As with all service learning and civic engagement activities, we encourage careful consideration and assessment of partnership outcomes. There are several ways to assess campus-community partnerships (Bringle & Hatcher, 2002). More recently, CSL staff have been developing a collaborative relationship mapping process that invites an individual to consider various constituents engaged in a project and the relationships that exist.
Others have identified potential categories for examining community impact. For example, the community capitals framework (Flora & Flora, 2008) includes the following seven components:
- Natural capital
- Cultural capital
- Human capital
- Social capital
- Political capital
- Financial capital
- Built capital
As demonstrated here, there are many ways to consider the impact of partnerships on the community. In addition, there are several techniques and tools to help one assess partnerships. CSL is here to support community-engaged scholars interested in assessing outcomes associated with their work.\
The following are additional resources that may be useful as you begin to examine partnership assessment:
- Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH)
- Inventory of Your Service Learning Partnership: This tool is designed to collect an inventory of current practices and expected future behaviors in developing a service learning partnership.
- Methods and Strategies for Community Partner Assessment: This tool is useful in describing various perspectives and experiences of community partners who supervise students in service learning courses. In addition, the instrument assesses the impact that service learning has on the community partners.
- Community Partnership Evaluation Tool: This survey assesses your current views of the activities, roles, responsibilities, and outcomes of your community partnership.