TAKING PARTNERSHIPS TO THE NEXT LEVEL

From Best Practice to Common Practice

IDEAS WE’LL ADDRESS

Site and Issue-Based Teams (also Place-Based)

Creative Higher Level Placements

Community Capacity Building

Organizing Around Issues & Bigger Goals

Integrating Web-Based Tools

Reflecting This in BWBRS

OPENING QUESTIONS

What is the current level of integration of site/issue-based teams? How many partners? How much of your Bonner Program?

Do you have student leaders playing roles as site/issue/team leaders or in helping arrange & manage service partnerships?

How much auditing have you done of students’ higher-level placements (as reflected by CLAs and in BWBRS)

ORGANIZING SITE/ISSUE TEAMS:POTENTIAL & CHALLENGES

Supports partners to have volunteers (Bonners) that can take on higher-level roles and address capacity

Provides more structure for students to engage in team-based goal-setting, education, & research

Aligns with developmental model

Many non-profit partners are small; capacity needs and lower-level placements crowd out room to develop higher-level placements

Culturally, some don’t want to interfere with students’ ‘choice’ of service

Being ready: some campuses take leap to assign leaders (VISTAs or PCs), and it fails

RESPONSES TO CHALLENGES

Organize clusters of students around issues/sites within a place (multiples sites for one issue team when dealing with small partners)

Transform meeting structure (alternating with class meetings) & retreats, engaging partners & empowering students through leadership roles (including research)

RESPONSES TO CHALLENGES

Create innovative intern and higher-level capacity building roles (e.g., Senior Intern, Community Outreach Intern, volunteer training program, videos, web development, resource development)

Athletic program/team metaphor combined with full range of issues (and academic connections) counters ‘culture’ issue

WHAT’S YOUR APPROACH?

Where do you see these ideas taking shape in your program?

What are some of the challenges, and how have you (or can you) adapt your program or approach to meet them?

How might you utilize enrichment grants to support this work?

MORE QUESTIONS:

Have you begun organizing around issues, either with partners or on campus, or both? What are you doing?

What other capacity building initiatives have you developed?

Have you begun to utilize web-based tools (Serve 2.0) in your program in ways that benefit partners?

ORGANIZING:POTENTIAL & CHALLENGES

Strategically organizing campus-community activities around issues can allow new coordination of civic work (service, courses, assessment)

Campus coordination can align with new ways to build capacity of community, and increase quality of civic engagement

Campus structures can present challenges to working across department/division

Again, partners are sometimes not ready to think in this way, due to resource and capacity needs

RESPONSES TO CHALLENGES

Organize series of workshops and institutes with one or several partners, tapping into other resources (faculty, institutional) on campus

Build and carry out a more strategically-focused working group and process, which would focus on taking civic engagement to the next levels

RESPONSES TO CHALLENGES

Utilize retreats and meetings with this working group to organize around issues, projects (QEP), and initiatives

Tap into assessment and other rubrics to inform the plan and persuade others with data-rich information

Utilize enrichment funds for these purposes (mini-grants, retreats, structures)

EXAMPLES & HANDOUTS

Davidson College: workshop series, partner consortia, summer retreats, developing non-profit institute

WV Wesleyan: leadership team for civic engagement, VISTA positions, retreat series, developed institution-wide outcomes for civic engagement

Siena College: institution-wide assessment process, then linked with other engagement strategies

TCNJ: team is here to share work

INTEGRATING WEB-BASED TOOLS

Outreach, recruitment, & matching

Program management (and design)

Connecting program to other resources on campus (and across network)

Storing & sharing your knowledge

WE’LL EMPHASIZE 3 TOOLS HERE

WIKI: Partner Profile for Bonner Program or Campus-Wide Wiki

Ning (Bonner Network Forum): a platform for students, staff, faculty, and partners (eventually) to be in touch around issues

PolicyOptions tool for research (cover in tomorrow’s session)

USING A WIKI: PARTNERS CAN BENEFIT

Wiki: interactive web-page (many can edit)

Agency Information

Mission/Vision, Program Descriptions

Map/Location (Place-Based Analysis, GIS)

Volunteer Positions

Videos (Profiles, Training, More)

Simple structure and

links.

Each team has a page to update.

A simple profile introduces your

site.

Students create & update plans, manage work.

A Campus-Wide Wiki can help with

outreach, listing volunteer

opportunities at your site.

The Wiki can introduce students to important information about the neighborhood. Here

students did community asset mapping to create

videos and then mapped partners.

The wiki can be a tool for students at

site to do & document plans (setting goals,

charting progress).

Site/Issue structure also

supports policy research (co-curricular).

HOW DO WE CONNECT & LEVERAGE NETWORK?

Bonner Programs at 80+ colleges & universities

Each has 10-100 students & 10-200 community partners

We work across common issues to make a difference

CAMPUS ISSUE PROFILES: MAP THE WORK

Campus Profile

Types of Service

Academic Work

Education & Training

Campus & Organizational Capacity Building

Research, Policy Analysis & Deliberative Democracy

WORKING GROUP PROFILES: MAP THE NETWORK

National Profiles

Begin to allow campuses to connect with each other

Map the network-wide approach

Precursor to narrowing focus & doing public policy research

Allows foundation to use Ning to connect groups

FORUM GROUPS: SHARE IDEAS WITH US

Help Us Strategize:

How to support these connections across campus

How these tools can link with your own campus’s needs (e.g., campus Ning sites like Middlesex)

Dreaming about the potential and how to make it work

BONNER NETWORK FORUM (NING)

How it can help:

Get staff, students, partners, and faculty to join groups

Start & participate in discussions

Post articles & resources

Connect around specific interests