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"Community Engagement is the process by which citizens are engaged to work and learn together on behalf of their communities to create and realize bold visions for the future. Community Engagement can involve informing citizens about your initiative, inviting their input, collaborating with them to generate solutions, and partnering with the community from the beginning to tackle community issues together. Community Engagement increases community cohesion and allows for the community to have ownership over the outcomes that will ultimately impact them. " - Tamarack Institute
What Is Community Engagement?
The video by Western University breaks it down well. The word community encompasses many different concepts, from people in a physical location, with a shared identity, or even those having a common interest. Ways to engage and/or serve a community are as numerous as the definitions of community that exist. We will talk more about that later in this module and in future modules.
What is important to know is that community engagement is communities coming together to address an issue. The issue can be light and fun, like making sure kids have an entertaining activity for the summer. It can also be serious, like making sure that kids have access to food during the summer. Engagement does not necessarily mean that you are engaging directly with other people, maybe you’re planting trees on the weekend to enhance a community's connection to nature, or developing an spreadsheet with all the places that parents can find baby formula.
You are likely a part of many communities, and interact with even more. Ideally, your service is with a community that you are a member of or in relationship with (we’ll talk more about that in Ethical Community Engagement). Maybe you want to engage with your fellow students, or kids that went to your high school, or the folks living outside in your neighborhood. All of those communities, and many more, are excellent places to connect with others to make an impact. With so many possibilities, figuring out where you fit may seem daunting, but this toolbox can help you figure it out.
Finding Your "Why"
Finding Your "Why"
The options that exist within community engagement work can be overwhelming, but do not let that keep you from doing work that will be profoundly impactful. Doing some self-reflection can help you figure out what your path in community engagement is.
The video above had some great ideas about the positive outcomes of community engagement, but this is an important question to answer for yourself. Determining your "why" can consist of asking yourself two questions:
What issue do I feel most committed to working to address?
What impact do I want this service to have on me and my community?
Covered in this section
Covered in this section
Finding Your Issue
Determining Your Impact
The Continuum of Social Change
📣 Community Voices:
Figuring Out Your Passion
"That was a direct motivation to become a doctor...because I was helpless too. So if I can help, with my knowledge and stuff that I can get involved in, it would be great."-Myungsung (Mike) Shin
Some students immediately know the issues they care about. If that is you, feel free to skip over this section! Instead, dive into our second module where we discuss building a comprehensive understanding of the issues and communities being served.
Most students fall into a different camp...
“There’s so much out there that I care about and I do not know where to start.”
“I don’t really have one issue I am passionate about, I would just like to help people how I can.”
“I don’t know a ton about anything, so I don’t really know where I would be helpful.”
If these sentiments feel familiar or you just have the general feeling of “I don’t know what I want to do,” you are not alone!
Let one thing be very clear, you do not have to have a burning passion in one specific direction to engage in impactful community work. Passion is a powerful tool, but it does not outweigh dedication, consistency, or a humble desire to help where ever you can.
Even if you are not burning with passion, if you have some experience with an issue, or you have an existing interest, both can be helpful to setting yourself up to have the most meaningful possible impact.
🔑 Essential Activity:
I am from...
A reflective activity that may help you name some things about yourself, where you come from, and what you love. Let the feeling and insight that comes from this activity inspire your thinking about the issues you might be interested in working on.
Engagement as a College Student
You may also want to use your major and future professional goals to inspire your engagement. What are you learning about already that inspires you to act? What voices or leaders have you heard from, read about, or been guided by in your courses that inform that issues you care about?
Or, your class may be asking you to engage with the community in order to learn more and support the issue your course hopes to impact. At Portland State University, this type of engagement is often called Community-Based Learning, and everyone will do some of this in their Senior Capstone course.
However, you may feel the opposite! You may want to engage in your community in a way that is really different from your everyday classes, or has nothing to do withyour major. You may even feel like your major isn't "community-oriented" - you may even want to find new connections between your field and your communities!
This community engagement toolkit has resources to support you no matter how your community engagement and your studies are related!
🔑 Essential Activity: Missions Not Majors
🔑 Essential Activity: Missions Not Majors
This worksheet from PSU's Career Center asks students to think beyond what they want their major to be and instead what impact they hope to have, or their "mission".
missions not majors worksheet.pdfWhat If My Major Is Not "Community Focused"?
What If My Major Is Not "Community Focused"?
"If the world takes all of these different jobs and people to function, then all of those same jobs and people need to be mobilized to make the world better." -Ari Vazquez, PSU Alum
Community engagement is a bucket of so many different things. There are so many different skill sets that are needed. There is an opportunity out there for you.
