Community Partners
KU’s institutional commitment calls for the cultivation of meaningful and sustained partnerships with communities. Community partners contribute expertise and local knowledge that strengthen teaching, research, and service. KU’s community partners are diverse, representing a wide range of issue areas and sectors, both locally and globally. These meaningful partnerships emphasize shared goals, community priorities, and reciprocal relationships to support sustained engagement. Community partners are invited to use the Engaged KU Toolkit to learn more about the University’s commitment to engagement and identify opportunities for collaboration across the KU community.
How do I get started?
- Explore the Engaged KU Toolkit to learn about KU’s commitment to community engagement.
- Identify areas where your organization’s mission, priorities, or programs align with KU teaching, research, or service activities.
- Connect with KU faculty, staff, researchers, or students to explore potential collaborative opportunities.
- Share feedback on partnership experiences to help improve KU’s engagement practices and support continuous improvement.
Standards & Guidelines
- Full Participation & Representation: Engage in reciprocal partnerships with shared goals, responsibilities, and benefits. Identify community needs and issues to be addressed through academic-community partnerships. Participate in co‑creation of programs, research, and learning experiences. Provide voice in planning, implementation, and governance. Collaborate on agreements (e.g., MOUs) that document roles, expectations, timelines, and resources to ensure mutual benefit and bidirectional relationships and interactions. Ensure resources and supports are provided by academic partners to remove barriers and enhance opportunities to support community engagement (e.g., transportation/parking, scheduling beyond academic calendars, accessibility, digital access, remote participation, scheduling outside academic hours, translation/interpretation, childcare, safety, compensation).
- Mutual Benefit: Identify liaison contacts for both academic and community partners. Determine mutually beneficial opportunities to engage with academic partners through teaching/training, research, service, or outreach. Promote community assets, priorities, and expertise in shaping engagement activities. Share decision-making and co-creation of goals, activities, assessment, and dissemination. Ensure opportunities for agreed upon authorship/credit of community partners. Ensure results, outputs, and products are provided in usable community-friendly formats that are of value to the community. Seek sustained academic-community partnerships and collaboration.
- Assessment and Reporting: Log and report volunteer and engagement opportunities through institutional processes (e.g., volunteer.ku.edu). Participate in surveys and opportunities to provide feedback. Conduct routine partner feedback cycles. Ensure that information and data gathered are shared back; document improvements; maintain survey list for Carnegie classification. Document policy/practice impacts and benefits to the community.
- Recognition and Rewards: Ensure community expertise is valued and rewarded, including through compensation, stipends/honoraria, professional development, materials, and space to support reciprocal partnerships. Ensure acknowledgement and opportunities to contribute to co-developed products that support shared goals.
Community Partner Resources
- Experts at KU - Online faculty expertise search portal to find research collaborators on the Lawrence and KU Medical Center campuses.
- KU Community Engagement Networks, Groups, and Coalitions - Connect with community engagement networks, groups, and coalitions supported between campus and community partners.
- Center for Service Learning - Hub for service-learning courses, volunteer opportunities, and the Certificate in Service-Learning program for students and faculty.
- Center for Teaching Excellence - Learn how to integrate community engagement activities into your courses, office activities, research, and student projects.
- CIRTification - Community Involvement in Research Training is a human research protections training program designed especially for community partners.
- Center for Service Learning — Volunteer Opportunities - Promote volunteer opportunities and connect students and faculty with community-based service.
- Center for Community Outreach - Connect with 13 issue-based, student-led programs offering volunteer opportunities and additional ways to serve with Douglas County nonprofits.
- The Big Event - Annual student-led day of service connecting the KU campus with the Lawrence community through neighborhood volunteer projects.
- Community Partner Excellence in Campus Collaboration Award - Nominate a community partner for this award through the Center for Service Learning.
- Engaged KU Community Check Box - Use the strategic dashboard to document academic-community partnerships and activities.
Examples of Community Engagement
Supporting Addressing the Digital Divide in an Urban Community
Staff, Community Partners
Dola supported the initial engagement of ThrYve Violence Prevention program to begin addressing creating intergenerational mentorship opportunities where youth assist older adults with digital literacy skills in a structured and supportive environment at the Vernon Multipurpose Center in Wyandotte County.
/toolkit/examples/supporting-addressing-digital-divide-urban-community-0
From Kansas to the world: KU’s WHO collaboration works to promote global health
Community Partners, Staff, Researchers
Researchers from the KU Center for Community Health and Development advanced global community health efforts by collaborating with the World Health Organization to deliver a digital "toolbox" to partners in 300 countries. This resource supports local health promotion strategies and helps communities strengthen their public health infrastructure. At the same time, lessons learned from this international work are being applied in Kansas, bringing global insights home to improve local health outcomes.
/toolkit/examples/kansas-world-kus-who-collaboration-works-promote-global-health-0