Exploring Your Community's Strengths and Hopes: A Step-By-Step Guide for Community Listening Projects

The community listening project involves interfaith teams of youth and adults interviewing community leaders (key informants) about their sense of the community's strengths, the opportunities for partnership, and their hopes for the future. It is designed to provide a foundation for building relationships in the community and for planning future service-learning projects. This guide provides the framework for carrying out your own community listening project through a five-step process of getting organized, preparing, action, reflection, and recognition. Community listening projects are beneficial in determining what a community's needs are prior to a service-learning project, and are a useful introduction to research processes for students.