The Engaged Community: Maximizing Community Impact

Source: National Service-Learning Clearinghouse and Campus Compact, October 2010

Introduction

Campus-community partnerships ideally benefit all participants. But while volumes of research exist on how students benefit from civic engagement, less is written about this topic from the point of view of the community partner. This fact sheet shall examine several key issues related to maximizing community impact for community-campus partnerships, including the necessary context from which to work, conceptual frameworks and practical strategies to carry out a concerted effort to increase impacts for communities, and how reflective learning and evaluation must play a key part in any effort to maximize program effectiveness.

Framing the Issue

Recently, there has been increasing interest in ways that institutions can go beyond serving their internal constituencies of students, faculty and staff, and become better partners with their surrounding communities (Sandy & Holland, 2006; Blouin & Perry, 2009; Stoecker & Tryon 2009). While there are some inherent challenges to university-community partnerships, there is evidence that university engagement is increasing. Stanton and Wagner (2006) identify current universities with a “fourth wave” of higher education civic engagement initiatives. This movement goes beyond efforts to bring civic engagement to individual campus classrooms and moves toward a fully engaged university. The impact of these efforts is an increase in service-learning and civic engagement initiatives in institutions of higher education across the United States (O’Meara, 2007). For example, since its founding in 1985, Campus Compact has grown to over 1,190 member institutions—colleges and universities that have made an institutional commitment to civic engagement. Service-learning is no small part of this work. The 2008 Campus Compact Membership Survey showed 93 percent of respondents reported their campuses offered courses that incorporated service-learning (Campus Compact, 2008). Additionally, 2006 brought the establishment of the Carnegie elective classification of community engagement and that of the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll Program, both of which recognize institutional commitment to communities. This commitment has been reflected in the language of institutional missions, general educational curriculum requirements, faculty reward systems, and even in how schools market themselves to potential students.

Despite these gains, universities often struggle to find ways to intentionally increase their benefit to their communities or to measure and demonstrate the impacts of their existing campus-community partnerships.

Planning and Design

According to Randy Stoecker and Mary Beckman “a broad and strong base of community development principles and practices and the participatory relationships that must be in place to implement those principles” are the necessary context for any approach to maximizing the positive impact of community-campus partnerships. With that basis, several different approaches may help increase the impact of campus-community partnerships. Three will be examined briefly here: the Kellogg Foundation’s logic-modeling approach, Stoecker and Beckman’s strategic design approach, and Eugene Roehlkepartain’s strength-based approach.

W. K. Kellogg Foundation Logic Model

Although the process of creating a logic model can seem intimidating, “learning and using tools like logic models can serve to increase the practitioner’s voice in the domains of planning, design, implementation, analysis, and knowledge generation” (W.K. Kellogg Foundation, 2004, p. III). It provides an important opportunity for the community partner to participate fully in the planning process.

A logic model is an explicit, detailed, visual representation of the relationships between the various program elements that will lead, if successful, to desired impacts. It includes:

• Your planned work
  • Resources and inputs
  • Activities
• Your intended results
  • Outputs
  • Outcomes
  • Impacts

In addition to the common critique that logic models may be overly complex, Stoecker and Beckman and others have expressed concern that they can be rigid and therefore difficult to adhere to. These concerns can be mediated if there is sufficient attention paid to the “broad and strong base of community development principles and practices and the participatory relationships.” However, for those for whom logic models provide a challenge, Stoecker and Beckman’s Strategic Design approach may prove a helpful alternative.

Stoecker and Beckman Strategic Design Model

Stoecker and Beckman have offered a strategic design model that is iterative and collaborative, equally involving campus and community members, although it is best understood as a community-driven process. In this process:

…the professor’s course takes a back seat for the moment and the focus is on the community issue. What does the community want to change? What do they need to accomplish the change? What help is needed from outsiders? What help can the higher education institution provide? (Stoecker & Beckman, 2009)

Stoecker and Beckman go on to state, “To some extent it is in the strategic design process where academics can help the most. Most communities, even when they have the skills, lack the capacity to do all the research necessary to make effective strategic design decisions” (2009).

