Since the beginning of the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) project, we have been working with our partners to study how to improve community-campus engagement partnerships. Community-campus engagement (CCE) can include community-based research, community service learning, and other community engagement activities.

Through this evaluation, CFICE has identified a number of elements that are key to the success of a community-campus engagement partnership. Here are the top 5 elements of a successful CCE partnership: skip to the bottom of the page

1. Setting Clear Expectations

CFICE Members planning together at a meeting. ©Jason Garlough

Because CCE projects can be complex, CFICE outlines the need to set clear expectations of what will be achieved and how it will be accomplished. If expectations are unclear, CCE partners may have trouble understanding the purpose of their role in the collaboration.

It is therefore important that both parties begin their partnership by collaboratively setting the rules of engagement. This means identifying expectations, roles, responsibilities, limitations, and potential problems early on, and then continuing the collaboration with regular check-ins to make sure everyone is still on the same page. With clear expectations identified, the goals of all partners should be clearly understood so everyone can work towards achieving these goals

2. Being Flexible and Equitable ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ Collaboration

Collaboration is the heart of CCE. By working together to identify issues within the community, CCE partners can develop potential solutions that build on the strengths of both academic and community contributions. But not all partners will have the capacity to contribute equally to the project as it progresses over time. This means that partners must take a flexible, “experimental” approach to navigating the partnership work while continuing to balance the partnership’s shared expectations.

3. Engaging in Clear and Open Communication

Underpinning the ability to engage in a successful collaboration is the need for clear and open communication. Positive CCE partnerships are built on deep, communicative, and respectful relationships that develop based on honest, clear communication. This type of communication and relationship development can be facilitated through working together in-person and virtually; by supporting and emphasizing safe spaces for dialogue; and establishing a shared language.

Developing clear communication between all project partners helped the ANC Peterborough Project achieve its goals.

4. Developing the Skills of Student Participants

While students often learn about community issues in the classroom, CCE and community service learning gives students the opportunity to apply what they learn in class and develop the necessary skills to address issues identified by communities. However, evaluation of CFICE projects has found that it can take a lot of time and energy for community partners to work with untrained students. Ensuring that students have at least some of the skills they need before participating in a CCE project can be a key factor in ensuring the success of the CCE partnership. This can be achieved by allowing community partners more control over the selection of RAs (so they can identify the students that have the skills the community needs), collaboratively working to set expectations for students’ role in the work, and providing sustained support and training to students over the course of CCE projects.

5. Building in Time to Develop Long-term Relationships

Food Secure Canada has been a CFICE partner since the start of the project. ©Abra Brynne

Long-term relationships are important for the success of CCE partnerships, especially when they are developed while taking into consideration the elements listed above. Long-term relationships increase the depth of the research, the ability to accommodate complex projects, and the lasting impacts that can be achieved.

As CFICE discovered in Phase I, long-term relationships take time to develop. CFICE’s success as a project has ultimately depended on our ability to foster these relationships over the course of four years. And our continued success will only be achieved based on the relationships that we continue to build into Phase II. As we discovered, it is easier to develop projects in long-term relationships because the work of understanding each other’s expectations, developing trust, and building important skills has already been established.

Overall, many factors have been part of CFICE’s success in bridging together academic and community leaders through CCE partnerships. For more information on CFICE’s Phase I evaluations, read through our Evaluation Backgrounder.

Since the beginning of the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) project, we have been working with our partners to study how to improve community-campus engagement partnerships. Community-campus engagement (CCE) can include community-based research, community service learning, and other community engagement activities.

Through this evaluation, CFICE has identified a number of elements that are key to the success of a community-campus engagement partnership. Here are the top 5:

1. Setting Clear Expectations

CFICE Members planning together at a meeting. ©Jason Garlough

Because CCE projects can be complex, CFICE outlines the need to set clear expectations of what will be achieved and how it will be accomplished. If expectations are unclear CCE partners may have trouble understanding the purpose of their role in the collaboration.

It is therefore important that both parties begin their partnership by collaboratively setting the rules of engagement. This means identifying expectations, roles, responsibilities, limitations, and potential problems early on, and then continuing the collaboration with regular check-ins to make sure everyone is still on the same page. With clear expectations identified, the goals of all partners should be clearly understood so everyone can work towards achieving these goals

2. Being Flexible and Equitable ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ Collaboration

Collaboration is the heart of CCE. By working together to identify issues within the community, CCE partners can develop potential solutions that build on the strengths of both academic and community contributions. But not all partners will have the capacity to contribute equally to the project as it progresses over time. This means that partners must take a flexible, “experimental” approach to navigating the partnership work while continuing to balance the partnership’s shared expectations.

3. Engaging in Clear and Open Communication

Underpinning the ability to engage in a successful collaboration is the need for clear and open communication. Positive CCE partnerships are built on deep, communicative, and respectful relationships that develop based on honest, clear communication. Within CFICE projects, this type of communication and relationship development can be facilitated through working together in-person and virtually; supporting safe spaces for dialogue; and establishing a shared language.

Developing clear communication between all project partners helped the ANC Peterborough Project achieve its goals.

