, subchapter II (c)(3)(9))

• A comprehensive portfolio of research projects has been built to assess the extent to which CNCS is achieving its mission. As findings emerge, future studies are designed to continuously build the agency’s evidence base. R&E relies on scholarship in relevant fields of academic study; a variety of research and program evaluation approaches including field, experimental, and survey research; multiple data sources including internal and external administrative data; and different statistical analytic methods. CNCS relies on partnerships with universities and third party research firms to ensure independence and access to state of the art methodologies. CNCS supports its grantees with evaluation technical assistance and courses to ensure their evaluations are of the highest quality and requires grantees receiving $500,000 or more in annual funding to engage an external evaluator. These efforts have resulted in a robust body of evidence that national service allows: (1) national service participants to experience positive benefits, (2) nonprofit organizations to be strengthened, and (3) national service programs to effectively address local issues.

2.6 Did the agency use rigorous evaluation methods, including random assignment studies, for research and evaluation purposes?

• CNCS uses the research design most appropriate for addressing the research question. When experimental or quasi-experimental designs are warranted, the agency uses them and encourages its grantees to use them, as noted in the agency evaluation policy: “CNCS is committed to using the most rigorous methods that are appropriate to the evaluation questions and feasible within statutory, budget and other constraints.” As of May 2019, CNCS has received 41 grantee evaluation reports that use experimental design and 66 that use quasi-experimental design.

Did the agency invest at least 1% of program funds in evaluations in FY19? (Examples: Impact studies; implementation studies; rapid cycle evaluations; evaluation technical assistance, rigorous evaluations, including random assignments)

3.1. ____ (Name of agency) invested $____ on evaluations, evaluation technical assistance, and evaluation capacity-building, representing __% of the agency’s $___ billion FY19 budget.

• CNCS invested $12,450,000 on evaluations, evaluation technical assistance, and evaluation capacity-building, representing 1.2% of the agency’s $999,211,010 million FY19 budget.

3.2 Did the agency have a budget for evaluation and how much was it? (Were there any changes in this budget from the previous fiscal year?)

• Congress allocated $4,000,000 to CNCS for its evaluation budget. This is the same amount allocated in FY18.

3.3 Did the agency provide financial and other resources to help city, county, and state governments or other grantees build their evaluation capacity (including technical assistance funds for data and evidence capacity building)?

• R&E funds a contractor to provide AmeriCorps grantees with evaluation capacity building support ($500,000 of the $4,000,000 evaluation budget). R&E staff are also available to State Commissions for their evaluation questions and make resources (e.g., research briefs summarizing effective interventions, online evaluation planning and reporting curricula) available to them and the general public. AmeriCorps awards investment fund grants to State Commissions ($8.5 million in FY19), of which approximately one-third will be used for data and evidence capacity building activities based on prior year activities.

Did the agency implement a performance management system with outcome-focused goals and aligned program objectives and measures, and did it frequently collect, analyze, and use data and evidence to improve outcomes, return on investment, and other dimensions of performance in FY19? (Example: Performance stat systems, frequent outcomes-focused data-informed meetings)

4.1 Did the agency have a strategic plan with outcome goals, program objectives (if different), outcome measures, and program measures (if different)?

• CNCS continued to implement its Transformation and Sustainability Plan in FY19. This plan aims to ensure CNCS is maximizing its resources to achieve results. The agency is in the process of developing more specific goals for the Transformation and Sustainability Plan, though they are currently internal goals. In addition, the agency will be conducting a process evaluation/rapid cycle assessment for each phase of its transition to a new portfolio manager grant management model. The goal is to use lessons learned from implementation of Phase 1 to inform Phase 2 and beyond. Data collection will begin in quarter 1 of FY20.  
  

4.2 Does the agency use data/evidence to improve outcomes and return on investment?

• CNCS started the fiscal year with a series of internal budget formulation meetings that asked each office to identify in their budget proposals how evidence-based activities and evidence-building activities would be prioritized. All program offices are using data/evidence to improve returns on investment. For example:
  • AmeriCorps VISTA used poverty mapping data to inform resource allocation decisions in FY19. VISTA also launched a dashboard that puts project and member data at the fingertips of staff to help them identify best practices and trouble-shoot problems in a timely fashion.
  • AmeriCorps NCCC is creating a qualitative database of all NCCC projects completed since 2012. The database will thematically organize projects, classify project frameworks, and categorize the outcomes of these service initiatives. Moving forward this data will be used to invest more strategically in projects with the best results by refining project development with community sponsors based on those that seem to have the best uptake and outcomes.
  • In FY19, Senior Corps contracted with a research firm to comprehensively assess the quality of program administrative data and its potential uses for performance management.
  • CNCS conducted an analysis of usage of education awards to identify information trends related to how AmeriCorps alumni use these education awards to further their education and employment opportunities (a key goal of the AmeriCorps program). The report highlights a number of opportunities to encourage the usage of education awards to improve education and employment for AmeriCorps alumni.

