AMERICORPS PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES

Updated Prohibited Activities from Governor's Office on Service and Volunteerism (7.7.23)

AmeriCorps members may not engage in the below activities directly or indirectly by recruiting, training, or managing others for the primary purpose of engaging in one of the activities listed above. Individuals may exercise their rights as private citizens and may participate in the activities listed on their initiative, on non-AmeriCorps time, and using non-CNCS/AmeriCorps funds. Individuals should not wear the AmeriCorps logo while engaging in any of the above activities on their personal time.

Prohibited Activities. While charging time to the AmeriCorps program, accumulating service or training hours, or otherwise performing activities supported by the AmeriCorps program or AmeriCorps, staff and members may not engage in the following activities (see 45 § CFR 2520.65):

  1. Attempting to influence legislation
  2. Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes
  3. Assisting, promoting, or deterring union organizing
  4. Impairing existing contracts for services or collective bargaining agreements
  5. Engaging in partisan political activities, or other activities designed to influence the outcome of an election to any public office
  6. Participating in, or endorsing, events or activities that are likely to include advocacy for or against political parties, political platforms, political candidates, proposed legislation, or elected officials
  7. Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization
  8. Providing a direct benefit to the following entities
    1. A business organized for profit;
    2. A labor union;
    3. A partisan political organization;
    4. A nonprofit organization that fails to comply with the restrictions contained in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 related to engaging in political activities or substantial amount of lobbying except that nothing in these provisions shall be construed to prevent participants from engaging in advocacy activities undertaken at their own initiative; and e. An organization engaged in the religious activities described in 7. above, unless AmeriCorps assistance is not used to support those religious activities;
  9. Conducting a voter registration drive or using AmeriCorps funds to conduct a voter registration drive
  10. Providing abortion services or referrals for receipt of such services
  11. Such other activities as AmeriCorps may prohibit.

Please note:
Additional Prohibited Activities as of FY22_Program Year:

  1. Census Activities. AmeriCorps members and volunteers associated with AmeriCorps grants may not engage in census activities during service hours. Being a census taker during service hours is categorically prohibited. Census-related activities (e.g., promotion of the Census, education about the importance of the Census) do not align with AmeriCorps State and National objectives. What members and volunteers do on their own time is up to them, consistent with program policies about outside employment and activities.
  2. Election and Polling Activities. AmeriCorps Members may not provide services for election or polling locations or in support of such activities. AmeriCorps members may not engage in the above activities directly or indirectly by recruiting, training, or managing others for the primary purpose of engaging in one of the activities listed above. Individuals may exercise their rights as private citizens and may participate in the activities listed above on their initiative, on non-AmeriCorps time, and using non- AmeriCorps funds. Individuals should not wear the AmeriCorps logo while engaging in any of the above activities on their personal time.

 


AmeriCorps ASTR logos

We are an AmeriCorps grantee and receive funds as part of their State and National Program as well as the Governor's Office on Service and Volunteerism 

Contact ASTAR

Photo of Lisa Clark

Lisa Clark
Director, ASTAR
lclark@frostburg.edu


ASTAR
University of System of Maryland - Hagerstown
32 W. Washington St, Hagerstown, MD 21740
Phone: 301.697.3359
Fax: 301.687.7049