4. Developing the Skills of Student Participants

While students often learn about community issues in the classroom, CCE and community service learning gives students the opportunity to apply what they learn in class and develop the necessary skills to address issues identified by communities. However, evaluation of CFICE projects has found that it can take a lot of time and energy for community partners to work with untrained students. Ensuring that students have at least some of the skills they need before participating in a CCE project can be a key factor in ensuring the success of the CCE partnership. This can be achieved by allowing community partners more control over the selection of RAs (so they can identify the students that have the skills the community needs), collaboratively working to set expectations for students’ role in the work, and providing sustained support and training to students over the course of CCE projects.

5. Building in Time to Develop Long-term Relationships

Food Secure Canada has been a CFICE partner since the start of the project. ©Abra Brynne

Long-term relationships are important for the success of CCE partnerships, especially when they are developed while taking into consideration the elements listed above. Long-term relationships increase the depth of the research, the ability to accommodate complex projects, and the lasting impacts that can be achieved.

As CFICE discovered in Phase I, long-term relationships take time to develop. CFICE’s success as a project has ultimately depended on our ability to foster these relationships over the course of four years. And our continued success will only be achieved based on the relationships that we continue to build into Phase II. As we discovered, it is easier to develop projects in long-term relationships because the work of understanding each other’s expectations, developing trust, and building important skills has already been started.

Overall, many factors have been part of CFICE’s success in bridging together academic and community leaders through CCE partnerships. For more information on CFICE’s Phase I evaluations, please read through our Evaluation Backgrounder.

The creation of this report involved significant effort on the part of many participants. The authors would therefore like to express sincere gratitude for the time and insights provided by their core community partners (which includes broader teams from all the partnerships, but notably, Rebecca Aird and Chris Osler from SLOE, John Karau and Jason Garlough from OETN, and Joan Kuyek and Bessa Whitmore from the GottaGo! Campaign).

To read the full report, click on the image of the report below.

At our recent Program Committee meeting on October 25, members of CFICE working groups got a chance to participate in a developmental evaluation exercise, which helped us to refine intended goals and ways of working as we continue our respective journeys within the CFICE project. I participated in this exercise as a member of the Evaluation and Analysis working group, which aims to analyse and disseminate lessons learned through cross-project evaluation within CFICE, as well as to support other working groups in their own evaluation and knowledge dissemination efforts.

The exercise was led by Julie Johnston and Marina Canalejo, two (DPE) students at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´. Together with Laurent Tran, these students are nearing completion of a developmental evaluation of our large community-campus partnership project. Through this evaluation process, Julie, Marina and Laurent are assisting CFICE in staying on track with its operational goals, and are advising CFICE participants about how they can most effectively work together (for example, by considering issues related to governance, communication and power sharing) to implement key lessons and objectives moving forward into Phase II of the CFICE project.

The first part of the exercise involved a review of our working group Theory of Change model. This model maps a path from our working group’s activities to resulting goods and services (aka outputs) and finally, to intended outcomes of capacity, behaviour and well-being changes. Our review resulted in relatively minor modifications being made to our Theory of Change, which included adding greater emphasis to fostering equitable co-governance, and to acknowledgement of power dynamics within CFICE operations (see resulting Theory of Change in Figure 1 below).

The Evaluation and Analysis Working Group’s theory of change (as of November 2016).

Next, we were asked to review a table of risks and assumptions associated with Evaluation and Analysis working group goals. This exercise required us to consider assumptions that we hold within our working group, including: (1) that other CFICE working groups will understand the value of evaluating their work, and will actively participate in this process, and (2) that working groups will be able to implement evaluation findings within meaningful time-frames, resulting in beneficial community impacts that will be sustained over the long term.

Overall, members of the Evaluation and Analysis working group found this developmental evaluation exercise to be very useful in shaping current and upcoming Phase II activities, and we appreciate the efforts of the DPE students in fostering this type of discussion. This process really inspired us to think about how our working group informs the work of other CFICE working groups, and how it aims to meet the needs of community partners in this project.

CFICE Members planning together at the Oct. 25 Program Committee meeting. ©Jason Garlough

This exercise was also quite timely, as members of the Evaluation and Analysis working group undertake planning for a CFICE Community Impact Symposium to be held in early 2017. This symposium will bring together CFICE community and academic partners to share key lessons from Phase I of the project, and to think about how to communicate these learnings to a diverse group of stakeholders involved in community-campus engagement (CCE). The symposium planning process — particularly as it relates to our engagement with community partners — has influenced our understanding of how power may influence interactions and outcomes, motivated us to work towards a common language and culture in CCE, and reinforced the importance of advancing CCE initiatives in ways that are truly meaningful to community partners.

As we move toward the symposium and beyond, we hope our work in Phase II of CFICE will foster strengthened and long-term relationship-building between CFICE participants, and continue a course toward beneficial and lasting change for communities.  We believe the opportunity to assess our progress during the Program Committee meeting evaluation exercise greatly informed and enhanced this effort.

Theory of Change Webinar

Presented by Liz Weaver of Vibrant Communities Canada on November 15, 2012.

Applying Theory of Change to CFS Hub Projects

Presented by Ted Jackson, original CFICE Principal Investigator, on January 13, 2013.

• Rigour and the Multiple levels of quantitative and qualitative analysis
• Rigour in methods and post-positivist paradigm shifting, and evaluation and
• Rigour in defining theory of change

Please view the full article here.

This network emerged out of  (Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement Project – a SSHRC funded project), a collaborative project between ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, Food Secure Canada and many community partners. Between 2012-2019, we will be conducting evaluations of community based research to better understand what makes research work best for communities.

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