Building Community Partnerships
Costs of Partnerships to Community Group
- Additional work and supervision
- Use of staff resources for non-funded or billable work
- Time lost that could be spent with other constituencies
- Loss of organizational identity and privacy
- Lack of parity--not being treated as experts
Benefits of Partnership to Community Group
- Advancement of the mission
- New perspectives and insights
- Access to campus knowledge and resources
- Grant opportunities
- Credibility gained through collaboration
- Exposure to possibility of higher education
Mediating Factors
- Established infrastructure
- Administrative buy-in and support
- History of town/gown relationship
- Trust and accountability
- Clear goals and expectations
Indicators of Parity
- Partners are interested in long-term relationships to produce meaningful change
- Processes and staff are in place to distribute authority and funds across community and campus partners
- Extended alliances are in place...The campus will "step-up" when needed in other contexts
- Welcoming of community partners in roles usually reserved for faculty members
Indicators of Lack of Parity
- Campuses receive funding because of their demographic/geographic location but do not share those resources
- Students are offered a community as a laboratory for their own growth without making a significant impact
- Community needs are not fully assessed, too many students are sent on short notice, overall failure to plan
- Shared accountability is not fully realized, overburdening the community
- Campuses take a public position counter to a community's stated interest
Best Practices
- Allot time for relationship building
- Learn to talk together about inequalities and there causes with candor
- Identify underlying reasons for establishing partnerships--uncover hidden agendas to build trust
- Understand organizational contexts--explore norms, culture, traditions and values
- Ensure fairness in the exchange of resources
- Share in the role of expert
- Be meticulous about the details
Principles of Good Partnerships
(from "Principles of Good Community Campus Partnerships," developed by Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH), San Francisco, CA)
- Partners have agreed upon mission, values, goals and measurable outcomes for the partnership
- The relationship between partners is characterized by mutual trust, respect, genuineness and commitment
- The partnership builds upon identified strengths and assets, but also addresses areas that need improvement
- The partnership balances power among partners and enable resources among partners to be shared
- There is a clear, open and accessible communication between partners, making it an ongoing priority to listen to each need, develop a common language, and validate/clarify the meaning of terms
- Roles, norms and processes for the partnership are established with the input and agreement of all partners
- There is feedback to, among, and from all stakeholders in the partnership, with the goal of continuously improving the partnership and its outcomes
- Partners share the credit for the partnership's accomplishments
- Partnerships take time to develop and evolve over time
(Source of content: Liederman, Furco, Zapf and Goss, 2003, Building Partnerships with College Campuses: Community Perspectives. CAPHE Publication, The Council of Independent Colleges.)