4.3 Did the agency have a continuous improvement or learning cycle processes to identify promising practices, problem areas, possible causal factors, and opportunities for improvement? (Examples: stat meetings, data analytics, data visualization tools, or other tools that improve performance)

• The Office of the Chief Financial Officer meets quarterly to assess progress toward the goals of its performance plan. The plan includes strategic objectives, strategies for achieving the objectives, milestones, measures, and targets. Quarterly meetings are used to discuss actuals versus targets and identify promising practices used to achieve targets as well as areas for better optimizing the delivery of budget, procurement, grants, and financial management.

Did the agency collect, analyze, share, and use high-quality administrative and survey data – consistent with strong privacy protections – to improve (or help other entities improve) outcomes, cost-effectiveness, and/or the performance of federal, state, local, and other service providers programs in FY19? (Examples: Model data-sharing agreements or data-licensing agreements; data tagging and documentation; data standardization; open data policies; data-use policies)

5.1 Did the agency have a strategic data plan, including an open data policy? (Example: Evidence Act 202(c), Strategic Information Resources Plan)

• CNCS has an Information Technology Data Governance Policy, which addresses open data, and an internal Data Sharing Policy that was implemented in FY18. CNCS has not historically posted these policies publicly but is moving in that direction as the CIO develops and clears policies as well as hires staff to oversee these efforts.
• The CIO/Acting CDO and the Director of Research and Evaluation/Evaluation Officer will be working together in FY20 to reconstitute and reconvene the agency’s Data Council and determine what kind of charter/agency policy may be needed for establishing the role of the Council with regard to managing the agency’s data assets. In essence, the role of the Council, under the direction of the Acting CDO, will be to prioritize data asset management issues such as creating an annual Fact Sheet (so all externally facing numbers have a single authoritative source), creating a more user-friendly interface for the agency’s data warehouse/data inventory, and keeping the agency’ open data platform current.

5.2 Did the agency have an updated comprehensive data inventory? (Example: Evidence Act 3511)

• The agency has an Information Technology Data Governance Policy, which addresses the need to have a current and comprehensive data inventory. The agency has an open data platform.
  

5.3 Did the agency promote data access or data linkage for evaluation, evidence-building, or program improvement? (Examples: Model data-sharing agreements or data-licensing agreements; data tagging and documentation; data standardization; downloadable machine-readable, de-identified tagged data; Evidence Act 3520(c))

• CNCS has a data request form and an MOU template so that anyone interested in accessing agency data may use the protocol to request data. In addition, public data sets are accessible through the agency’s open data platform. The agency’s member exit survey data was made publicly available for the first time in FY19. In addition, nationally representative civic engagement and volunteering statistics are available, through a data sharing agreement with the Census Bureau, on an interactive platform. The goal of these platforms is to make these data more accessible to all interested end-users.

5.4 Did the agency have policies and procedures to secure data and protect personal, confidential information? (Example: differential privacy; secure, multiparty computation; homomorphic encryption; or developing audit trails)

• The agency has an Information Technology Data Governance Policy which addresses data security and protecting personal/confidential information. CNCS has a cybersecurity policy, and it will likely be subsumed under the new Data Governance Policy.

5.5 Did the agency provide assistance to city, county, and/or state governments, and/or other grantees on accessing the agency’s datasets while protecting privacy?

• CNCS provides assistance to grantees, including governments, to help them access agency data. For example, CNCS provided assistance on using the AmeriCorps Member Exit Survey data to State Service Commissions (many of which are part of state government) and other grantees at the National Service Training Conference in May 2019.

Did the agency use a common evidence framework, guidelines, or standards to inform its research and funding purposes; did that framework prioritize rigorous research and evaluation methods; and did the agency disseminate and promote the use of evidence-based interventions through a user-friendly tool in FY19? (Example: What Works Clearinghouses)

6.1 Did the agency have a common evidence framework for research and evaluation purposes?

• CNCS uses the same standard scientific research methods and designs for all of its studies and evaluations following the model used by clearinghouses like Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse, the Department of Labor’s Clearinghouse for Labor Evaluation and Research, and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness project.

