SITUATION

The University of Notre Dame collaborates with many communities — locally, regionally, nationally, and globally — to address social challenges and quality of life issues. This is especially true in its own backyard of South Bend. Yet, despite those efforts, Notre Dame was perceived as removed from the local community, with members of the community-at-large feeling unwelcome. The University’s Office of Public Affairs and Center for Social Concerns engaged Impact Collaborative to explore why those perceptions existed, and how to address them.

OUR WORK

In collaboration with Notre Dame’s project leads, we defined a research plan to serve the following goals:

• Gain a deeper understanding of the University’s relationship to the South Bend community and the efforts being made within the community

• Optimize human and fiscal resources to maximize community impact

• Leverage nonprofit, corporate, and civic partnerships to accelerate impact

• Engage alumni in supporting Notre Dame’s activities in the local community

Guided by these goals, we conducted a University-wide audit of partnerships and efforts, including extensive research with key stakeholder groups (over 40 interviews and 15 focus groups) to understand internal and external perceptions of Notre Dame’s role in South Bend.

The research showed that although Notre Dame was driving powerful social change initiatives in the local community, those same efforts were often siloed within its many schools, institutes, centers, and/or administrative functions. We found that the lack of a systemic approach was leading to:

• Diminished community impacts

• Communities that didn’t feel a sense of true partnership or reciprocity with the University

• Missed opportunities to engage students and educators

• Total lack of alumni engagement and support for the work being done in the local South Bend community

• Underleveraged resources

RESULTS

Our learnings contributed to the formation of the University's Community Engagement Coordinating Council (CECC), a horizontal infrastructure with a mission to “enhance the quality of community-based partnerships through the application of coordinated research, learning, service, and communications.”

Additionally, we collaborated with Notre Dame to:

• Create a roadmap and tools for the CECC

• Engage corporate, civic, and nonprofit partners, as well as alumni, as advisors to the CECC

• Communicate the CECC’s purpose and modes of engagement, as well as the work being done in the community

• Diversify funding for local efforts by engaging businesses and alumni

• Develop impact measurement benchmarks