Community Partners

Thank you for your interest in partnering with the Office of Community-Engaged Leadership to create social change around community-driven priorities. We strive to create and sustain community partnerships through programs and initiatives that strengthen the connection between campus and the community, in which we learn from each other to create more just and sustainable communities.

While we collaborate with several nonprofit organizations in Boone (the Heart of the High Country), we also foster relationships with organizations serving other parts of our region. Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Mitchell, Watauga, Wilkes and Yancey counties are collectively referred to as the High Country.

Our community partners have access to a wide variety of resources and opportunities through our office. A list of current community partners can be found on our website. Nonprofit organizations complete a short registration process to formalize our partnership and be featured in this database to reach student volunteers.

Questions? Please call our office at 828-262-2545.

Request support

The Office of Community-Engaged Leadership understands that many groups across campus and our community rely on hardworking volunteers to staff their events and accomplish key goals. We welcome requests from the community seeking individual or group volunteers for one-time or ongoing projects that may not be met by service-learning courses or other partnerships. Such requests might broadly address constant needs such as tutoring young students or serving meals to the hungry. Other requests might focus on one-time events or large-scale initiatives.

Our staff cannot guarantee a student response, but we can promote items to students through various platforms on behalf of our community partners.

Six weeks before an event (or sooner), you may reach out to our office to request a volunteer opportunity to be posted. Please email Brent James at jamesba@appstate.edu and include in your message: the specific volunteer need with expected tasks, dates, times, and contact details/registration instructions. Typically, these events are shared to the campus community, and interested students contact the community partner directly to arrange their volunteer appointment. We understand that organizations may have additional questions about reaching specific student groups or campus offices; community partners are welcome to schedule a meeting to request other input.

Become a partner

If your organization is not formally connected to the Office of Community-Engaged Leadership as an official Community Partner, the steps to becoming one are:

Contact Brent James, Assistant Director for Community Engagement, at 828-262-2545 or jamesba@appstate.edu to begin our intake process, which will include the review of a Memorandum of Understanding.
We will arrange a time to visit your organization.
We will explore how to get your organization connected to the University and its resources in the way that best suits your needs.

Benefits of partnership

Membership has its privileges. Listed below are just a few:

Community Partner Database: List your agency in our Community Partner Database to enable students, staff and faculty to learn more about your mission.
Stay Informed:
- Community Partner email list: Please email us at cel@appstate.edu to be added to our email list (or add additional staff email addresses) and stay up to date with opportunities for grants, partnerships, volunteers, and more!
- Newsletter: List volunteer opportunities in our bi-weekly newsletter sent to students and other campus community members.
  - Want to learn about upcoming opportunities and more offered by our office? Sign up to receive our newsletter.
  - To request submission of an upcoming service need into our newsletter, please email us at cel@appstate.edu and a member of our team will reach out.
Volunteer Promotion: Promote your recurring activities or events through our office, including listing regular opportunities in our Service Book.
Projects: Host a service-learning or community-based research project with one of our academic partners. For more information, visit the Civic Engagement website.
University Resources: Take advantage of various connection opportunities and other fun events.
Other Opportunities: Meet other organizations across the area with similar values who can collaborate on community issues. Learn about other professional development opportunities to support your organization’s growth.

University resources

We have a variety of opportunities designed to help agencies build stronger connections with App State students, faculty and staff. Explore the following University resources to start building campus connections.

Clubs and Organizations

Select events invite Community Partners to campus to engage with students, faculty and staff. Opportunities like Club Expo, a large involvement fair that kicks off each academic year, may help raise awareness of your organization and recruit volunteers, interns, and individuals/organizations interested in supporting your mission. Our university hosts 400+ student clubs and organizations. One or more of these may align well with your mission and be a good fit to partner with for volunteer events. Depending upon your needs, staff may be able to connect you to colleagues and students.

Internships

Nonprofit organizations often rely on dedicated volunteers to support many administrative and operations tasks central to their mission. Sometimes, an organization can also benefit from the long-term, skilled commitment of interns interested in gaining real-world experience in their academic field and supporting a cause close to their heart. We are happy to help refer you to the university’s Career Development Center. Staff in this office can help you post an internship offering or job announcement on our campus networking platform, Handshake.

Research

Sometimes nonprofits would like to conduct research in their field and need help connecting to experts. Many faculty specialize in particular academic areas that may overlap with the particular issues your organization works to address. If you’re interested in connecting with faculty to learn more about their research areas and ways you may partner or glean from their experiences, contact the Director of Academic Civic Engagement, Dr. Brian MacHarg at machargbd@appstate.edu.

Service- and Applied-Learning Courses

Many courses across the university have a service-learning component, engaging students in required service hours which directly impact their grade. These courses often must be arranged in advance to be appropriately listed in academic registration materials. To learn about how to connect with these courses, contact the Director of Academic Civic Engagement, Dr. Brian MacHarg at machargbd@appstate.edu.

Academic Civic Engagement may also be able to connect you to other courses for special projects. Are you looking to update your marketing methods? Expand a program? Develop a new event? Select courses across various academic programs often have a large applied-learning focus. In these instances, faculty may be looking to partner with an area business, nonprofit or community group to help their students apply course material to address a real-world problem.

Professional development resources

We understand that not all organizations have the same needs, causes or missions, but all of our community partners are interested in positioning themselves for success. Below are some resources, tools and conferences that we have learned of which may interest you.