6.2 Did the agency have a common evidence framework for funding decisions?

• CNCS has a common evidence framework for funding decisions in the Senior Corps and AmeriCorps State and National programs. This framework, which is articulated in the AmeriCorps State and National program notice of funding, includes the following evidence levels: pre-preliminary, preliminary, moderate, and strong.

6.3 Did the agency have a user friendly tool that disseminated information on rigorously evaluated, evidence-based solutions (programs, interventions, practices, etc.) including information on what works where, for whom, and under what conditions? 

• The CNCS Evidence Exchange is a virtual repository of reports and resources intended to help CNCS grantees and other interested stakeholders find information about evidence- and research- based national service programs. R&E is working with a contractor to enhance the functionality and usability of the repository. Examples of the types of resources available in the Evidence Exchange include research briefs that describe the core components of effective interventions such as those in the areas of education, economic opportunity, and health.
• R&E also creates campaigns and derivative products to distill complex report findings and increase their utility for practitioners (for example, this brief on a study about the health benefits of Senior Corps). R&E has categorized reports according to their research design, so that users can easily search for experimental, quasi-experimental, or non-experimental studies, and those that qualify for strong, moderate, or preliminary evidence levels.
  

6.4 Did the agency promote the utilization of evidence-based practices in the field to encourage implementation, replication, and application of evaluation findings and other evidence?

• As part of the AmeriCorps State and National FY19 application process, CNCS provided technical assistance to grantees on using evidence-based practices through webinars and calls. R&E and AmeriCorps conducted a process evaluation of grantees with varied replication experiences to produce a series of products designed to help grantees implement evidence-based interventions (including a forthcoming article in The Foundation Review). Senior Corps continues to encourage and support the use of evidence-based programs, as identified by the HHS’s Administration for Community Living, by its grantee organizations.

Did the agency have staff, policies, and processes in place that encouraged innovation to improve the impact of its programs in FY19? (Examples: Prizes and challenges; behavioral science trials; innovation labs/accelerators; performance partnership pilots; demonstration projects or waivers with rigorous evaluation requirements) 

7.1 Did the agency engage leadership and staff in its innovation efforts?

• Staff at all levels of the organization participate in work groups focused on implementing CNCS’s Transformation and Sustainability Plan. The CEO has also conducted Service Jams to elicit feedback from staff to support the plan. Service Jam topics have focused on what a best-in class learning organization looks like and how CNCS could break down silos.

 7.2 Did the agency have policies that promote innovation?

• No examples available. 

7.3 Did the agency have processes, structures, or programs to stimulate innovation?

• CNCS continued to learn from its evidence-based planning grant program which “awards evidence-based intervention planning grants to organizations that develop new national service models seeking to integrate members into innovative evidence-based interventions.” CNCS continued to learn from its research grantees, who receive grant funds to engage community residents and leaders in the development of new and innovative national service projects.

7.4. Did the agency evaluate its innovation efforts, including using rigorous methods?

• As part of the evaluation of the Social Innovation Program, which was designed to identify and rigorously test innovative approaches to social service problems, CNCS continues to receive evaluation reports from grantees. As of May 2019, CNCS has received 72 final SIF evaluation reports, of which 20 (28%) were experimental designs and 39 (54%) were quasi-experimental designs. Further, the evidence-based planning grant program and the research grant program both seek to generate innovative national service models. The planning grants require an evaluation plan. The research grants use evidence to inform action planning and solutions.

Did the agency use evidence of effectiveness when allocating funds from its 5 largest competitive grant programs in FY19? (Examples: Tiered-evidence frameworks; evidence-based funding set-asides; priority preference points or other preference scoring for evidence; Pay for Success provisions)

8.1 What were the agency’s 5 largest competitive programs and their appropriations amount (and were city, county, and/or state governments eligible to receive funds from these programs)?

• CNCS is operating two competitive grant programs in FY19: 1) the AmeriCorps State and National program (excluding State formula grant funds) ($250,750,005 million; eligible grantees: nonprofit organizations, state governments, tribal governments, local governments, institutions of higher education); and 2) Senior Corps RSVP program ($50,355,000 million; eligible grantees: nonprofit organizations, local governments). The Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grants were integrated into the Office of Research and Evaluation in FY19.

8.2 Did the agency use evidence of effectiveness to allocate funds in 5 largest competitive grant programs? (e.g., Were evidence-based interventions/practices required or suggested? Was evidence a significant requirement?)

