Upon exiting service, AmeriCorps members are invited to complete the AmeriCorps Member Exit Survey (AmeriCorps MES) to provide information on their service experiences. By collecting data on member experiences, AmeriCorps and its partners can better understand how to support its members, while individuals interested in becoming a member can see the benefits of serving. Members that leave service after completing their full term or members that depart from service early both complete the exit survey. The data includes information on members’ civic-mindedness, community involvement, cultural competency, and developed life and career skills (based on the AmeriCorps Member Theory of Change). As well as measures of members’ experience and training, motivations to serve, and post-service plans. Any data on members that started prior to them turning 18 years of age is excluded from this data. Since the start of the MES in 2015, there have been over 360,000 respondents. In 2018, 48,960 surveys were completed out of 63,270, for a completion rate of 77%.
The dataset displays the decimal percentages of members in each program that answered with the two most positive selections of each question’s available options. For example, the available answers for Question 12 are: ‘Much less likely, Somewhat less likely, No effect, Somewhat more likely, and Much more likely’. The data selected for Question 12 thus displays the percentage of members that responded with ‘Somewhat more likely or Much more likely’, therein providing the percentage of individuals who responded favorably to the question. Please access the AmeriCorps MES Data Dictionary file in the Attachments section under About This Dataset for more information.
To note: some members begin the survey, complete only a selection of the survey, and never finish the survey after starting. The responses of members that do not finish the survey are included in the calculations of proportions in the 2018 MES table. As a result, the total number of individuals answering each question of the MES varies question to question, though the number of partially finished surveys represent a fairly small portion of the total overall number of surveys given out in a given timeframe. The total number of finished surveys, partially completed surveys, and surveys that were never started can be found in the attachments section under "MES 2018 Total Counts".
To view a full copy of the AmeriCorps Member Exit Survey, please see the attachments section. All Open-ended questions featured on the AmeriCorps MES are omitted from this file
