City Year Facts

21 CITY YEARS: 1988 – 2009

City Year – the national youth service organization - was founded in 1988, and since then has:

Graduated more than 12,500 alumni - diverse young people between 17 and 24
Served more than 1,120,000 million children - 3rd through 9th grade students
Completed more than 20 million hours of service
Engaged more than 1,000,000 citizens in service
Established 20 locations: 19 in the United States and one in South Africa. Two new locations are in the launch phase: Milwaukee and London.

SERVICE

This year, more than 1,700 diverse young leaders uniting in service are:

Tutoring, mentoring and serving as role models to help children and schools succeed;
Leading after-school programs and school vacation programs;
Engaging students of all ages in community service and leadership development activities; and
Planning and leading transformational service projects.

This year’s corps was selected from the largest pool of applicants, more than 5,000, in City Year’s history.

IMPACT

The impact of corps members in schools is assessed annually through surveys, as well as location-based intensive academic studies. Results include:

90% of principals reported that City Year had an impact on the academic performance of students tutored.
95% of teachers reported that corps members had a positive impact on student time spent on learning tasks.
83% of teachers felt that corps members helped improve students active engagement in learning.
81% of teachers reported that corps members have helped improve the academic performance of the students they are tutoring.

A NATIONAL SERVICE RESPONSE TO THE DROPOUT CRISIS

In America, every 26 seconds a student gives up on school. City Year has announced a major new initiative to address the nation's high school dropout crisis, In School & On Track: A National Challenge. City Year’s In School & On Track strategy is designed to bring City Year corps members and the City Year model of school service to 50% of all of the students falling off track in City Year’s 19 U.S. locations.

ALUMNI

City Year alumni, based on an extensive third-party study are far more civically engaged than similarly-situated people who have not done a year of service: alumni volunteer more, join civic organizations more and 90% of alumni said that their City Year experience contributed to their ability to lead others. A growing number of universities recognize the value of a “City Year” by providing scholarships exclusively for City Year alumni.

CARE FORCE

Care Force, launched in 2001, is an innovative department within City Year that shares the power of transformative physical service with corporate and community clients. Care Force has engaged more than 41,000 citizens in service through more than 255 events in 90 U.S. cities and seen countries, providing more than 188,000 house of service and generating more than $8.5 million to support Care Force and City Year corps members in service.

PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP

City Year was founded entirely with private sector support and today is a public private partnership as a proud member of AmeriCorps and with lead corporate partners ARAMARK, Bank of America, Cisco, Comcast, CSX, Pepsi, Timberland and T-Mobile USA. Learn about team sponsors and national leadership sponsors.

TIMELINE

1988 City Year founded by Michael Brown and Alan Khazei
1990 first federal funds awarded as Demonstration Grant under President George H. W. Bush
1993 AmeriCorps founded by President William Jefferson Clinton, who was inspired in part by City Year
1999 General Colin Powell addresses City Year and supports domestic service
2001 Senator John McCain, speaking to City Year corps members, announces bipartisan legislation to expand AmeriCorps
2002 USA Freedom Corps established and Call to Service from President George W. Bush
2004 Bipartisan National Service Caucus established
2006 Alan Khazei leaves City Year to found Be The Change, Michael Brown becomes CEO
2009 President Barack Obama signs Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act with its increased education award and expansion of AmeriCorps

PUBLIC POLICY

City Year aims to inspire and support citizen service, both through the service of corps members and through partnerships:

City Year is one of four lead organizers of ServiceNation, a coalition of 200 organizations that has a collective reach of some 100 million Americans and a mission to increase service opportunities and elevate service as a core ideal and problem-solving strategy in American society.
City Year is a lead convener of Voices for National Service, a coalition founded in 2003 in response to major cuts in federal funding to AmeriCorps that has transitioned into a focused alliance dedicated to building strong bipartisan support among our nation’s leaders.

Through these partnerships, City Year played a lead role in developing the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which authorizes the greatest expansion of national service in America since FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps, and in the development of a bipartisan National Service Congressional Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

RECOGNITION

fastco0890

Five time recipient of Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Award.

fourtsarcharity Highest rating on Charity Navigator for 5 years, making City Year a top–ranked charity in the top 4% of charities reviewed by Charity Navigator.