A Developmental and Capacity-Building
Model for Community Partnerships
By Patrick Donohue, director of community-engaged
learning at the College of New Jersey’s Bonner
Center for Civic and Community Engagement, and Robert
Hackett, vice president, Corella and Bertram F. Bonner
Foundation
One community partnership goal of the Bonner program
is “to address needs and mobilize assets in building
stronger, healthier communities.” Because the
Bonner program supports students for intensive, multiyear
engagement in service, the faculty/staff at Middlesex
County College and, more recently, the College of New
Jersey have been able to build upon the traditional
partnership model to support long-term, collaborative
partnerships that work on multiple levels.
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Part of the New Mexico Bonner
delegation working at La Plazita in Albuquerque. |
The traditional focus of a campus-based service program
has been on service “for others.” We refer
to this model as the “community service placement”
model. In this model, a student project coordinator
connects regular and occasional volunteers to a host
of community service opportunities. While this model
has been successful in recruiting and placing large
numbers of students in the community, rarely have these
placement-oriented projects led to a sustained community-building
relationship between the campus and the community agencies
involved.
Middlesex County College Model
During the mid 1990s, Middlesex County College faculty
began to partner with the Bonner Foundation staff to
create programs that would provide opportunities for
students to serve their communities via cocurricular
and curricular avenues. Over time, the college created
a model for simultaneously building the capacity of
students and community organizations. The College of
New Jersey began to adopt this model during the summer
of 2006. This model has four levels of team-based activity
with the primary community agency partners.
Direct Service: Students are organized
into site-based teams and spend one year addressing
a particular need (e.g., hunger) by engaging in a variety
of direct service (e.g., preparing and serving meals)
activities. At this level, the students become more
aware of social problems and responses, while the community
partner is able to rely on an infusion of “manpower”
and energy to deal with the day-to-day crisis situation
(e.g., feeding the hungry).
Community-Based Research: Students
and professors are organized to complete research projects
that respond to the needs of the community agency (e.g.,
what do the soup kitchen patrons want in terms of additional
services?). At this level, the students develop their
critical thinking, analytical, and research skills (e.g.,
by designing, administering, and reviewing the data),
while the community partner gains some solid data from
which it can create new programs or revise existing
ones.
Staff Training: Campus administrators,
professors, and occasionally students are often able
to deliver workshops or resource materials for agency
staff. At this level, the students enhance their communication
and presentation skills, while the agency enhances the
abilities of its workforce and thereby maximizes its
impact and contribution.
Policy Analysis: Students and professors
work together to summarize the different approaches
to solving different social problems, clarify best practices
in a particular field, and provide legislative and funding
updates. At this level, the students learn more about
the political and funding mechanisms and environments,
while the community agency gains tools that can help
it have some influence over those “external factors,”
such as laws and appropriations, which have a great
impact on its operations.
It is important to note that the foundation for each
“team” is five students in Bonner scholar
or leader positions; they receive a stipend and scholarship
for three hundred hours of service during the year.
These students work with staff to identify others from
campus to fill another three to five “slots,”
which are not attached to a stipend or scholarship.
In addition, the members of this team may engage in
any level of the activities described above and/or participate
in organizing other individuals (e.g. professors, administrators,
other students) to do the same.
Independently, each of these stages or campus programs
also expands the capacity of community partners. However,
we can only fully appreciate their potential when they
are applied with the understanding of three key principles
that inform our partnership model:
- Comprehensiveness: This principle speaks to the
range of programs described above that we make available
to our primary community partner agencies.
- Concentration: This principle brings all four components
of our model to bear so that each agency is receiving
a steady infusion of energetic volunteers, quality
research, staff development workshops, and policy
analysis and similar reports or news on an annual
basis.
- Continuity: This principle underscores the fact
that it takes time to build all four levels of programming
into a partnership and each layer grows from a position
of trust as well as from shared resources and expertise.
Conclusion
This approach has several advantages. It addresses
project continuity and sustainability by establishing
long-range project goals, leadership succession, and
peer mentoring strategies that exceed the duration of
any one student or faculty member who may leave. This
approach also offers feedback and assessment strategies
that are responsive to the short- and long-term needs
of a community partner. Finally, it promotes an integrative
learning and developmental strategy for students and
their community partners alike.
Each level of programming, from direct service to policy
analysis, opens up more and more challenging opportunities
for students to develop personally, socially, civically,
and academically. It also cultivates the common ground
between community and student development. Everyone
then benefits.
