Beginnings
Experience Corps had its beginnings in a 1988 concept paper by John W. Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and founder of Common Cause. Gardner's idea was to create a new institution that would mobilize the time, talent, and experience of older Americans to revitalize their communities. He called it Experience Corps and later would become advisory board chair for the program's pilot project.
Gardner's notion became reality some seven years later with the launch of an Experience Corps pilot project. The Experience Corps pilot was designed in 1993–1995 by Dr. Linda Fried and Marc Freedman. In developing the program, they drew upon volunteering best practices and scientific evidence for the effective health promotion for older adults. Public/Private Ventures (P/PV), a nonprofit organization that develops innovative strategies to help disadvantaged children, served as the managing partner for this effort, working in close collaboration with the National Senior Service Corps of the Corporation for National Service (CNS) and researchers from Johns Hopkins University.
After a planning and start-up phase that began in summer 1995, an 18-month pilot was conducted in 12 schools in Philadelphia; the South Bronx; Minneapolis; Portland, Oregon; and Port Arthur, Texas. The first Experience Corps volunteers began participating in early 1996. Each of the five pilot projects were sponsored by a lead agency in those cities, either a Foster Grandparents or RSVP program in every case. The projects agreed to place teams of 15 half-time Experience Corps members in some of the neediest inner-city elementary schools in their communities. In return, each project received $175,000 for the two-year period to plan, develop, and implement Experience Corps in their city.
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