why community action is important essay

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Importance of Local Community Action in Shaping Development

Introduction

The need for local participation and the organization of local residents to meet the challenges facing their communities is of increasing importance. Extension professionals and policy-makers are more frequently faced with the task of establishing programs in settings characterized by conflict among different groups of stakeholders with very different needs, values, and policy preferences. In many communities, these conflicts are often rooted in differences between groups that seek to protect community quality and those that seek to exploit local resources (especially the local workforce and natural resource base) as a means of achieving economic development. Equally common is the consistent transfer of responsibilities for services from government agencies to the private community sector. Such conditions have resulted in local residents taking on a greater role in providing services and planning for future needs. 

In response to the pressures and changes in our communities, activists, grassroots social change organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and coalitions of concerned community groups have emerged to shape and guide the development process. Similarly organized local residents have played instrumental roles in identifying new development options in localities that historically were presented with few such options. Small-scale civil society organizations (SCSOs) sometimes develop in communities with holistic responses to community needs (McGovern, 2013; Olson and Brennan, 2018; Olson and Brennan, 2017). These and other types of community-based action in these and other settings is seen as essential to community development and to the social and economic well-being of the locale.

Community and the Action Process

The emergence of community involves both interaction among residents and community action.  Community action refers to the process of building social relationships in pursuit of common community interests and maintaining local life (Wilkinson, 1991).  Community action is seen as being the foundation of the community development process because it encompasses deliberate and positive efforts designed to meet the general needs of all local residents.  This process represents multiple and diverse interests in the locality, and consequently provides a more comprehensive approach to community development (Wilkinson, 1991). Therefore, the action process is intended to benefit the entire community and to cut across divides that may exist (class, race, social), often arising from an emotional or social need (Phillimore & McCabe, 2015).

In the process of community development, local action focuses on the improvement of social well-being and involves people working together in pursuit of their general interests.  This power is manifested in the ability of individuals to come together and work toward common goals. When diverse individuals and their organizations interact with one another, they begin to mutually understand the needs and wants that are common to all residents (Wilkinson, 1991; Bridger, Brennan, and Luloff, 2011; McGovern, 2013; Phillimore & McCabe, 2015).  Such action provides local residents with the ability to retain community identities, maintain local control over decision-making, and address their own development needs. It is a central component of community and social well-being.

The existence of community action directs attention to the fact that local people acting together often have the power to transform and change their community (Gaventa, 1980; Bridger, Brennan, and Luloff, 2011; Olson and Brennan, 2018; Olson and Brennan, 2017; McGovern, 2013). Community action and corresponding development can be seen as the process of building relationships that increase the adaptive capacity of local people within a common territory.  This adaptive capacity is reflected in the ability of people to manage, utilize, and enhance those resources available to them in addressing their local issues (Wilkinson, 1991; Bridger, Brennan, and Luloff, 2011; Luloff and Bridger, 2003; Phillimore & McCabe, 2015; McGovern, 2013). As long as people care about each other and the place they live, every community has the potential for such collective action.  This ability allows distinctions to be made between simple aggregates of people and actual communities.

The Community Action Process

To impact social well-being, community action must seek the development of community, not simply the individual elements within it (Summers, 1986; Christenson and Robinson, 1989; Wilkinson, 1991; McGovern, 2013; Olson and Brennan, 2018; Olson and Brennan, 2017). The community action process can be seen as containing far more than simple individual actions and efforts (Wilkinson, 1991; Seyfang & Smith, 2007; McGovern, 2013). Most effective action efforts proceed through a series of steps that focus on solving specific problems and bringing residents closer together.  Five stages of accomplishment, including initiation, organization of sponsorship, goal setting, recruitment, and implementation, can be identified within this process (Wilkinson, 1970; Wilkinson, 1991):

The first stage, initiation, focuses on promoting awareness of the issue related to the action. Initiation and spread of interest occur when community members recognize and define an issue as being a problem or need, and begin to discuss it as a potential focus for group action.

