Community engagement is involvement and participation in an organization for the welfare of the
community
A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...
.
Defining characteristics
Volunteering
Volunteering is an elective and freely chosen act of an individual or group giving their time and labor, often for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergenc ...
, which involves giving personal time to projects in
humanitarian NGOs or religious groups, are forms of community involvement. The engagement is generally motivated by values and ideals of
social justice
Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has of ...
. Community engagement can be volunteering at food banks, homeless shelters, emergency assistance programs, neighborhood cleanup programs, etc.
It is also defined as "a dynamic relational process that facilitates communication, interaction, involvement, and exchange between an organization and a community for a range of social and organizational outcomes". As a concept, engagement features attributes of connection, interaction, participation, and involvement, designed to achieve or elicit an outcome at individual, organization, or social levels. Current research acknowledges engagement's socially-situated nature. Community engagement, therefore, offers an ethical, reflexive, and socially responsive approach to community-organizational relationships with engagement practices that aim to both understand and be responsive to community needs, views, and expectations. For academic research to have an impact, community engagement is essential, especially for the research around population health and wellness issues. It is imperative that the researchers employ community-engaged approaches where community members and organizations and researchers work hand-in-hand to identify the problems, co-develop solutions, and recommend policy changes.
Community engagement is a community-centered orientation based in dialogue. Community engagement enables a more contextualized understanding of community members' perceptions of the topics and contexts, and facilitates stronger relationships among and between community members. The outcome of community engagement is ultimately social capital and stronger relational networks.
[Johnston, K. A., & Lane, A. (2018). Building relational capital: The contribution of episodic and relational community engagement. Public Relation Review. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.10.006] While
community organizing
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other or share some common problem come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. Unlike those who promote more-consensual community buil ...
involves the process of building a grassroots movement involving communities, community engagement primarily deals with the practice of moving communities toward change, usually from a stalled or similarly suspended position.
See also
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List of community topics
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Community development
The United Nations defines community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems." It is a broad concept, applied to the practices of civic leaders, activist ...
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Community building
Community building is a field of practices directed toward the creation or enhancement of community among individuals within a regional area (such as a neighborhood) or with a common need or interest. It is often encompassed under the fields o ...
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Community economic development Community economic development (CED) is a field of study that actively elicits community involvement when working with government and private sectors to build strong communities, industries, and markets. It includes collaborative and participatory ...
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Community emergency response team
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Community practice
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Community service
Community service is unpaid work performed by a person or group of people for the benefit and betterment of their community contributing to a noble cause. In many cases, people doing community service are compensated in other ways, such as gettin ...
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Communities That Care
References
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Engagement