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Partnerships, Placements & Projects

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Overview  |  Guides  |  Campus Examples  |  Documents to Download

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Contents

Presentations Forms Capacity-Building Opportunities Form (instructions & check list) Capacity-Building Request - Basic Information Form Capacity Building Project - Detailed Request Form Community Learning Agreement  Capacity-Building Accomplishment Form Guides: Capacity-Building Projects Skill-Based Capacity-Building Projects Guides Guide for Integrating Community-Based Research Service Saturdays Service Abroad Other Resources  Articles

Presentations

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Bonner Community Partnerships - Part 1 from Bonner Foundation

Bonner Community Partnerships- Part 2 from Bonner Foundation

  

 

Forms

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• Capacity-Building Opportunities Form (instructions & check list)

This form is intended for your Bonner Program and Center to use to help communicate with community partners to identify potential capacity building opportunities. Modify the text and the questions in the survey as needed. This updated form gives a list of 75 specific capacity-building project opportunities in seven distinct areas: Event Management (3), Fundraising (6), Marketing & Communications (34), Program & Curriculum Development (5), Research (8), Technology (8), and Volunteer Management System (11).  

 

• Capacity-Building Opportunities Form (check list only) 
• Capacity-Building Opportunities Form (simplified)

This is a simplified and visually appealing version of the more exhaustive list of capacity-building opportunities. Use this document to spark interest and conversation with community partners, and have the longer (expanded) list available if you find that helpful in brainstorming more specific opportunities. 

 

• Capacity-Building Request - Basic Information Form

Once you decide on a capacity-building project, use this form with your community partner to provide the basic information for their specific project request. 

 

• Capacity Building Project - Detailed Request Form

Use this form to:

• define the specific deliverables for capacity building project;
• the due date;
• assist in recruiting faculty and students who can take on these projects as part of a course or internship or Bonner placement; and,
• provide additional project parameters that will clarify the project type, requirements, and support structure.  

 

• Community Learning Agreement 

The two-page standard Bonner CLA which should be completed for all placements beyond the one-time short-term service project.

• CLA Form.pdf   
• CLA Quick Start Guide.pdf
• Short Objective Worksheet.doc — A one-page worksheet for developing solid objectives for the CLA, which should include the activity, result, measure, standard, and beneficiaries. This may be used to train partners in working with students on their objectives, in addition to training students directly.
• Objective Writing Worksheet — A more comprehensive four-page guide for developing solid objectives, including a worksheet (that is also available as a full training in the curriculum: Setting Goals and Objectives for Service).

 

• Capacity-Building Accomplishment Form

This form will help you gather basic information on what kinds of capacity building projects were completed by students.  

 

• Community Service Federal Work-Study MOUs
• CBWS_Community_Partner_Agreement_Carleton Paid.pdf  

 

Guides: Capacity-Building Projects

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• Skill-Based Capacity-Building Projects Guides

• Guide to Creating Brochures & Flyers — This step by step guide outlines a set of steps in designing and developing a brochure for a community partner organization.
• Guide to Celebrating Volunteers —  This guide will show comprehensive research and a step-by-step process through a webinar for students to learn how to conduct volunteer recognition projects. 
• Guide to Creating an Email Marketing List — This guide outlines a step by step process of researching email marketing softwares and creating an email listserv for your community partner’s needs.
• Guide to Writing a Grant Proposal —  This guide outlines a step by step process of researching potential grant opportunities and submitting a well-written grant proposal.
• Guide to Writing an Operations Manual —  This guide outlines how to write a training and/or operations manual for a community partner organization. 
• Guide to Writing a Press Release —  This guide outlines the steps to develop a captivating and well-written press release. 
• Guide to Designing a Program —  This guide outline the steps to design a new program outlining community needs, develop a program mission, vision, and goals, conduct an analysis of strengths and challenges/risk factors (SWOT), create an implementation plan, and execute an assessment plan.
• Guide to Evaluating a Program —  This guide will teach you a basic understanding of what is and how to conduct a program evaluation.
• Guide to Creating Promotional Videos —  This guide covers the following steps to create a promotional video: Before Making the Video, Crafting Central Message of the Video, Compiling Images and Audio Files, and Editing Video.
• Guide to Craft a Case Story —  This guide explains how to successfully craft a case story in partnership with a non-profit organization.
• Guide to Training Design —  This guide outlines a set of steps in researching, creating, and writing training and/or curriculum sessions for a community-based program or partner.
• Guide to Social Media —  This guides outlines how to create a social media strategy and content for a nonprofit program/organization and how to sustain the social media presence over time.
• Guide to Survey Design — This guide outlines how to create a survey questionnaire for their community partner.
• Guide to Volunteer Orientation — This guide outlines how to plan an orientation or training for new volunteers. 