The second stage focuses on the organization of sponsorship. This step addresses the structures, organizations, and resources available within and outside of the community.  Such factors are important in relation to assessing community needs and the development of action efforts to address perceived problems.

The third stage is goal setting and strategy development. This stage develops targets for action and identifies strategies for achieving community-decided goals.

The fourth stage is recruitment and mobilization of needed resources including people, money, and materials.  Community members possess a variety of experience, skills, funding, materials, networks, and other resources vital to achieving desired community goals.  Organizing and maximizing these resources significantly impacts the success of community action efforts.

The final stage involves the application of these resources in the implementation of plans to achieve the desired goals.  At this stage, specific actions are taken, assessed, adjusted, and implemented again.

Community action and the emergence of community should not be seen as representing romantic or idealized notions of local harmony and solidarity (Wilkinson, 1991; Bridger, Brennan, and Luloff, 2011; Luloff and Bridger, 2003; McGovern, 2013; Olson and Brennan, 2018; Olson and Brennan, 2017). The truth is that focused and deliberate action represents something far different. Action emerges out of interaction between diverse social groups, who often have clashing or at least distinctly different points of view. Interaction facilitates the coming together of such groups to assess their common and general needs. From this they form plans for action that benefit all involved, and ultimately the community in general.

The importance of organizing diverse local residents to help shape local development cannot be overstated.  By providing a comprehensive assessment of local conditions that represents all segments of the community, more efficient and successful programs can be developed.  The input and guidance from local residents allows development to build on the unique conditions and character of the community and allow local decision making to remain in the locale.  All of these create an environment where active local residents directly shape the community and its well-being.

Bridger, J.C., Brennan, M.A., and Luloff, A.E. 2011. "The Interactional Approach to Community", Chapter 9, p. 85-100 included in J. Robinson and G. Green (eds.), New Perspectives in Community Development. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press.

Christenson, J. A. and J. W. Robinson. 1989. Community Development in Perspective. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press.

Gaventa, J. 1980. Power and Powerlessness:  Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Luloff, A.E., and J. Bridger. 2003.  Community Agency and Local Development.  Pp. 203-213 in, Challenges for Rural America in the Twenty-First Century, edited by D. Brown and L. Swanson. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

McGovern, Pauline. 2013. "Cross-sector partnerships with small voluntary organizations: some reflections from a case study of a mutual support group." Voluntary Sector Review 4 (2): 223-240.

Olson, B. and Brennan, M.  2018. "From Community Engagement to Community Emergence: The Holistic Program Design Approach."  International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement. 5(1): 5-19. 

Olson, B. and Brennan, M. 2017.  "From Community Engagement to Community Emergence:  A Conceptual Framework and Model to Rethink Youth-Community Interaction".  In:  The Comprehensive Handbook for Community Development. R. Phillips and B. McGrath, Editors. Taylor & Francis Publishers. 

Phillimore, J., & McCabe, A. 2015. Small-scale civil society and social policy: the importance of experiential learning, insider knowledge and diverse motivations in shaping community action. Voluntary Sector Review, 6(2), 135-151.

Seyfang, G., & Smith, A. 2007. Grassroots innovations for sustainable development: Towards a new research and policy agenda. Environmental politics, 16(4), 584-603.

Summers, G. 1986. "Rural Community Development." Annual Review of Sociology. 12:341-371.

Wilkinson, K. 1970. "Phases and roles in community action." Rural Sociology. 35 (1): 54-68.

Wilkinson, K. 1991. The Community in Rural America. New York, NY: Greenwood Press, 1991.

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Southern Rural Development Center

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How to Write the Community Essay – Guide with Examples (2023-24)

September 6, 2023

Students applying to college this year will inevitably confront the community essay. In fact, most students will end up responding to several community essay prompts for different schools. For this reason, you should know more than simply how to approach the community essay as a genre. Rather, you will want to learn how to decipher the nuances of each particular prompt, in order to adapt your response appropriately. In this article, we’ll show you how to do just that, through several community essay examples. These examples will also demonstrate how to avoid cliché and make the community essay authentically and convincingly your own.