• CNCS’s AmeriCorps State and National grants program (excluding State formula grant funds), allocated up to 44 out of 100 points to organizations that submit applications supported by performance and evaluation data in FY19. Specifically, up to 28 points can be assigned to applications with theories of change supported by relevant research literature, program performance data, or program evaluation data; and up to 16 points can be assigned for an applicant’s incoming level of evidence, the quality of the evidence, and the applicant’s evaluation capacity. Further, in 2019 CNCS prioritized the funding of specific education interventions with moderate or strong levels of evidence.
• Since CNCS’s implementation of a scoring process that assigns specific points for level of evidence, the percentage of grant dollars allocated to strong, moderate, preliminary, and no evidence categories has shifted over time (see chart below), such that more FY19 grant dollars were awarded to applicants with strong and moderate levels of evidence for proposed interventions, and fewer grant dollars were awarded to applicants with little to no evidence of effectiveness.

• In FY18, Senior Corps RSVP embedded evidence into their grant renewal processes by offering supplemental funding, “augmentation grants,” to grantees interested in deploying volunteers to serve in evidence-based programs. More than $3.3 million of Senior Corps program dollars were allocated, over three years, toward new evidence-based programming augmentations. Grantees will be operating with their augmentations through fiscal year 2021.
  • In a survey completed in FY19, Senior Corps grantees reported that more than 390 Senior Corps grants (about 38% of total grants), and more than 21,000 Senior Corps volunteers (about 11% of all Senior Corps volunteers) were engaged in evidence-based programming.

8.3 Did the agency use its 5 largest competitive grant programs to build evidence? (e.g., requiring grantees to participate in evaluations) 

• AmeriCorps State and National grantees are required to evaluate their programs as part of the grant’s terms and conditions. Grantees receiving more than $500,000 required to conduct an independent, external evaluation (see page 17 of the FY19 notice of funding for a description of these requirements).

8.4 Did the agency use evidence of effectiveness to allocate funds in any competitive grant program?

• CNCS administers only two competitive grant programs, described above.
  

8.5 What are the agency’s 1-2 strongest examples of how competitive grant recipients achieved better outcomes and/or built knowledge of what works or what does not?  

• CNCS has summarized the accomplishments of its competitive grant programs in a series of research briefs that describe the core components of effective interventions in the areas of education, economic opportunity, and health. The education brief was used to justify the FY19 funding priority for evidence-based interventions in the AmeriCorps State and National competition. All interventions described in these briefs illustrate how CNCS competitive grant recipients have achieved better outcomes and built knowledge about what works.

 8.6 Did the agency provide guidance which makes clear that city, county, and state government, and/or other grantees can or should use the funds they receive from these programs to conduct program evaluations and/or to strengthen their evaluation capacity-building efforts?

• AmeriCorps State and National grantees, including city, county, tribal, and state governments, are required to use their AmeriCorps funds to evaluate their programs. In FY19, CNCS awarded $8.5 million for the Commission Investment Fund that supports State Commissions, which are typically housed within state government– approximately one third of these grants will focus on building the capacity of State Commissions and their grantees to collect and use performance and evaluation data.

Did the agency use evidence of effectiveness when allocating funds from its 5 largest non-competitive grant programs in FY19? (Examples: Evidence-based funding set-asides; requirements to invest funds in evidence-based activities; Pay for Success provisions)

 9.1 What were the agency’s 5 largest non-competitive programs and their appropriation amounts (and were city, county, and/or state governments are eligible to receive funds from these programs)?

• CNCS operates one formula grant program in FY19, the AmeriCorps State formula grants program ($174,250,005; eligible grantees: states). CNCS also operates four direct grant programs in FY19: 1) AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) ($32 million; eligible grantees: nonprofit organizations); 2) AmeriCorps VISTA ($92 million; eligible grantees: nonprofit organizations, state, tribal, and local governments, institutions of higher education); 3) Senior Corps Foster Grandparents ($110 million; eligible grantees: nonprofit organization, local governments); and 4) Senior Corps Senior Companion Program ($46 million; eligible grantees: nonprofit organizations, local governments).

9.2 Did the agency use evidence of effectiveness to allocate funds in largest 5 non-competitive grant programs? (e.g., Are evidence-based interventions/practices required or suggested? Is evidence a significant requirement?)

• In FY18, Senior Corps Foster Grandparents and Senior Companion Program embedded evidence into their grant renewal processes by offering supplemental funding, “augmentation grants,” to grantees interested in deploying volunteers to serve in evidence-based programs. More than $3.3 million of Senior Corps program dollars were allocated, over three years, toward new evidence-based programming augmentations. Grantees will be operating with their augmentations through fiscal year 2021.
• In a survey completed in FY 2019, Senior Corps grantees reported that more than 390 Senior Corps grants (about 38% of total grants), and more than 21,000 Senior Corps volunteers (about 11% of all Senior Corps volunteers) were engaged in evidence-based programming.

