Community Partners

The Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement partners with nonprofits, schools or programs in and around eastern North Carolina that provide services to community members and also provide service and learning opportunities for ECU students, faculty, and staff.  Our community partners address social injustices and create positive change within our local, regional, and global communities.  As co-educators, CLCE community partners support the beneficial exchange of knowledge, information, and resources for ECU students, faculty, and staff.

We believe that partnership is a relational process that supports collaboration, communication, and a commitment to community.  CLCE partnerships support the following guiding principles:

• The relationship between partners in the partnership is characterized by mutual trust, respect, genuineness, and commitment.
• The partnership builds upon identified strengths and assets, but also works to address needs and increase capacity of all partners.
• Partners make clear and open communication an ongoing priority in the partnership by striving to understand each other’s needs and self-interests, and developing a common language.
• There is feedback among all stakeholders in the partnership, with the goal of continuously improving the partnership and its outcomes.
• Partnerships can dissolve, and when they do, a process for closure exists.
• The partnership balances power among partners and enables resources among partners to be shared.
• Partners share benefits of the partnership’s accomplishments.

Click for a current list of community partners