Emphasis on Community

Do keep in mind that inherent in the word “community” is the idea of multiple people. The personal statement already provides you with a chance to tell the college admissions committee about yourself as an individual. The community essay, however, suggests that you depict yourself among others. You can use this opportunity to your advantage by showing off interpersonal skills, for example. Or, perhaps you wish to relate a moment that forged important relationships. This in turn will indicate what kind of connections you’ll make in the classroom with college peers and professors.

Apart from comprising numerous people, a community can appear in many shapes and sizes. It could be as small as a volleyball team, or as large as a diaspora. It could fill a town soup kitchen, or spread across five boroughs. In fact, due to the internet, certain communities today don’t even require a physical place to congregate. Communities can form around a shared identity, shared place, shared hobby, shared ideology, or shared call to action. They can even arise due to a shared yet unforeseen circumstance.

What is the Community Essay All About?             

In a nutshell, the community essay should exhibit three things:

• An aspect of yourself, 2. in the context of a community you belonged to, and 3. how this experience may shape your contribution to the community you’ll join in college.

It may look like a fairly simple equation: 1 + 2 = 3. However, each college will word their community essay prompt differently, so it’s important to look out for additional variables. One college may use the community essay as a way to glimpse your core values. Another may use the essay to understand how you would add to diversity on campus. Some may let you decide in which direction to take it—and there are many ways to go!

To get a better idea of how the prompts differ, let’s take a look at some real community essay prompts from the current admission cycle.

Sample 2023-2024 Community Essay Prompts

1) brown university.

“Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what unique contributions this might allow you to make to the Brown community. (200-250 words)”

A close reading of this prompt shows that Brown puts particular emphasis on place. They do this by using the words “home,” “College Hill,” and “where they came from.” Thus, Brown invites writers to think about community through the prism of place. They also emphasize the idea of personal growth or change, through the words “inspired or challenged you.” Therefore, Brown wishes to see how the place you grew up in has affected you. And, they want to know how you in turn will affect their college community.

“NYU was founded on the belief that a student’s identity should not dictate the ability for them to access higher education. That sense of opportunity for all students, of all backgrounds, remains a part of who we are today and a critical part of what makes us a world-class university. Our community embraces diversity, in all its forms, as a cornerstone of the NYU experience.

We would like to better understand how your experiences would help us to shape and grow our diverse community. Please respond in 250 words or less.”

Here, NYU places an emphasis on students’ “identity,” “backgrounds,” and “diversity,” rather than any physical place. (For some students, place may be tied up in those ideas.) Furthermore, while NYU doesn’t ask specifically how identity has changed the essay writer, they do ask about your “experience.” Take this to mean that you can still recount a specific moment, or several moments, that work to portray your particular background. You should also try to link your story with NYU’s values of inclusivity and opportunity.

3) University of Washington

“Our families and communities often define us and our individual worlds. Community might refer to your cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood or school, sports team or club, co-workers, etc. Describe the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of the UW. (300 words max) Tip: Keep in mind that the UW strives to create a community of students richly diverse in cultural backgrounds, experiences, values and viewpoints.”

UW ’s community essay prompt may look the most approachable, for they help define the idea of community. You’ll notice that most of their examples (“families,” “cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood”…) place an emphasis on people. This may clue you in on their desire to see the relationships you’ve made. At the same time, UW uses the words “individual” and “richly diverse.” They, like NYU, wish to see how you fit in and stand out, in order to boost campus diversity.

Writing Your First Community Essay

Begin by picking which community essay you’ll write first. (For practical reasons, you’ll probably want to go with whichever one is due earliest.) Spend time doing a close reading of the prompt, as we’ve done above. Underline key words. Try to interpret exactly what the prompt is asking through these keywords.

