About Engaged Institutions

American colleges and universities are major assets for cities and regions and hold enormous potential to help solve society's most pressing challenges. Over the past 20 years, there has been a great push for these institutions to be more responsive and engaged in what happens outside their institutional walls. This means being better neighbors to their adjacent communities by more thoroughly integrating civic engagement within their organizational structures and practices. A key question for advocates for the "engaged institution" is: how can we produce this sort of deep organizational transformation?
 
Funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Engaged Institutions project seeks to provide answers to this question. Each of the four university-community partnerships implements targeted efforts to improve outcomes for children and youth in communities outside the university, while working "on the inside" to strengthen the overall commitment to community engagement within their university systems. A wide range of individuals and organizations participate in the project, including the coordinators and leaders of partnership efforts, community-based organizations, coalitions, and residents, university faculty and administrators, and local program evaluators.
 
The primary purpose of EngagedInstitutions.org is to support cross-site learning and information sharing among cluster participants and to provide a central repository for relevant materials, and resources. The secondary purpose of the site is to be a relevant source of information on the project and the issue of university engagement for a broader audience. PolicyLink, a national research and action institute based in Oakland, California is the cluster evaluator of the effort and the developer and maintainer of this website.