The Shirley Sagawa Papers contain a wide variety of materials related to the full scope of Sagawa's work, from her time working with Senator Edward Kennedy to consulting projects for nonprofits. The collection contains 5 series: Correspondence, Legislation, the Commission for National and Community Service, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and Subject Files.

Correspondence: This series is arranged chronologically and contains a mix of work correspondence and communication related to professional interests outside of employment.

Legislation: The series contains materials related to Sagawa's work in the Senate, including draft legislation, existing laws relevant for her legislative work, draft regulations, technical amendments, and other relevant information. Folders are grouped by the particular piece of legislation, and these sets are arranged in approximate chronological order.

Commission: The series contains primarily board materials and meeting minutes from the Commission on National and Community Service, arranged chronologically.

Corporation: This series primarily contains records from Sagawa's time as Managing Director, but also contain some materials after she left CNCS. Records that apply to CNCS in general are placed at the beginning, but other materials are grouped by program (AmeriCorps, Senior Corps) or theme (Funding, External Evaluation). Evaluation of Corporation programs is incorporated directly into the program groupings when relevant, but more general or cross-program evaluation is separated out into the External Evaluation category. Within each grouping, materials are arranged chronologically.

Subject Files: This series contains some consulting work and publications by Sagawa (particularly as part of Sagawa/Jospin) and materials collected to inform Sagawa's work. These are arranged alphabetically, usually by organization name, but also by title or subject when appropriate.