 

• Guide for Integrating Community-Based Research

The 23-page Bonner Implementation Guide for Community-Based Research (pdf) is a comprehensive guide includes handouts and worksheets for integrating community-based researching into your campus community and civic engagement efforts.  This 23 page guide covers the following steps:

• Step 1:  Introduce CBR to partners and recruit and identify projects from community partners or groups.  This dovetails well with the Capacity Building Form. 
• Step 2:  Simultaneously recruit and identify faculty (have them on deck) who are interested in CBR or research projects. 
• Step 3:  Work with partners, for example through meetings involving community partner staff member, student, and staff member (as broker) to turn the need into a research question and project.
• Step 4:  Develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the project, especially so that the focus, scope, timeline, and deliverable for the project is clear.
• Step 5:  Manage the project. Once the project is underway, the roles of the staff and faculty member are dependent on the research project itself.
• Step 6:  Ensure that the deliverable (from MOU) is met and project completed, assuming things are going fairly well as the team involved completes the work.
• Step 7:  Share and disseminate the results in a way that is useful to the partner and to addressing the community needs or concerns.  But, it’s okay for the project to help in other ways too.
• Step 8:  Evaluate the project.

 

• Macalester College Guide for Developing Capacity Building Projects

This guide narrates how one program (Macalester College) brought partners together to work through the Capacity Building Opportunities Form. Then, the program also integrated an introduction and discussion of the partners' interests in capacity building projects into meetings with students. Together, Bonner staff, students, and partners then created positions that enabled Bonner students to take on new projects. See this guide for more help in how to do this. 

 

• Service Saturdays

•  Service Saturdays Quick Reference 

 

• Service Abroad

• Service Abroad Handbook.pdf
• Administrator's Guide.pdf
• Service Partner Guide.pdf  

 

 

Other Resources 

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• Overview of Bonner Student Development Model for Community Partners (pdf) 
• Community Partnerships Knowledge Hub (Campus Compact)
• Community Engagement Fundamentals Knowledge Hub (Campus Compact)
• Non-Profit Learning Lab — offers daily online nonprofit trainings.  Workshops focus on fundraising, board development, social media, marketing, volunteer management, capacity building, and organizational leadership.   
• Other potential sources for capacity-building projects:
• Taproot Foundation has a portal to connect volunteers with nonprofits to share your professional skills pro bono.
• Catchafire.org — matches professionals who want to donate their time and talent with nonprofits who need those skills.

• Online Volunteering Opportunities

• Keep on Partnering:  excellent example of local engagement resources page in Richmond, Virginia by Virginia Commonwealth University 

• GivePulse: online platform used by many campuses and their local community partners to manage their volunteers.  GivePulse has posted information on remote/virtual volunteer opportunities and other resources.

• Tutoria: https://tutoria.io - Offer free tutoring in these two areas: 1) Practice conversational and/or written English with clients 2) Prepare clients for the U.S. Naturalization exam

• UN Volunteers: https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/opportunities  - choose from multiple opportunities such as creating educational videos for small children, translating documents in various languages, creating social-media campaigns 

• Smithsonian Digital Volunteers: https://transcription.si.edu - Become a Smithsonian Digital Volunteer and help them make historical documental and biodiversity data more accessible. 

• Translators Without Borders: https://translatorswithoutborders.org/volunteer/ - You can volunteer with TWB if you are fluent in at least one language other than your native language. Whether you are interested in translating medical texts or translating for crisis response, there are engaging projects available to suit all preferences.

• 7 Cups of Tea: https://www.7cups.com - 7 Cups of Tea is an online emotional support service. Through a secure, anonymous bridging technology, they connect those in need of emotional support with their network of Active Listeners. If you are interested in volunteering as an active listener with this organization, complete the active listening course and create your listener profile. 

• Be My Eyes: https://www.bemyeyes.com - As a sighted volunteer, you can help just by installing the Be My Eyes app. A blind or a low-vision user may need help with anything from checking expiry dates, distinguishing colors, reading instructions or navigating new surroundings. 

• Chemo Angels: https://www.chemoangels.com/angel-pre-app - As a chemo angel, you will send your assigned patient at least one card, letter, or note a week. Being a Card Angel is a long-term commitment, depending on the patient's treatment. 

• LIFT: https://www.liftcommunities.org/   

   

Articles

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• A Crucible Moment:  College Learning and Democracy’s Future, by The National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2012. 