Determining Your Impact
Determining Your Impact
Finding the issue that you want to work toward is important, and it is also important that you have some idea of what you are working to accomplish. Determining your impact should consist of at least two questions:
What is the outcome we are working to achieve for the community being served?
What change do you want to see in yourself as a result of this work?
In the first question, the “we” is underlined because any impact you are trying to make in a community should be determined and led by the community itself. The desired impact can be small and attainable, like getting a local park clean for the summer, but it can also be larger and more conceptual, like empowering Black and Brown youth to feel confident as leaders. In order to determine the impact you need to develop an understanding of the issue that you are working to address and the community that you are working with.
Imagine...
Does this sound familiar to you? How might your interests and experience be the same or different?
Lena knows they want to support students learning how to read. They could spend some time reading articles or listening to podcasts about what barriers kids face with literacy. They could look up the schools in their area and find out what kind of programs are being run to support students. If they found a program that interested them, they could spend some time learning about the community the program is in. For example, if the community was predominantly Latinx immigrants, they could spend some time learning about the differences of teaching reading to a bilingual student, or the barriers that exist for non-white immigrant famlies in the school system. Lena does not need to be an expert, but if they familiarize themself with the issue enough, they will develop a more comprehensive understanding of the impact the school is trying to make with their program. Beyond just teaching students how to read, they are trying to overcome systemic barriers and use innovative, culturally relevant, teaching strategies.
Lena has determined the impact they wanted to make, sought out an organization trying to make that impact, and in doing their learning work, has a fuller understanding of the specific impact the organization is trying to make.
🔑 Essential Activity: Determining Your Impact
If you don’t know what impact you want to make, a great idea is to get insight from someone already invested in an issue you care about, see what impact they are hoping to make. Then, start your learning process from there. The most important thing is that you do your best to enter into service as informed as possible.
Choose one cause or social change you would like to support
Answer these research questions to help develop your early understanding:
What are some historical and societal factors that caused this issue?
Who are the people most impacted by this issue?
Who are some experts on this issue? What expertise do they have? (e.g. experiential, credentialed, role-based)
What work is already being done to address this issue?
Tips for Issue Research
Tips for Issue Research
These handouts from TCI's Engagement Toolkit are a helpful guide to researching issues and finding reliable sources of information.
Citizenship_Toolkit (3).pdfFinding Your Place on the Continuum of Social Change
Finding Your Place on the Continuum of Social Change
Community engagement, at its core, is tied to the idea of social change. Communities come together to address issues because they believe change is possible and want to push for something different than the status quo. And there is no single way to be involved in working towards social change.
As you explore your why and think about the impact you want to make, it's important to keep in mind that community engagement comes in many shapes and sizes -- and as you develop your personal mission, you may find yourself drawn to one type of engagement more than others.
Below is a helpful resource put together by faculty in PSU's University Studies program, outlining the spectrum of social change work -- from social movements, to community groups, to advocacy, electoral engagement, and nonprofit service. Some channels for social change emerge from the ground up, through new or emerging organizations and social forces, and others work within existing or established structures, organizations, and political institutions.
To read through the full resource, check out the linked guide to the right.
Resource Guide for Community Engagement.pdf
📣 Community Voices:
Blanchet House's Approach to Social Change
What elements of the Continuum of Social Change do you recognize in the Blanchet House work that Gabby talks about here? Where along the spectrum do you see the work they are doing?
Okay, let's get started! As you further explore where and how you want to make an impact, keep in mind that the issues you hope to engage with may be addressed in different ways across the continuum of social change. You may start your engagement through a weekly service opportunity, and then find yourself wanting to get more involved in related advocacy efforts, or pushing for political change at the ballot.
You don't have to do it all - the important part is just to start somewhere. The next module will help you get focused.
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If you're still unsure where to begin, know that the Student Community Engagement Center is a resource for you as you begin your community engagement journey! Reach out for support if you
At the end of each module, we invite you to take the opportunity to share your work from the Essential Activities, and take take to consider three reflection questions. Follow this link to capture your outcomes, and we will send your complete responses to you. Faculty or teams may also use the Reflection Surveys to share feedback and reflection.
Objective:
Distinguish and describe your own motivations, interests, and passions for engaging with your communities.
Explore the diversity of ways to get engaged and work towards social change.
Reflection: At its simplest, reflection is about giving yourself time, space, and support to be transformed by what you are learning and experiencing. For each Toolkit module, you will be offered three "Essential Activities" built into each module, as well as the invitation to answer the "Big 3," the same three questions each time to support conscious consideration of your thoughts, feelings, and even beliefs, and how you hope they will inform your future actions.
🔑 Essential Activities: Module 1
Determining Your Impact (see questions in module)
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