This strategic design approach involves four key elements: diagnosis, prescription, implementation, and evaluation.

• Diagnosing the problem is the phase of strategic design where it is perhaps most essential that community members and campus members work in unison. Here, partners should ask themselves:                        
  • What is the community-campus issue?
  • Who is being affected?
  • What types of effects are being experienced?
  • Identify the gaps in service, in research, and in resources.
  • Is there existing quantitative data that describes the problem?
  • What are the qualitative stories about the problem?
     
• Prescribing the solution allows all members of community-campus partnerships to contribute their voices to the process. Community members will be the experts on the culture of the community and how a strategy could be best adopted to meet the identified needs. Assemble a collaborative team to identify possible strategies. Steps might include:
  • Developing a pros and cons list for possible prescriptions for the problem
  • Developing specific criteria for selecting a strategy based on available resources (human resources, funding, etc.), interest, short-term and long-term goals, and the culture of the community
  • Creating, together, a set of specific strategies to implement
     
• The implementation phase of any plan is a powerful moment in the process of the group. Successful groups create carefully scripted, clearly detailed, transparent plans for how to accomplish their goals. In the case of community-campus partnerships designed to meet specific community needs, the implementation phase of strategic design will largely focus on the kinds of internal and external resources available to carry out the prescription:
  • Funding
  • Individual expertise
  • Relationships with community
  • Relationships with media
  • Relationships with formal and informal leaders
  • Time
  • Tangibles (food, equipment, training materials)
     
• Evaluation is essential for not just finding out whether any community change has taken place, but for helping to achieve this change. A critical open evaluation process provides opportunities to measure the depth of the project’s impact and to inform how the community moves forward together in partnership in the present and in the future. The evaluation is more than a means to an end—it is a critical phase of the process of learning, providing a structure to measure success and shortcomings. As Stoecker and Beckman explain, “the evaluation starts when the action starts, to help it adjust along the way” (2009).

Because this framework draws on a metaphor of a community’s needs as an illness to be solved, it is essential that community members themselves take the lead in diagnosing their “condition” lest this become an example of the very kind of top-down, deficit-focused models of service-learning of which Stoecker and Beckman are critical.

Although writing from the perspective of community-based organizations as settings of service-learning in their own right, Eugene C. Roehlkepartain has laid out another approach to increasing the relevance and effectiveness of service-learning efforts, and one that may leave behind some of the problems of typical deficit models.

Roehlkepartain Strength-Based Model

[Adapted from: Roehlkepartain, E. (2008). Beyond needs assessments: Identifying a community's resources and hopes. Retrieved from the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse]

The typical service-learning program starts by identifying problems or needs—“needs assessments" are generally cited as the tool of choice for this approach. However, a growing number of community development leaders argue that the focus on "needs" may itself be problematic. They suggest that needs-focused assessments risk defining an organization, neighborhood, or community by its problems—problems that generally require outside expertise and resources to "fix." Thus, needs assessments can have an unintended effect on the relationship between the servers and those being served, as well as a negative long-term impact on the community's own capacity to grow and develop (Roehlkepartain, 2005).

As an alternative, these community leaders recommend shifting the focus from identifying needs to identifying resources, hopes, and dreams. Instead of asking, "What problems do you have that we can fix for you," a strength-based assessment asks, "What are your strengths, priorities, and hopes, and how can we partner with you in working toward the kind of future you seek for your community?"

Often when people first hear about strength-based assessments, they find it counterintuitive. After all, we assume that "service" should meet "needs," so you should focus on identifying those needs in the assessment process. However, by focusing on what is present (not missing) in a community, young people have the potential to identify constructive service opportunities that can add value to a community, building on latent potential, without merely focusing on what is lacking. In this way the focus of the project is positively defined instead of being characterized by what may be perceived as a community weakness.

This shift changes the power dynamic between those "being served" and those "providing service." Instead of the neighborhood, organization, or community having needs that young people meet through service-learning, both the service-learners and the "recipients" of service offer resources, capacities, hopes, and priorities in a mutually reciprocal partnership.

