The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) takes pride in the service it provides to the community where it works and lives. Senior staff members participate in many task forces, commissions, and government nonprofit advisory boards on a voluntary basis.

David Altschuler has been appointed to the 13-member National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Project "Reclaiming Futures: Community Solutions to Substance Abuse and Delinquency." He is part of a federal court monitoring team overseeing compliance of a consent decree between the U.S. Department of Justice and Commonwealth of Kentucky. Altschuler also served as a member of the Juvenile Offender Aftercare Assessment Team, the task force appointed by Maryland Governor Parris Glendening to investigate allegations of abuse at boot camps across the state.

Burt S. Barnow chairs the Governor's Workforce Investment Board Performance Measurement Committee, and serves on the systems measure committee and the vendor certification standards committee. He was vice chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Workforce Needs in Information Technology. He also chairs the Research Committee for the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration.

Sandra Newman is a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Housing Policy, the National Low Income Housing Coalition Research Advisory Committee, and of the National Foundation for Affordable Housing Solutions. Newman is a member of the National Institute for Child Health and Development Working Group on the Social Environment and Child Health and Development and serves as an examiner of  mock interviews for nominees for the JHU Truman Scholars program.

Marion Pines serves on five national boards: Public/Private Ventures, Eureka Foundation, National Center for Education and the Economy, Center for Law and Social Policy, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In Maryland, Pines belongs to the Governor's Workforce Investment Board and chairs its Youth Council. In Baltimore, she is on the board of the Job Opportunities Task Force.

Lester Salamon is chairman of the board of the Chesapeake Community Foundation, designed to stimulate philanthropic giving in Anne Arundel and three other Maryland counties. He is on the board of directors of the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations. Salamon is also a member of the Social Science Research Council Committee on the Nonprofit Sector.

Marsha Schachtel is a board member of Baltimore's Emerging Technology Center, an Advisory Board member of the Maryland Industrial Partnerships Program, and co-chairs the Community Outreach and Public Policy Committee of the Baltimore Women's Giving Circle and serves on its Steering Committee..

Carol Wessner has served for the past 10 years on the Citizens Review Board for Children (formerly known as the Foster Care Review Board). She also works on the review board's legislative committee working to formulate and pass laws that will protect children and provide them with needed resources.