 

• Amplifying Community Partner Voices in Rural Community Service-Learning Partnerships, by Lauren Paulson, Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 2024 

 

• University-Community Partnership Models: Employing Organizational Management Theories of Paradox and Strategic Contradiction  by Amanda Marie Bowers

University–community (U-C) partnerships have the potential to respond to society’s most pressing needs through engaged scholarship. Despite this promise, partnerships face paradoxical tensions and inherent contradictions that are often not fully addressed in U-C partnership models or frameworks, or in practice. This article seeks to explore the root causes of tensions from a historical and structural perspective, reexamining traditional models of U-C partnership collaborations. Organizational ideas of paradox and strategic contradiction are then presented as a new lens through which to see and influence collaborative work. A framework for modifying current U-C partnership models is introduced, along with a discussion of limitations and implications for research and practice.

 

• What is capacity building? by the Non-Profit Council of Non-Profits.

 

• Collective Impact, by John Kania and Mark Kramer.  (published in Stanford Social Innovation Review).  This article covers the framework for collective impact, which we are utilizing for the High-Impact Initiative and which addresses the creation of social and community impact measures across organizations.

 

• Deepening Community Engagement in Higher Education: Forging New Pathways, edited by Ariane Hoy and Mathew Johnson.

Deepening Community Engagement in Higher Education demonstrates how colleges and universities can enhance the engagement of their students, faculty, and institutional resources in their communities. This volume features strategies to make this work deep, pervasive, integrated, and developmental, qualities recognized by the Carnegie Classification guidelines and others in higher education as best practice. The chapters share perspectives, frameworks, knowledge, and practices of more than a dozen institutions of higher education that practice community engagement in sustained ways, drawing on their connections to more than two decades' experience in the Bonner Foundation network. Perspectives from these campuses and respected scholars and practitioners in the field present proven models for student leadership and development, sustained partnerships, faculty engagement, institutionalization of campus centers, and changes to teaching and learning.

 

• Democratic Engagement White Paper, by John Saltmarsh, Matt Hartley, and Patti Clayton, published by New England Resource Center for Higher Education, 2009.

 

• Full Participation: Building the Architecture for Diversity and Public Engagement in Higher Education by Susan Sturm, Tim Eatman, John Saltmarsh, and Adam Bush, 2011 
   
• How Colleges Can Spark Economic and Community Development, by Richard Guarasci, Wagner College (published in Huffington Post, August 22, 2012)

This article delves into some strategies for colleges and universities to address the economic, employment, and development needs of neighboring communities.  The ideas here may particularly help campuses who are working on creating community centers and hubs for linking high-impact practices and community engagement.

• Navigating the Power Dynamic Between Institutions and their Communities, by Byron P. White, a study for the Kettering Foundation, 2009
  
  
• One Partner's Perspective on Equal Partnerships and the Importance of Place, by Jamé Johnson, Educational Specialist for Crawford County School District, in Engage, 2014.
  
  
• Perspectives of Community Partner Organizations in the Development of Ethical Service-Learning Guidelines by Meghan Doran, Colin Rhinesmith, and Sarah Arena, in the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 2021. This research brings the voices of community partner organizations into the discussion of ethical obligations of university and student partners in community-based learning. It uses a framework for service-learning ethics focused on decolonizing, feminist, and participatory action research frameworks, to guide interviews with staff members of community organizations about their experiences and beliefs about the ethical obligations of faculty and students partnering with service-learning courses. Authors offer seven key principles to reflect the perspectives of community partners in our ethical practice.
  
  
• Putting Students at the Center of Civic Engagement, by Richard M. Battistoni and Nicholas V. Longo, in To Serve a Larger Purpose: Engagement for Democracy and the Transformation of Higher Education, Temple University Press, 2011.

 

• The Scholarship of Community Partner Voice, by Sean Creighton (published in The Higher Education Exchange, 2008, The Kettering Foundation) This article explores the challenges of working collaboratively with community partners to reframe scholarship, teaching and learning.  It presents many helpful critiques and considerations for language.  This article may be especially helpful as teams explore how to bring partners and faculty together on projects. 
   
•  “To Democracy's Detriment:  What Is the Current Evidence, and What if We Fail to Act Now?”, by Carol Geary Schneider, essay in Civic Provocations, published by Bringing Theory to Practice, 2012. 
   
• Why Service Learning Is Bad, by John W. Eby, March 1998. 
   
• Without Practice There's No Knowledge, Chapter 3 in We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change by Myles Horton and Paolo Freire, 1990.