Next, brainstorm. I recommend doing this on a blank piece of paper with a pencil. Across the top, make a row of headings. These might be the communities you’re a part of, or the components that make up your identity. Then, jot down descriptive words underneath in each column—whatever comes to you. These words may invoke people and experiences you had with them, feelings, moments of growth, lessons learned, values developed, etc. Now, narrow in on the idea that offers the richest material and that corresponds fully with the prompt.

Lastly, write! You’ll definitely want to describe real moments, in vivid detail. This will keep your essay original, and help you avoid cliché. However, you’ll need to summarize the experience and answer the prompt succinctly, so don’t stray too far into storytelling mode.

How To Adapt Your Community Essay

Once your first essay is complete, you’ll need to adapt it to the other colleges involving community essays on your list. Again, you’ll want to turn to the prompt for a close reading, and recognize what makes this prompt different from the last. For example, let’s say you’ve written your essay for UW about belonging to your swim team, and how the sports dynamics shaped you. Adapting that essay to Brown’s prompt could involve more of a focus on place. You may ask yourself, how was my swim team in Alaska different than the swim teams we competed against in other states?

Once you’ve adapted the content, you’ll also want to adapt the wording to mimic the prompt. For example, let’s say your UW essay states, “Thinking back to my years in the pool…” As you adapt this essay to Brown’s prompt, you may notice that Brown uses the word “reflection.” Therefore, you might change this sentence to “Reflecting back on my years in the pool…” While this change is minute, it cleverly signals to the reader that you’ve paid attention to the prompt, and are giving that school your full attention.

What to Avoid When Writing the Community Essay  

• Avoid cliché. Some students worry that their idea is cliché, or worse, that their background or identity is cliché. However, what makes an essay cliché is not the content, but the way the content is conveyed. This is where your voice and your descriptions become essential.
• Avoid giving too many examples. Stick to one community, and one or two anecdotes arising from that community that allow you to answer the prompt fully.
• Don’t exaggerate or twist facts. Sometimes students feel they must make themselves sound more “diverse” than they feel they are. Luckily, diversity is not a feeling. Likewise, diversity does not simply refer to one’s heritage. If the prompt is asking about your identity or background, you can show the originality of your experiences through your actions and your thinking.

Community Essay Examples and Analysis

Brown university community essay example.

I used to hate the NYC subway. I’ve taken it since I was six, going up and down Manhattan, to and from school. By high school, it was a daily nightmare. Spending so much time underground, underneath fluorescent lighting, squashed inside a rickety, rocking train car among strangers, some of whom wanted to talk about conspiracy theories, others who had bedbugs or B.O., or who manspread across two seats, or bickered—it wore me out. The challenge of going anywhere seemed absurd. I dreaded the claustrophobia and disgruntlement.

Yet the subway also inspired my understanding of community. I will never forget the morning I saw a man, several seats away, slide out of his seat and hit the floor. The thump shocked everyone to attention. What we noticed: he appeared drunk, possibly homeless. I was digesting this when a second man got up and, through a sort of awkward embrace, heaved the first man back into his seat. The rest of us had stuck to subway social codes: don’t step out of line. Yet this second man’s silent actions spoke loudly. They said, “I care.”

That day I realized I belong to a group of strangers. What holds us together is our transience, our vulnerabilities, and a willingness to assist. This community is not perfect but one in motion, a perpetual work-in-progress. Now I make it my aim to hold others up. I plan to contribute to the Brown community by helping fellow students and strangers in moments of precariousness.    

Brown University Community Essay Example Analysis

Here the student finds an original way to write about where they come from. The subway is not their home, yet it remains integral to ideas of belonging. The student shows how a community can be built between strangers, in their responsibility toward each other. The student succeeds at incorporating key words from the prompt (“challenge,” “inspired” “Brown community,” “contribute”) into their community essay.

