A New Platform to Build Stronger Community Partnerships
The new Partnership Platform will connect Duke鈥檚 faculty, staff, students and alumni with neighbors, community partners and organizations for volunteer opportunities, community engagement resources and more to support sustainable engagement and scholarship.
And now, to help make it an even more valuable tool for everyone at Duke and in the region, DCA is eager to partner with schools and units to ensure the Partnership Platform reflects the full scope of community engagement efforts across Duke.
Until now, connecting Duke volunteers to community groups and helping those groups find the right person or program within the university hasn鈥檛 been as easy as it should be. Sometimes, it could be quite a challenge.
The Partnership Platform website will benefit community organizations and university groups. Duke and community groups can match volunteers to organizations, map community needs, and measure our collective efforts.
The website was created in response to a recommendation from the Duke and Durham Today and Tomorrow Task Force, one of several created by Duke鈥檚 Board of Trustees in 2021. Comprising trustees, faculty, and students, they provided recommendations to guide the university in broadening collaboration and partnership in Durham. The Task Force spent a year listening to community leaders, and it became clear that a central knowledge base would better connect and align efforts between Duke and community partners, supporting Duke鈥檚 efforts to 鈥減artner with purpose鈥 and improve health and well-being in communities.
Tuere Bowles is associate vice president for DCA's operations, research, and advancement team and is excited about how the Platform will better equip students, scholars, and researchers to create more sustainable, mutually beneficial partnerships.
鈥淒uke is fortunate to be part of a community with strong nonprofit organizations, local government leaders, and engaged neighbors,鈥 said Bowles. 鈥淭he Partnership Platform provides a way for the incredible work already happening across the institution to be more visible for our community partners, and vice versa.鈥
The Partnership Platform is now live after beta testing with several Duke groups and demonstrating its functions with community partners. Bowles said the initial goal is 鈥渢o get Duke programs involved in community outreach to participate and to include their partnerships and collaborations鈥 as it is rolled out to a broader range of nonprofits and community groups. During the Centennial Volunteer Fair in September, many community partners could demo the Partnership Platform in real time.
鈥淒uke is fortunate to be part of a community with strong nonprofit organizations, local government leaders, and engaged neighbors. The Partnership Platform provides a way for the incredible work already happening across the institution to be more visible for our community partners, and vice versa.鈥
Tuere Bowles, Duke Community Affairs
The Pratt School of Engineering was a beta tester of the site. Pratt professor Adrienne Stiff-Roberts, the school鈥檚 associate dean for community-based innovation, said, 鈥淭he base of existing community partnerships and participating Duke faculty and staff will be very beneficial for establishing collaborations inside and outside of Duke that enhance impact rather than duplicate effort.鈥
Her team also had ideas to improve the site, suggestions that have been incorporated into a section called 鈥.鈥 On this portion of the site, academic schools, units, internal working groups, and community-based organizations can add course modules for students, faculty, and staff to facilitate shared learning and knowledge exchanges on relevant and timely community topics.
鈥淲e wanted a way to guide students, staff, and faculty about best practices for working with community partners,鈥 said Stiff-Roberts. 鈥淎s a first step, we thought a brief online module highlighting important concepts would be a convenient way to share information. In working with the Duke Community Affairs team, this functionality was added to the Partnership Platform. Our first module is designed for Pratt undergraduate student groups who work within the community.鈥
The platform also includes community-engaged partnerships and many significant community initiatives.
鈥淚t will make connecting Duke resources with local community groups much easier and streamline outreach efforts,鈥 said Kimberly Monroe, program manager for community engagement in Duke鈥檚 Office of Community Health.
鈥淚t centralizes important information, making it easier to collaborate on projects to address needs identified by the community. Additionally, the platform's data visualization capabilities will help us measure the impact of our outreach efforts and make informed decisions about future initiatives.鈥
In addition to promoting volunteer efforts and sharing community funding opportunities, a third part of the platform is an interactive data dashboard that displays publicly available data for social drivers of health from the national level down to the neighborhood scale. Data can also facilitate classroom learning and research and help support community needs. A Community Mapping Dashboard centralizes existing datasets and information using over 75 indicators from various public sources.
The database can retrieve data about demographics, economic trends, health outcomes, environmental quality, and social drivers of health by county or even zip code within seconds. It also provides trends in children鈥檚 health, air quality, public transportation, cancer rates, and other important signifiers, making it useful for our partners and Duke constituents.
Duke officials hope all university academic programs, student groups, and employee efforts involved in community engagement and partnerships will contribute information to the platform. Bowles said each program added makes the site more meaningful to community organizations.
The Partnership Platform is available for all Duke community members to access and provide feedback, and the team seeks to collaborate with other schools and units across Duke to refine and enhance the website's user experience. If you are interested, please reach out to partnership-team@duke.edu.