Training and Enrichment Resources

The Bonner Foundation encourages each institution to provide all Bonners including Bonner AmeriCorps Members with initial and on-going training sessions and enrichment experiences to expand and strengthen their individual skills and knowledge so that they may become effective in their service work. All Training and Enrichment (T&E's) should be structured to address specific stages of students’ personal development as well as their related service responsibilities. The Foundation has developed an extensive set of resources in the form of Implementation Guides, Civic Engagement Training Modules, Reflection Resources, PowerPoint Presentations together with handouts that provide concrete strategies and tools to achieve student development goals in the context of the specific programs.  All of these valuable resources can be found online at http://www.bonner.org/resources/resources.htm

On-going Training & Enrichment

As part of the Student Developmental Model, the Bonner Foundation expects each campus to provide Bonner AmeriCorps members with both initial and on-going training to prepare and strengthen their skills and knowledge for their service work. Kindly keep in mind that a maximum of 20% of an AmeriCorps Member's total hours may be approved in Training & Enrichment category.

Coordinators should plan to meet one-on-one with Bonner AmeriCorps members at least once each semester for 300-hour Members and at least twice with your 450-and 900-hour Members.  You should also plan to meet more frequently with any students who are having academic or personal difficulties and are therefore finding it challenging to fulfill their service commitment.

Tip: Set up a Training Calendar! You can useful worksheets and templates for outlining your Training Calendar on the page Planning Your Student Training and Enrichment Calendar.

Logging T&E in BWBRS

T&E activities must be entered in BWBRS as "Training and Enrichment Opportunities" and not as "Service Opportunities". Please remind your students that they should also log T&E's as such and not as service hours. Prior to the beginning of each semester, you, as the Campus Program Administrator, should add all T&E opportunities to BWBRS so that students can include these hours on their monthly time log and so that the Foundation receives a timely and approvable record of such activities.

The ideal T&E entry will include a descriptive title of the event that includes the date on which the event took place, and the number of hours. A brief, one sentence description elaborates on the activity:

Limits to Training and Enrichment

No more than 20% of a member’s total AmeriCorps term of service may be counted as Training & Enrichment. Members with 300-hour term may log up to 60 Training and Enrichment hour; 450-hour members can log up to 90; and 900-hour members may log as many as 180 hours of Training and Enrichment.

You can check the overall T&E hours in the Member Profile:

Just Because it's a Meeting, Doesn't Mean it's T&E! 

If your AmeriCorps members are meeting in site-based teams to plan for service initiatives at their site, this should be logged as direct service; members should log all hours spent planning service projects as direct service. 

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