UW Community Essay Example

I grew up in Hawaii, a world bound by water and rich in diversity. In school we learned that this sacred land was invaded, first by Captain Cook, then by missionaries, whalers, traders, plantation owners, and the U.S. government. My parents became part of this problematic takeover when they moved here in the 90s. The first community we knew was our church congregation. At the beginning of mass, we shook hands with our neighbors. We held hands again when we sang the Lord’s Prayer. I didn’t realize our church wasn’t “normal” until our diocese was informed that we had to stop dancing hula and singing Hawaiian hymns. The order came from the Pope himself.

Eventually, I lost faith in God and organized institutions. I thought the banning of hula—an ancient and pure form of expression—seemed medieval, ignorant, and unfair, given that the Hawaiian religion had already been stamped out. I felt a lack of community and a distrust for any place in which I might find one. As a postcolonial inhabitant, I could never belong to the Hawaiian culture, no matter how much I valued it. Then, I was shocked to learn that Queen Ka’ahumanu herself had eliminated the Kapu system, a strict code of conduct in which women were inferior to men. Next went the Hawaiian religion. Queen Ka’ahumanu burned all the temples before turning to Christianity, hoping this religion would offer better opportunities for her people.

Community Essay (Continued)

I’m not sure what to make of this history. Should I view Queen Ka’ahumanu as a feminist hero, or another failure in her islands’ tragedy? Nothing is black and white about her story, but she did what she thought was beneficial to her people, regardless of tradition. From her story, I’ve learned to accept complexity. I can disagree with institutionalized religion while still believing in my neighbors. I am a product of this place and their presence. At UW, I plan to add to campus diversity through my experience, knowing that diversity comes with contradictions and complications, all of which should be approached with an open and informed mind.

UW Community Essay Example Analysis

This student also manages to weave in words from the prompt (“family,” “community,” “world,” “product of it,” “add to the diversity,” etc.). Moreover, the student picks one of the examples of community mentioned in the prompt, (namely, a religious group,) and deepens their answer by addressing the complexity inherent in the community they’ve been involved in. While the student displays an inner turmoil about their identity and participation, they find a way to show how they’d contribute to an open-minded campus through their values and intellectual rigor.

What’s Next

For more on supplemental essays and essay writing guides, check out the following articles:

• How to Write the Why This Major Essay + Example
• How to Write the Overcoming Challenges Essay + Example
• How to Start a College Essay – 12 Techniques and Tips
• College Essay

Kaylen Baker

With a BA in Literary Studies from Middlebury College, an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, and a Master’s in Translation from Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Kaylen has been working with students on their writing for over five years. Previously, Kaylen taught a fiction course for high school students as part of Columbia Artists/Teachers, and served as an English Language Assistant for the French National Department of Education. Kaylen is an experienced writer/translator whose work has been featured in Los Angeles Review, Hybrid, San Francisco Bay Guardian, France Today, and Honolulu Weekly, among others.

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Why Community Engagement Matters

Citizens are ‘engaged’ when they play a meaningful role in the deliberations, discussions, decision-making and/or implementation of projects or programs affecting them. Accordingly, organizational and government leaders need to broaden the way they see their responsibilities to include roles as facilitator, supporter, collaborator, and empower of citizens and stakeholders.

This change requires letting go of some of the traditional reins of power and trusting that citizens can and will effectively engage in the issues. The result is a partnership(s) that is nearly always healthy for a community and can more effectively address the issue or problem.

