Enhancing value for nonprofit community partners in community-engaged learning initiatives

Campus---community partnerships provide diverse experiential learning opportunities, often undertaken through student placements in community-based nonprofit organizations. These partnerships, which include service-learning, are perceived as a pedagogically valuable approach to student learning. Universities and colleges, as well as nonprofit organizations and the wider community, potentially gain value from the relationships. These collaborations must be mutually beneficial to be sustained and developed. As demand for community-engaged learning placements grows, and the capacity of nonprofit organization partners to integrate students is challenged, disproportionate costs and benefits may threaten the sustainability of these partnerships, without enhanced collaboration efforts. Through qualitative action research, involving narrative inquiry, the research examines what factors build and consume the capacity of nonprofit organizations during their involvement in community-engaged learning initiatives involving student placements. Opportunities to build reciprocal relationships, create social capital, develop human resources, contribute to learning, and support systemic change were viewed as factors contributing value.