John L. McKnight and his colleagues at Northwestern University were pioneers in shifting the focus of community assessment or mapping to emphasize strengths (McKnight & Kretzmann, 1996; Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993). For example, a needs assessment might document patterns of crime, unemployment, pollution, and economic blight within a neighborhood (all of which are present). In contrast, a strengths map of the same neighborhood might identify individual gifts and interests, available untapped resources, as well as the capacities of local organizations and associations (all of which are also present).

The difference, McKnight and Kretzmann (1996) contend, is that the latter map "is the map a neighborhood must rely on if it is to find the power to regenerate itself. Communities have never been built on their deficiencies. Building community has always depended upon mobilizing the capacities and assets of a people and a place" (p. 17). In other words, needs assessments create "mental maps" that define people primarily in terms of their problems and challenges, fostering a cycle of dependency on outside services and resources (Beaulieu, 2002).

Key elements of strength-based approaches to community assessment:

• Strength-based approaches focus on the capacities or gifts that are present in the community,not what is absent. Bohach (1997) writes: "Every community, no matter how deprived or disadvantaged it may feel it is or be perceived to be, is comprised of citizens who have an endless supply of unique, positive, and valuable abilities that are their gifts…. Using their gifts, a community's citizens can focus on areas of strength (the positive) rather than only focusing on areas of need (the negative)" (p. 23).
   
• Strength-based approaches stress local leadership, investment, and control in both the planning process and the outcome. This emphasis assumes that residents are in the best position to know the community's true strengths and capacities, making them experts (not clients). This shift provides a vital foundation for unleashing and sustaining community capacity, citizen engagement, and social capital (Benson, Scales, & Mannes, 2003).
   
• Strength-based approaches surface formal, institutional resources (such as programs, facilities, and financial capital) as well as individual, associational, and informal strengths and resources.By connecting across traditional sectors and boundaries, communities often discover previously unrecognized interests, talents, skills, and capacities that can be matched with needs or challenges in another part of the community.
   
• Strength-based approaches seek to link the strengths and priorities of all partners, including the young people.Listening to the community one seeks to serve does not take away the need to recognize young people's own priorities, talents, skills, and passions. The best service-learning projects link the priorities and resources of a community with the capacities and interests of the young people offering the service. This mutual engagement, respect, and commitment yields reciprocal benefits to everyone involved.
   
• Strength-based community assessment tools facilitate listening to a community at multiple levels with different objectives. Some approaches involve in-depth surveys, extensive interviews, GIS mapping technology, and other complex processes. And, in fact, those kinds of sophisticated processes are vital for community-wide visioning and planning that lay a foundation for major, sustained public or philanthropic investments. Yet they also require significant resources and expertise—which are often not readily available to most service-learning programs; and when they are available they can be both daunting and time-consuming. In many cases, more manageable tools provide a useful starting point for more focused efforts.

For another discussion of an assets-based approach to service-learning, please see the Faculty Toolkit for Service-Learning in Higher Education by Seifer and Connors (p. 14).

Whatever the specific approach, campus faculty, staff, and other leaders interested in maximizing community impacts of their service-learning and other civic engagement approaches should consider: what resources beyond students their campus can contribute to achieve the most significant positive impacts on communities; whether and how their campus might engage with others to contribute to maximize community impacts; and how reflective learning and evaluation will maximize and document community impacts.

Drawing upon Diverse Resources

Institutions of higher education have more to offer to community partners than just access to student volunteers. Community partners recognize that relationships with faculty and departments beyond the university’s service-learning hub can result in opportunities for funding (Sandy & Holland, 2006, p. 38), or access to current research on issues of importance to the community (Leiderman, Furco, Zapf & Goss, 2003, p. 3). Universities can also provide community partners with practical resources, such as meeting space or access to technology, or more intangible benefits, such as the clout to advocate on a community issue on a large scale (Leiderman et al, 2003).