While research regarding the benefits and importance of community engagement varies, several key opportunities are commonly identified. Among these are:

• Increase the likelihood that projects or solutions will be widely accepted. Citizens who participate in these processes show significant commitment to help make the projects happen.
• Create more effective solutions. Drawing on local knowledge from a diverse group creates solutions that are practical and effective.
• Improve citizens' knowledge and skills in problem solving. Participants learn about the issues in-depth. Greater knowledge allows them to see multiple sides of the problem. Citizens can practice communication and decision-making skills.
• Empower and integrate people from different backgrounds. Groups that feel ignored can gain greater control over their lives and their community. When people from different areas of the community work together, they often find that they have much in common.
• Create local networks of community members. The more people who know what is going on and who are willing to work toward a goal, the more likely a community is to be successful in reaching its goals.
• Create several opportunities for discussing concerns. Regular, on-going discussions allow people to express concerns before problems become too big or out of control.
• Increase trust in community organizations and governance. Working together improves communication and understanding. Knowing what government, community citizens and leaders, and organizations can and cannot do may reduce future conflict.

(Adapted from Bassler et al, 2008).

In addition a well-designed engagement effort allows you to identify and understand:

• Differing values and priorities
• Differing frames, or ways citizens view the community or a particular project
• Various alternatives and consequences
• Perceptions of benefits and risks
• Different ideas and potential solutions and actions
• The characteristics and challenges of your " wicked " issue

Bassler, A. et al., " Developing Effective Citizen Engagement: A How-to Guide for Community Leaders ." Center for Rural America , 2008.

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• Section 11. Participatory Evaluation

• Main Section

What is action planning?

How does action planning help a community, why is action planning important, when should you create an action plan, what are the components of an action plan framework.

Have you had the motivation to mobilize your community to address a problem that affects the local population, but just not known how to begin? You might wonder; “How do I investigate the problem?”, “Whom do I involve in the strategies to address the problem?”, “How do I successfully facilitate a group of diverse representatives from a community to reach consensus about a common vision and the actions that will turn ideas into results?”

This tool has the answers to these and other important questions. It will prepare you to lead your community in action planning.

The overall goal of action planning is to increase your community’s ability to work together to affect conditions and outcomes that matter to its residents—and to do so both over time and across issues of interest.

As your community works towards a broad vision of health for all, creating supportive conditions for change requires comprehensive efforts among diverse sectors of the community. These include health organizations, faith communities, schools, and businesses. Representatives of each sector come together to form a community coalition. Your community coalition can strive to influence systems changes—programs, policies, and practices that can enhance the community’s capacity to be a healthy environment.

A community coalition initiates its work by generating an action plan.

An action plan outlines what should happen to achieve the vision for a healthy community. Desirable changes and proposed activities (action steps), timelines, and assignment of accountability provide a detailed road map for collaborators to follow.

Regardless of the complexity of the problem at hand within your community, action planning helps you:

• Understand the community’s perception of both the issue at hand and its potential solutions
• Assure inclusive and integrated participation across community sectors in the planning process
• Build consensus on what can and should be done based on the community’s unique assets and needs
• Specify concrete ways in which members of the community coalition can take action

The list above describes how an action plan helps a community’s sectors and residents within those sectors work together to achieve a common vision. This tool will address each item and provide guidance for your action planning work that lies ahead.

Proper planning of any initiative is critical for yielding the best results or outcomes possible. An action plan, while a significant investment of time and energy, can be an effective tool that grounds all collaborators with a common purpose. Developing an action plan is a critical first step toward ensuring project success.

An action plan assures that:

• No detail is overlooked
• Proposed action steps are feasible and/or realistic
• Collaborators follow through with their commitments
• Measurable activities are documented and evaluated

Overall, action planning is important because it provides a reference point with a detailed time line and assignment of accountability for accomplishing tasks along the path to making a difference.

Research findings of the Center for Community Health and Development suggest that there are a number of factors that appear to have a positive effect on rates of community and system change—and one of those includes action planning:

• Analyzing Information About the Problem, Goals, and Factors Affecting Them
• Establishing Your Group's Vision and Mission
• Defining Organizational Structure and Operating Mechanisms
• Developing a Framework or Model of Change
• Developing and Using Strategic and Action Plans
• Arranging for Community Mobilizers
• Developing Leadership
• Implementing Effective Interventions
• Assuring Technical Assistance
• Documenting Progress and Using Feedback
• Making Outcomes Matter
• Sustaining the Work

Ideally, you should develop an action plan within the first six to twelve months of the start of an initiative or organization. Once an action plan is generated, it should be revisited frequently (e.g., as often as monthly but at least annually) so it can be modified to meet the changing needs of your community.

