Do race , ethnicity , Citizenship and socio - economic status Determine Civic - engagement ?

Introduction The Corporation for National and Community Service is an independent federal agency whose mission is to promote service, volunteerism and civic engagement. It pursues this mission in two ways: 1) by directly supporting and funding community and national service programs, through its AmeriCorps, VISTA, Senior Corps, Learn and Serve America, and the National Community Civilian Corps (NCCC) funding streams. These programs serve young people, adults, senior citizens, and individuals with disabilities; 2) by encouraging non-profits and community leaders to promote community volunteerism and civic engagement. The Corporation recognizes that racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, low-income youth, non-college educated individuals and the disabled may be underrepresented in service and volunteering programs as well as in other civic engagement activities. In response, the Corporation has decided to make increasing access to service and volunteering for individuals from disadvantaged circumstances one of its strategic focus areas. In order to pursue this focus the Corporation is exploring ways to expand its outreach to underrepresented communities and to build partnerships aimed at addressing the challenges involved in recruiting and retaining underrepresented groups in service and volunteering programs and activities. This paper is aimed at providing background information that will hopefully prove helpful in forming these partnerships.