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Bonner Program Tracking & Assessment
Overview | Guides | Campus Examples | Documents to Download
Below are the core tools that Bonner programs use to track progress and assess impact.
Bonner Program and Institutional Self-Assessment
The Bonner Program aims to create positive impact in three areas - student development, community partnerships, and campus infrastructure and culture of community engagement. This instrument — the Self-Assessment Tool for Bonner Programs and Campus-wide Institutionalization — is designed to highlight important indicators of a high-quality, comprehensive Bonner Program and a campus-wide infrastructure for community engagement. The tool was first developed in 2005 and revised in 2012 and again in 2017-2018 to reflect emerging research and cutting edge practices and remains the same this year. The content overlaps with (and in some cases are informed by) other nationally recognized rubrics for civic engagement, such as those developed by AAC&U, Campus Compact, and Campus-Community Partnerships for Health, as well as Barbara Holland, Andrew Furco, and Marshall Welch (NIIICE). More specifically, this instrument incorporates components that are tied to the frameworks and required activities of the Bonner Program and identified as best practices. With five levels for each indicator, it supports a developmental perspective and can help to identify next stages for progress. In 2022, we have also integrated several items from the Project Here Institutional Assessment Tool, in which Foundation staff participated as co- authors, which gauge important dimensions of the institution’s work on diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism. In 2022, the tool includes 55 items.
Making the Case Guide
The “Making the Case” guide is a structured template for Bonner Programs and campus community engagement centers to communicate clear, decision-relevant evidence of impact and institutional value. It is designed for a context where budgets are tight and programs may need to justify staffing and resources, even when senior leaders express broad support for civic and community engagement.
The guide walks teams through building a comprehensive report that combines quantitative, qualitative, and financialevidence tied to institutional priorities such as enrollment, retention, completion, reputation, and “stewardship of place.” It includes ready-to-adapt narrative language and section-by-section instructions, plus practical guidance on what data to gather, who to involve, and how long each piece may take. Each section also provides customizable examples that weave together scholarship, sample data, and institutional-style examples so programs can copy, tailor, and replicate the approach for their own context.
Finally, the guide is intentionally modular: programs can pick and choose sections based on capacity and can complete the work in stages (for example, building components across a semester or year) while still moving toward a full report over time. Visit the "Guides" section of this page to access the "Making the Case" guide.
Student Impact survey
The Bonner Student Impact Survey is a program evaluation tool that measures how community engagement experiences affect students over time, which makes it a key input to Bonner program assessment. The Bonner Foundation redesigned the survey in 2020 based on the new research around community engagement in higher education, which a) linked community engagement with effective teaching and learning; b) pointed to its effects on students’ political and democratic engagement; and c) linked engagement with psychosocial well-being.
The Student Impact Survey complements the Bonner Program and Institutional Self-Assessment by providing student-level outcome evidence (not just the assessment of the program structure and practices). The survey includes categories like civic and community engagement, integrating academics and service, identity and diversity, and post-graduate plans, helping programs assess impact across multiple dimensions aligned with Bonner Program goals. The survey’s longitudinal design (first-year and senior survey administration) allows programs to document developmental change and identify which elements of the Bonner model are associated with stronger outcomes, also informing other campus-based practices. Finally, the resulting findings and reports give programs credible evidence they can use in “Making the Case” materials and broader assessment reporting about program value and return on investment.
In 2020, the Bonner Foundation released this comprehensive report, which reflects implementation of the new Student Impact Survey across the national network. The report pointed to clear positive impacts, including on students’ academic learning. Click to download the full report.