These resources can be multiplied when colleges and universities work together to address community needs. The diverse resources and perspectives that multiple institutions bring to the table, as well as their different connections to the community, can help maximize community impact (Williams, 2002). For example, a community college might have a closer relationship with members of the community, while a larger university might offer more access to relevant data and expertise. Such efforts can be facilitated through such institutional structures as Community Programs Centers or Centers for Service-Learning and as well as through other forms of tangible support like mini-grants, staff assistance, etc. Larger consortia, like those supported through the Learn and Serve America higher education grant program, may provide yet another approach to combining resources to address critical community needs.

Reflective Learning

Even after a service-learning project leaves the planning and design stages, there are still important opportunities for community input. As the project progresses, all participants should take opportunities to review their work together as a form of reflective learning. Although we often associate reflective learning with students, faculty and community partners can benefit from the process as well. Here are a few examples of infusing reflective learning into the fabric of the partnerships through structured group exercises:

• At the end of each semester, assess measureable accomplishments, such as the number of meetings, the number of participants from each representative entity, and completed programs or grant submissions.
   
• Set measurable goals for the next semester.
   
• Facilitate a group reflection discussion. This could include creating a list of group assets, or, at the conclusion of an event or project, drafting a list of areas that need more attention.
   
• Grants often ask for a written document that can assess the completion of structured goals and objectives.
   
• Groups can seize opportunities for thoughtful reflection with the departure of group members as students graduate or members move out of the community, and celebrate their contributions.

For more resources on reflection in higher education service-learning, see the NSLC fact sheet Reflection in Higher Education Service-Learning.

Measuring Impact

The act of reflecting upon a project also provides an opportunity to measure its impact. But how can you measure impact? This is a critical question, because it speaks to the larger of question of why this work is important. In order to measure impact on the community it is helpful to gain clarity about the different components. While measuring outputs is important and often essential in processes such as grant reports, it does not fully measure impact. As Leiderman, Furco, Zapf and Goss noted in a 2003 survey of community partners, their goals for the partnership are “generally more profound and broader than the specific outcomes against which community/campus partnerships are usually assessed (such as the completion of a certain number of service hours)” (11). For example, in Sandy and Holland’s 2006 survey of community partners, the ongoing relationship with the campus was the most highly valued aspect of the partnership (34). So how does one measure such intangibles as the relationship between members of a partnership, or positive shifts within a community?

Shelley Billig and Andrew Furco have offered a range of measurement variables to consider when evaluating student and community impact: creativity, efficiency, helpfulness, enthusiasm, approachability, reliability, knowledge, professionalism, interest in project, organization, and friendliness (2002). Whatever the specific measurement variables, one way of measuring the power of a relationship is through pre- and post-involvement testing. At the beginning of a project, assess what community members know about the university, their perceptions of faculty and students, what type of interactions they have (if any) with faculty and students, and any prior history they may have had with members of the institution. This inquiry can then be applied to faculty and students, asking questions about what they know about the community, and about their perceptions and interactions with community members. At the conclusion of the project, these same questions can be repeated to measure change.

In the creation of any pre- and post-involvement surveys (whether the “involvement” is a program, event, or other joint project), be sure that your tools are short, accessible and concise. Create your tool in a manner that matches the communication style of the group, whether it’s an online or pen-and-paper survey, or by having the group verbally process highs and lows of the involvement.

Communities within themselves are their own cultures, and therefore when you want to measure the impact on the community, you are measuring a shift or change in the culture. The impact on the community does not need to be transformational to be measured. Short-term or one-time projects can have positive effects on a community, including building the will of the community to do more. But lasting impact is community-driven and sustained over time. An especially exciting initiative to assess and document the impact on communities of campus service-learning efforts is the Learn and Serve America Higher Education Community Partner Survey. This project, to develop a common instrument with which Learn and Serve America higher education grantees and others can measure community impacts, is being driven by a working group including members from Tufts University, California Campus Compact, New Mexico State University, and American Association of Community Colleges. The survey asks community partners how (and if) student volunteers were able to help them build the capacity of their respective organizations. Since the survey can be repeated annually, the aggregated data should display ongoing trends in community impact. Given the evident differences between the campuses working with this survey, the effort will be a helpful exploration of the extent to which it is possible to develop shared measures of community impact, especially given the diversity of their service activities, institutions, program designs, and locations. For more information, see the presentation on the Higher Education Community Partner Survey.

