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| Eisner: Looking “forward to spending time with [his] family,” as of Nov. 14. Credit: CNCS |
David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) since 2003, announced that he will step down on Nov. 14.
In a letter sent last month to his staff and grantees, Eisner did not disclose why he is leaving now. As a presidential appointee, he could have stayed at least until Jan. 20, when the new president takes over.
Nicola Goren, Eisner’s chief of staff, will serve as acting head of the agency until the next president appoints Eisner’s successor.
The CNCS, created 15 years ago, is the umbrella agency for national service and volunteering programs, including AmeriCorps (with 75,000 service slots per year), Senior Corps (with about 450,000 volunteers) and Learn and Serve America (with about 175,000 volunteers).
Eisner guided the AmeriCorps program through a stormy period. In 2003, Congress punished CNCS for over enrolling the program by forcing it to make drastic cuts the following year. Eisner won respect the next year for balancing the views of Congress and major AmeriCorps grantees as the agency developed new rules and accountability standards for the program.
Both presidential candidates have called for expansion of AmeriCorps, and Sen. Barack Obama (D) is proposing new national service programs.
In his letter, Eisner said he looks “forward to spending time with my family and figuring out my next steps.”
Before joining the CNCS, Eisner was a vice president at AOL Time Warner, where he was in charge of the company’s charitable foundation.
