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Defining Community Engagement
In the spring of 2008, Nexus Community Partners convened a multi-cultural group of community engagement experts from St. Paul and Minneapolis to help Nexus better define and create a framework for community engagement and to discuss Nexus’ potential role in this field. The ensuing conversation was incredibly rich and helped guide Nexus’s work, which holds community engagement at its core.
One of the most memorable moments for me came when Lupe Serrano, former executive director of Casa de Esperanza, said that community engagement was not just about transformation within the community, but also about an organization's willingness and ability to be transformed itself. Wow, I thought. In her observation I found my definition of community engagement. Community engagement is not about input, it’s about participation, and it’s about power. If we are engaging the community than we are listening - we’re listening for and helping to raise up the community’s voice, their ideas, their values. And if we are listening than we are responding.
How many of us, dedicated to the practice and process of community engagement are willing to have our organizations transformed by it? As we engage the community, are we willing to share ourselves, our power and our resources? Are we open and willing to change how we do our work and maybe even our work?
In 2008, we didn’t know that in two short years everyone from the NCAA to politicians to news organizations would be using the term community engagement. Community engagement can mean so many different things to so many different people. For me, I always return to Lupe’s observation and use it as my definition and my guide.