For more resources on the topic of measuring impact in higher education service-learning and civic engagement, see Tools and Methods for Evaluating Service-Learning in Higher Education.

Case Studies

The Civic Innovations program at Wagner College is an example of a community-campus partnership that is making sustained and sustainable impact in their community. Under the leadership of the provost and the president, the Civic Innovations program brought together previously disparate civic engagement programs into one campus office, overseen by a single program director. In this case, the Civic Innovations program focused its work on partnerships with organizations serving at-risk youth in Staten Island.

Individual campus departments participating in the program are each paired with a single community partner. These community-connected departments continue to partner with the same agencies over a period of years, ensuring consistent placement of students and deeper institutionalization of civic engagement (Wagner College, 2010). Community-connected departments and community agencies meet at the outset of the partnership to “identify mutual interests, critical needs, learning outcomes, and project ideas” (Spring, 2009, p. 2). Over the course of the partnership, students have the opportunity to apply their classroom knowledge and community partners receive “the infusion of human and intellectual resources of Wagner College, enabling them to better serve at-risk youth” (p. 1). This approach, of developing deep, broad, and sustained ties with a small set of community agencies, represents the kind of strong relationship-building that Stoecker and Beckman point to as so crucial to maximizing community impact.

Evidence from the Civic Innovations program seems to indicate that this approach has, indeed, been successful for this community. Surveying students, faculty and administrators, and community partners over three years, a recent Civic Innovations evaluation found that the program stability increased from year to year, and learning and community partner outcomes strengthened as the partnerships matured (Spring, 2009, p. 4). Community partners, when interviewed, indicated that their capacity to serve youth in areas such as health education, tutoring, personal finance education, and to provide more one-on-one attention, was increased as a result of Wagner College engagement (p. 5). In the future, evaluators also hope to measure the educational success of the participating at-risk youth through report cards and other data.

Another example of a successful community-campus partnership takes place in a large suburban community with five small colleges. According to the census, over one-third of the community is Latino but only a small minority of graduating seniors from the Latino community seeks higher education. Applying the Stoecker and Beckman strategic design, the problem, as diagnosed by the colleges and the community, would be the low percentages of Latino high school graduates that are seek higher education.

The five colleges form a community-campus coalition to address the problem of access for Latino high school graduates to higher education. After thoroughly assessing the problem through data, and focus groups of students and parents from the area high schools, a plan is created by the community-campus partnership to address the problem—the prescription.

The community-campus partnership provides leadership for implementing the plan. The evaluation phase is the opportunity to measure the impact on the community. Of course, there are direct methods to evaluate the impact of the program based on the problem, such as an increase in Latino students attending area colleges. However, there are other methods of measurement that could be applied, including:

• Pre/post perception and knowledge assessment of planning group members
   
• Pre/post perception surveys asking Latino students if they visualize college in their future
   
• Number of Latino faculty employed at the area colleges
   
• The number of student mentors from the college that work one-on-one with middle school and high school students in the areas of academic achievement, self esteem and procuring financial aid
   
• School officials would assume that Latino students would be college bound and therefore develop curriculum to prepare students for SAT in the middle school.
   
• Local colleges would view Latino students at the local high school as a population to target for recruitment.
   
• The colleges would hold community-based workshops on college preparation hosted by Latino staff, faculty, and current students.

For other models of institutional structures that may support or be expanded to support community-campus collaborations (and even inter-campus-community partnerships), see the NSLC publication Institutional Structures for Service-Learning in Higher Education.

 Conclusion

While the value of student learning will and should always be central to the work of service-learning and civic engagement, placing a strong emphasis on the impact of that work on the community creates an opportunity for higher-level learning for students, faculty, and the community. As more universities commit to civic engagement as part of their mission, it will be essential to design and develop partnerships that measure the impact of such efforts not only at the institution but also in the communities they partner with. Attainment of true civic engagement cannot be reached by remaining in our institutional silo; we must join in partnership with our neighbors to establish a shared vision and move forward as one community.

References