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Strategic Planning for Your Center
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Campus Strategic Plans
Here are some examples of completed strategic plans for community/civic engagement and centers from campuses in the Bonner Network. If your center has one, feel free to add it!
- Colorado College: The Collaborative for Community Engagement (CCE) launched a strategic planning process in January of 2018 with one core goal — to forge a strengthened vision for how the CCE could cultivate and deepen community-engaged teaching, research, and action in ways that advance the mission and strategic plan of the college.
- Siena College: Siena College also linked its strategic plan with the operational strategic plan of the College. Through the participation of Mathew Johnson, then Director of Academic Community Engagement, and the broader ACE team in this broader planning process, a "pillar" of the larger plan was specifically tied to community engagement and goals for greater curricular and institutional integration. This document provides a good example of what that can look like. See highlighted pillars.
- Stetson University: Stetson began the strategic planning process in December 2010 and completed annual updates of the plan forged in 2011. These examples may be very instructive both in terms of content and format. Savannah-Jane Griffin, the Director of the Center for Civic Engagement, worked to align the plan and its presentation with institutional strategic plans. She used them in conversations with Stetson's Provost and Assistant Provost for Student Success. The Center's work to implement the plans led to greater allocation of resources for the Center and to its 2015 integration with diversity and multicultural education, first discussed in the 2011 strategic plan.
- Saint Mary's College of California: Saint Mary's College of California began the strategic planning process in Spring 2011 in conjunction with the Bonner High-Impact Initiative. Foundation staff Ariane Hoy facilitated this process with campus stakeholders. Then, led by Marshall Welch, the staff and faculty of the Catholic Institute for Lasallian Social Action (CILSA) took the completion of the planning process very seriously and finalized an ambitious and comprehensive strategic plan, found here. The level of detail in the planning resulted in a 40+ page document! In this planning process, CILSA realized that it had great levels of expertise that could serve as a hub for training and faculty development for other institutions. It then pursued that to offer institutes targeting representatives for other campuses, especially on the West Coast.
- Sewanee: University of the South: Sewanee joined the Bonner Network –– launching a new Bonner Leader Program and participating in the Bonner High-Impact Initiative -- in 2011. Strategic planning for both was done in spring 2012, and faculty and staff leadership under the direction of Jim Peterman also sought to develop a long-range strategic plan for a new center and deepening Sewanee's infrastructure. In addition, Sewanee asked the Bonner Foundation to help do a second round of strategic planning to develop a plan and strategy for a county wide reading and literacy initiative, in partnership with several local partners including the Grundy County Schools, Head Start programs, and local non-profits that engage in relevant family services and educational supports. Below is an example of the agenda for that process (facilitated by Ariane Hoy in June 2015). Hence, the planning process can also be used for more community-focused and collaborative/collective impact approaches. Sample agendas for both and the end result - a vision and plan for a new Center for Civic Engagement that incorporates issue-oriented focus areas as well as Bonner - can also be viewed here.
- University of Richmond Bonner Center for Community Engagement Strategic Plan: The CCE's strategic plan reflects four primary goals:
- ALIGN, CONVENE, AND/OR FACILITATE STAKEHOLDERS TO POSITIVELY ADDRESS SPECIFIC, PRESSING REGIONAL NEEDS
- CHAMPION CIVIC ENGAGEMENT ON CAMPUS AND IN THE REGION
- REDUCE BARRIERS TO CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AND SUPPORT PARTICIPATION ALONG A ROBUST SPECTRUM OF CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
- STRENGTHEN INTERNAL OPERATIONS TO MAXIMIZE IMPACT
- Download the plan at: https://engage.richmond.edu/about/strategic-plan.html
Broader Center Strategic Plans
Here are several examples of other strategic plans for centers of community engagement that may be of interest to review for ideas. These may help your center to think about:
- purpose and framing
- language
- objectives
- presentation
- and other considerations.
Portland State Student Community Engagement Center Strategic Plan
https://www.pdx.edu/student-community-engagement/assessment-reports
Princeton University Pace Center Strategic Plan
https://pace.princeton.edu/about/strategic-plan
State University of New York: University of Albany Advancing Strategic Goals and Opening the University's Front Door (a partial plan)
https://www.albany.edu/strategicplan/futuring_paper_public_engagement.shtml
Tufts University Tisch College of Citizenship Strategic Vision
https://tischcollege.tufts.edu/about/strategic-vision
University of Massachusetts Amherst Civic Engagement and Service-Learning Strategic Plan
http://www.umass.edu/cesl/who-we-are/cesl-strategic-plan
University of Notre Dame Community Engagement Strategic Plan
https://engagement.nd.edu/assets/137669/cecc_strategic_plan_final.pdf
Please feel free to add others. Many campuses also aim to connect community engagement in their institutional strategic plan.
Quotations from Campus Leaders on Strategic Planning
Here are some quotes from other campus staff about the Bonner High Impact Initiative planning process:
The first thing that I think it was important to come away with was that strategic planning is most successful when you have someone from outside your organization facilitate the process. There needs to be someone at the helm that does not have a vested interest in certain outcomes and does not hold a position of power over the members of the group in a way that intimidates or pushes them in a certain direction, but rather encourages full participation and candor in a respectful manner.
~ Kristine Hart, Washburn University
The process truly helped us to identify what was important to us as an organization as well as what was important to our stakeholders. For example, we discovered that students wanted an academic component that supported their community engagement and learning and that became a new focus of the Center. At the same time, we came to the realization that it was a poor use of our limited resources to keep doing campus-wide one-day service events ourselves rather than to allow ownership to go to or be shared by other groups on campus...By taking a hard look at what we really wanted our priorities to be within a context of a vision for our Center and taking into account the information we identified...we did not give up our core values, we actually became more focused on how to actually implement them in more meaningful ways.
~ Rick Ellis, Washburn University
This process helped us to think more systematically and from a wider set of perspectives about the University's community engagement goals and challenges. Like any good facilitation, it produced a shift in understanding and a related commitment to move forward in developing a specific strategic plan for a new community engagement center/administrative position. I also believe that the very fact that we were having this sort of planning underscored the importance of community engagement to the University, and that has helped to build the sense of this importance even for faculty who did not know much about the details of the meeting or of its results. The fact of having done this successfully has been as important as the details and the process itself. It established a marker of the legitimacy of our plans and also a sense of momentum.
~ Jim Peterman, Sewanee–The University of the South
We used this process and data extensively in supporting our case for a service-learning DQP. We used the data from the NASCE survey showing overall service but low service learning involvement as our rationale. We learned as much about the process and the process of other departments on the campus compared to our center.
~ Nicole Saylor, Carson-Newman College
We are doing more than we realized. This was an emotional shot in the arm and has really launched us into action....rather than just talking about the future. We're DOING it!
~ Marshall Welch, Saint Mary’s College of California
Additional Examples
The California State University system undertook a system-wide strategic planning process for community service in 1997 and offers some outstanding examples of strategic plans for universities. Below are several of them:
Systemwide Strategic Plan for Community Service Learning
Campus Plans
- Service Learning Center's Strategic Plan, 1999-2006, Humboldt State University (.pdf)
- Students for Community Service, 2004, CSU Fresno (.doc)
- Center for Community Engagement, 2005, CSU Long Beach (.doc)
- Service Learning Institute, 2005, CSU Monterey Bay (.doc)
- Center for Community Service Learning Strategic Plan, 2005, Cal Poly Pomona (.pdf)
- Community-University Partnerships and Service Learning, 2006-2008, CSU San Bernardino (.doc)
- Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, 2005, San Francisco State University (.pdf)
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