San Francisco, CA – California Campus Compact today announced that it has been awarded a Learn and Serve America Higher Education grant in excess of $1 million from the Corporation for National and Community Service. The grant will fund Social Innovation Generation, California Campus Compact’s new three-year initiative that will catalyze California colleges and universities to aid in the state’s recovery and renewal through service, service-learning and inventive solutions embedded in social entrepreneurship, microfinance and social investment.

“This grant provides California Campus Compact with an outstanding opportunity to demonstrate the significant contribution that higher education has to make to the recovery and renewal of California,” said Elaine Ikeda, Ph.D., executive director of California Campus Compact. “Through our collaborations with colleges and universities throughout California, California Campus Compact will serve the immediate needs of those who have been hardest hit by the economic downturn and also work to aid California in emerging from this crisis with a more innovative, green and sustainable economic future.”

California Campus Compact’s Social Innovation Generation initiative will focus on four key areas:

• revitalizing communities through green-collar job training;
• creating a culture of inner-city entrepreneurs through microfinance;
• investing in communities and the nonprofit and social service sectors through social entrepreneurship; and
• harnessing the energy and spirit of California students as change-making leaders to develop and implement student-initiated, student-led projects that will have a lasting impact on economic and social outcomes in California.

During the three years that the project is funded, California Campus Compact has committed to working with more than 85 campuses, 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 500 faculty, staff and administrators and 300 non-profit organizations. Prior to being awarded the grant, California Campus Compact pre-selected, through a rigorous application process, nine California campuses as initial lead collaborators on Social Innovation Generation.

The nine campuses are California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo; California State University, Chico; California State University, Fresno; Dominican University of California; Humboldt State University; San Francisco State University; University of California, Berkeley; University of San Diego; and University of Southern California. Additional lead campuses will be selected through a competitive process in the months ahead.

California Campus Compact was the only applicant from California to be awarded a Learn and Serve America grant. “The competition was quite challenging,” noted Elson Nash, acting director of Learn and Serve America, with just one out of every ten applications received by Learn and Serve America being funded.

About the Corporation for National and Community Service and Learn and Serve America

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) is a federal agency that each year engages four million Americans of all ages and backgrounds through its Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America programs. The mission of CNCS is to improve lives, strengthen communities and foster civic engagement through service and volunteering. CNCS’s Learn and Serve America program awards grants to state agencies, schools, nonprofit groups and institutions of higher education to engage students in service activities linked to academic achievement and civic responsibility. This type of service is called service-learning. For more information, please visit www.NationalService.gov.

About California Campus Compact

Since its founding in 1988, California Campus Compact has worked to build the collective commitment and capacity of colleges and universities throughout California to advance civic and community engagement for a healthy, just and democratic society. Through innovative programs and initiatives, grant funding, training and technical assistance, professional development and powerful research studies and publications, California Campus Compact each year invests in and champions more than 500,000 students, faculty members, administrators and community members involved in diverse and ground-breaking activities that support and expand civic and community engagement throughout California. California Campus Compact is at the forefront in developing cutting-edge curricula in service-learning, an innovative educational strategy that fosters civic responsibility and meaningful service to the community. For more information, please visit www.cacampuscompact.org.