While some issues may be universal (for example, mental health issues), each community will have different assets and barriers for improving conditions for its residents. Therefore, each community’s intervention strategy for influencing programs, policies, and practices will be unique. However, a series of steps—a framework—helps guide the process of community action and change within the context of a community’s unique needs.

If you approach the action planning process as a manageable series of steps, you can take charge and help your community coalition work through each one with confidence.

Determine what people and sectors of the community to involve

As you begin your action planning process, you will need to accomplish three things:

• Document the problem or issue with information and statistics
• Learn more about your community
• Involve community members

How do you go about accomplishing these steps?

Listen to the community about issues and options . Conduct focus groups and public forums to obtain information about perceived issues and solutions within the community.

The key pieces of information you should gather in each listening session or focus group include:

• The perceived problem or issue
• Perceived barriers or resistance to addressing the issue
• Resources for change
• Recommend solutions and alternatives
• Current and past initiatives to address the problem or issue

Gather data to document the problem . In addition to hearing the community perspective on problems or goals related to the issue at hand, it is important to document the issue using existing information sources.

• "What are the issues related to the problem/topic in your community?"
• "What are the consequences of these issues?"
• "Who is affected?"
• "How are they affected?"
• "Are these issues of widespread concern?"

While the information that you collect can answer the questions above, remember that it will also play a key role in helping you determine how effective your group was in addressing the problem. You will use these baseline data—data that document the extent of the problem prior to implementation of your initiative—for comparison with data that document the extent of the problem after implementation of your initiative.

Listed below are helpful data sources that you may want to investigate. Keep in mind that not all of them will be relevant to your particular issue or problem.

• State or county health department data
• State social services department data
• Hospital admissions and exit records
• Police records
• Chamber of commerce data
• Nonprofit service agency data
• School district data
• Information from your local reference librarian
• Data from specialized local, statewide, or national organizations

Also see federal websites such as:

• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s reportable disease files
• The National Center for Health Statistics’ Statistical Abstract of the United States
• Census data
• Maternal and Child Health Bureau, HRSA, Title V Block Grant Information System

Become aware of local resources and past and current efforts : If current efforts targeting your issue exist, think of ways in which they can become more effective via support, advocacy or other means.  Consider the following:

• Do current efforts have a parallel vision?
• How many people are they serving?
• Do the services and program meet local needs?

Particularly if pre-existing initiatives had a similiar mission and failed, seek to understand why and apply those lessons learned to your action planning.  You might gain valuable insight by talking with the agency or group with the failed initiative.

Involve key officials and grassroots leaders in a planning group : While you may easily identify key officials, service providers, or representatives from relevant agencies, extend the boundaries of your planning coalition to be as inclusive as possible. Remember that your planning group should reflect the diversity of the local community.

Your group might use interviews with both key officials and key grassroots leaders to answer the following questions:

• Who can make things happen on this issue?
• What individuals are in a position to create (or block!) change?
• What contact people within the initiative would be most successful in getting those key officials to become involved?
• What neighborhoods and ethnic and cultural communities are particularly affected by this issue?
• What individuals and groups make things happen in these neighborhoods?
• What contact people within the initiative would be most successful in involving members of these neighborhoods?

