Coalition Building, Partnerships, and Communications

Interest in community engagement has grown due to critiques that excluding community voices from the planning or implementation of projects leads to solutions that fail to meet community needs or cause harm. Despite increased interest, institutions engaged in social projects — whether academic institutions, government agencies, health care organizations, non-profits, or others — are still largely designed to uphold the leadership and knowledge of outside researchers and technical 'experts,' and often lack structures or processes needed to support shared power or longer-term commitments to community partnership. As a result, shallow investments in community participation and inclusion — i.e., activities that “check the box” — may lend legitimacy and credibility to projects without making any discernible change to strengthen community leadership and capacity for collective action.

Thus, the purpose of the Equitable Community Partnerships reflection tool is to help teams engaged in community partnerships for research, service delivery, or other projects reflect on how they can make their partnering practices more equitable. The tool consists of five key components or ‘dimensions’ that contribute to equitable community partnerships: Shared Understanding, Collaborative Decision-Making, Meaningful Representation, Reciprocal Partnership, and Respectful Relationships. We have developed a series of questions that will guide teams in reflective conversations around each dimension.