CY 101: Vocabulary

One of the things that trips people up (both in their getting to know the organization and understanding its leadership structure) is the vocabulary around the employees of City Year Greater Philadelphia. So here's a crib sheet:

Corps member: These are the ground troops. A corps member is a 17- to 25-year-old person devoting 10 months of his or her life to full-time community service with the youth of Philadelphia. Each corps member is assigned to a team-let of 8-10 fellow corps members, which is managed by a service leader. As a corps member, you are the one working with sutdents and getting them to reach their full potential.

Service leader: This is another young idealist serving for 10 months. This may be a person in his or her second year of volunteering with AmeriCorps through City Year, or it may be a first-year applicant who showed great leadership potential. This person manages the 8-10 corps members' day to day schedules, as well as the partnership with the school in which the team is placed, various community organizations, a corporate sponsor, the rest of the City Year organization, etc. As a service leader, you must understand that your service is often based around facilitating others' work with students.

Senior Corps: Like all oaks are trees, but not all trees are oaks, all service leaders are senior corps, but not all senior corps are service leaders. The senior corps umbrella encompasses second year corps members who serve in the Programs/Service, Visitor's Program and Recruitment Departments. These are people who've elected to do a second year of service, in a leadership capacity, but their focus is not on team-based service. They focus on outreach, corps members' (personal and professional) development, civic engagement and spreading the word of City Year. They work with the rest of the corps, but less frequently and in a less intense capacity than the day to day management of the service leaders.

Project Manager: Project managers are staff members who manage teams that consist of two team-lets. They coordinate efforts of 15-20 corps members, two or more service leaders, 1-2 corporate sponsors, community partners, 2 or more school administrations, and often take on personal projects as the staff point person for such initiatives as Peace Ambassadors, Project Safe Zone, Project P.E.A.C.E., the Literary Magazine, College Fairs, and others. A high proportion of our project managers are folks who've risen through the ranks of corps member and senior corps.