9.3 Did the agency use its 5 largest non-competitive grant programs to build evidence? (e.g., requiring grantees to participate in evaluations)

• In FY19, Senior Corps completed an evaluation with an independent firm to produce case studies and comparative analyses of select grantees that received an evidence based-programming augmentation to understand successes, challenges, and other issues. CNCS anticipates that this management report will be used to inform Senior Corps’ approach to replicating this augmentation initiative, as well as the training/technical assistance needs of grantees. Senior Corps and the Administration for Community Living have also initiated a dialogue about how to build and broaden the evidence base for various programs designed for older adults. CNCS relies on ACL’s list of evidence-based programs for its augmentation grants and is exploring how to collect the same information from its grantees and how to share information about other evidence-based programs Senior Corps grantees may be using.
• AmeriCorps NCCC is investing in a Service Project Database with the aim of creating a qualitative database of all NCCC projects completed since 2012. The database will thematically organize projects, classify project frameworks, and categorize the outcomes of these service initiatives. NCCC is investing in an evaluation of NCCC’s impact. This research project was initiated in FY18 and is focused on evaluating member retention, studying how NCCC develops leadership skills in its members and teams, and the program’s ability to strengthen communities. Finally, NCCC will continue to invest in research grants to better understand the outcomes of its disaster response efforts.

9.4 Did the agency use evidence of effectiveness to allocate funds in any non-competitive grant program?

• CNCS only administers five non-competitive grant programs, as described above.
  

9.5 What are the agency’s 1-2 strongest examples of how non-competitive grant recipients achieved better outcomes and/or built knowledge of what works or what does not?

• Senior Corps and the Office of Research and Evaluation completed a longitudinal evaluation of the Foster Grandparents and Senior Companion Programs in FY19 that demonstrated the positive health outcomes associated with volunteering. A 50 year retrospective review of the research conducted on Senior Corps programs will be completed by the end of FY19.

9.6 Did the agency provide guidance which makes clear that city, county, and state government, and/or other grantees can or should use the funds they receive from these programs to conduct program evaluations and/or to strengthen their evaluation capacity-building efforts?

• No examples available.

In FY19, did the agency shift funds away from or within any practice, policy, or program that consistently failed to achieve desired outcomes? (Examples: Requiring low-performing grantees to re-compete for funding; removing ineffective interventions from allowable use of grant funds; incentivizing or urging grant applicants to stop using ineffective practices in funding announcements; proposing the elimination of ineffective programs through annual budget requests; incentivizing well-designed trials to fill specific knowledge gaps; supporting low-performing grantees through mentoring, improvement plans, and other forms of assistance; using rigorous evaluation results to shift funds away from a program)

10.1 Did the agency shift funds/resources away from ineffective practices or interventions used within programs or by grantees?

• No examples available. 

10.2 Did the agency shift funds/resources away from ineffective policies used within programs or by grantees? 

• In recent years, the Senior Corps program has invested over $1 million in various management analyses that are informing operations, programming, and its research agenda moving forward. Information was used to revise policies and regulations in FY19 by allowing grantees more flexibility in how they allocate their funds to programming that shifts resources from administrative activities to activities that directly serve communities.

10.3 Did the agency shift funds/resources away from ineffective grantees?

• AmeriCorps State and National will reallocate $500,000 to provide intensive technical assistance to grantees with insufficient evidence. Special conditions were placed on these grants so that funding is contingent on grantees engaging in evaluation capacity building activities. This will provide additional training and technical assistance to move grantees with preliminary evidence along the evidence continuum. Specifically, this technical assistance is designed to increase the evidence base for these grantees through coaching and technical assistance from NORC at the University of Chicago. If grantees fail to move along the continuum when they recompete for funding they will either receive less money or no funding depending on the reasons for the evidence stagnation.

10.4 Did the agency shift funds/resources away from ineffective programs? (e.g., eliminations or legislative language in budget requests)

• No examples available.

10.5 Did the agency shift funds/resources away from consistently ineffective products and services?

• CNCS began migrating to shared services in August 2019. This decision was made in alignment with Goal One of the agency’s Transformation and Sustainability plan (Strengthen core business functions). The agency made this decision to achieve: improved accountability in internal business practices; increased capacity across operational areas and better support for the work of CNCS awardees; and improved core operational functions to provide a stronger foundation for increasing national service impact across the country. CNCS has entered into an interagency agreement with the Department of Treasury’s Administrative Resource Center (ARC) to shift some procurement, accounting, and human capital processes to ARC’s shared services environment.