214. Defending National Service & Community Resilience with Kaira Esgate Artwork

Volunteer Nation

Nonprofit leadership author, coach, and expert Tobi Johnson shares weekly tips to help charities build, grow, and scale exceptional volunteer teams. Discover how your nonprofit can effectively coordinate volunteers who are reliable, equipped, and ready to help you bring about BIG change for the better. Rather than continuing to “do more with less,” achieve abundance for your organization by engaging community talent that helps you do more with more. Society is evolving and so, too, is volunteerism. With over 25 years of experience working in nonprofits, public sector agencies, and grassroots campaigns Tobi is known for her modern “big hat” thinking and straight talk about what it takes to achieve success in today’s world. You will learn how to coordinate volunteers, improve the volunteer experience, recruit volunteers, appreciate volunteers, and do it all more efficiently with the right volunteer management software and digital tools. It’s a mix of interviews and solo shows you’re not going to want to miss. So, if you’re ready to ditch the stress and harness the power of people to fuel your good work, you’re in exactly the right place. Hit subscribe and let’s DO this!

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Volunteer Nation

214. Defending National Service & Community Resilience with Kaira Esgate

May 14, 2026 • Tobi Johnson, MA, CVA • Episode 214

0:00 | 1:11:41

Advocacy for volunteerism can't wait until a crisis hits. Sometimes the crisis arrives without warning, and the relationships you've built with policymakers determine whether your program survives.

In this episode, host Tobi Johnson welcomes Kaira Esgate, CEO of America's Service Commissions, to discuss sudden funding cuts that threatened AmeriCorps. Kaira shares how grant terminations and staff reductions halted community projects and upended service members' lives. She also highlights the successful bipartisan advocacy—lawsuits and congressional support—that ultimately restored funding.

If your organization depends on public funding or grants, this episode is a powerful reminder: proactive advocacy and long‑term relationships with elected officials are essential to protecting the programs that hold our communities together.

Community Resilience – Episode Highlights

[00:00] Introduction to Advocacy in Volunteerism
[05:19] Kaira Esgate's Journey in National Service
[12:50] Understanding AmeriCorps and National Service Landscape
[18:05] The Crisis: Funding Cuts and Their Impact
[31:24] Mobilization and Advocacy Response
[47:43] Ongoing Advocacy and Political Landscape
[51:37] Lessons Learned from Advocacy Efforts
[01:01:00] Future of National Service and Community Impact

Helpful Links

If you are looking to show your support for AmeriCorps during these challenging times, please consider taking one or more of the following actions.

Call your Members of Congress using 5 Calls. (There's a free app too!)
Email your Members of Congress using the tool from Voices for National Service.
Join States for Service, ASC’s privately funded policy coalition working to advocate for federal and state policies that improve access to national service and volunteer engagement resources.
Donate to ASC’s National AmeriCorps Member Emergency Fund.
Write an op-ed, submit a letter to the editor, or post on social media. ASC’s communications toolkit provides resources for all of these and more.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast. If you enjoyed it, please be sure to subscribe, rate, and review so we can reach more people like you who want to improve the impact of their good cause.

For more tips and notes from the show, check us out at TobiJohnson.com. For any comments or questions, email us at WeCare@VolPro.net.

Tobi Johnson, MA, CVA

Host