Convene a planning group

Once you identify and include interested participants for the planning group, publicize planning sessions to assure that they are open to all group members. As facilitator, you should extend additional courtesies to planning group members, such as starting and ending meetings on time, using an agenda, and covering items in as little time as possible. Other responsibilities that you might have as a facilitator include:

Managing conflict . The richness of diverse views represented within your planning group may also lead to conflict among members. group leaders may need to elevate discussions to a higher level on which there may be a basis for agreement. Leaders can also remind group members of the shared vision as a means of fostering discussion on a common gound.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Planned Approach to Community Health (PATCH) documentation includes suggestions for reaching consensus in group meetings:

• Avoid the “one best way” attitude, and opt for that which reflects the best collective judgment of the group
• Avoid “either/or” thinking; often the best solution combines several approaches
• A majority vote may not always be the best solution. When participants give and take, several viewpoints can be combined.
• Healthy conflict may actually help participants reach a consensus; do not end conflict prematurely.
• Problems are best solved when all participants try to communicate and listen.

Conflict resolution is the process of settling disagreements among group members . The CDC recommends trying one of four approaches to resolve conflicts about goals, plans, activities, or procedures:

• Avoidance: While this can be a temporary solution, particularly if a conflict does not seem important enough to discuss, be sure to reassess the problem at a later date.
• Accommodation: Use tact and discretion to ask participants to yield or conform to the positions of others.
• Compromise: When a consensus cannot be reached, compromise may be the only solution. With compromise, everyone both wins and gives up something.
• Collaboration: While this may be the best approach, reserve it for issues of greatest importance. Collaboration requires all group members to acknowledge the conflict, consider many possible solutions and the consequences of each, and select the alternatives that best meet the needs of the group.

Creating a supportive context for planning and action . Several aspects of your community group can influence the element of support in the planning environment. They are: leadership, size and structure, organization, and diversity and integration.

• Leadership – Although a single person may accept overall responsibility, effective organizations usually have a number of leaders who work with constituents to fulfill the group’s mission. Leaders should have a clear vision and the capacity for listening and relating to others in the group.
• Size and Structure – A maximum group size of 15 is recommended. If this seems prohibitive given the number of persons interested in participation, you can also structure smaller groups such as “task forces” for specific functions within the action plan.
• Organization – If your planning group or surrounding community is particularly large, you may want to allocate work to subcommittees for each sector of the community to be involved (e.g., health organizations, businesses, schools). If your planning group or surrounding community is relatively small, the group might work as a whole to accomplish action planning.
• Diversity and Integration – Include all types of participants: persons in positions of authority, grassroots leaders, and local residents with experience.

Offering ongoing encouragement . Throughout the planning process, let group members know when they are doing a good job. Positive feedback is very important—especially when people are volunteering their time and energy.

If you find it challenging or intimidating to facilitate planning sessions in which diverse ideas and opinions are spoken, try applying some of the information below to your situation. Having a “plan” for effective facilitation will help you yield the most positive outcomes and best ideas from your planning meetings.

Tips for Group Facilitation

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Planned Approach to Community Health (PATCH) documentation offers the following suggestions for facilitating meetings:

• Create an environment conducive to communication by seating participants around small tables or in semicircles.
• Make participation an expectation; ask questions frequently and use open-ended questions to encourage thought and participation.
• Create opportunities for participants to work in teams.
• Give small assignments in advance, and ask participants to come to meetings prepared to share their work.
• Encourage participants to evaluate the group’s working dynamic and offer solutions to improving interaction if needed.
• Talk with quiet participants during breaks, and help them express their ideas and share their thoughts with the group.
• Use flip charts or overhead transparencies to record comments, but face participants while writing or ask someone else to do it.
• Suggest the “next step” if a meeting seems to be stagnating.
• Walk around to gain attention, but look directly at participants.
• Expect to make some mistakes! Acknowledge them, correct them, and move on.

Lead brainstorming sessions . Brainstorming is a problem-solving technique that encourages all members of a group to contribute ideas. You may find this technique of idea generation particularly helpful in the early phases of action planning. There are three common approaches to brainstorming:

• Freewheeling: Participants randomly call out suggestions, which are then recorded on a flip chart. Some group members may dominate in this setting.
• Round robin: Each member is called upon for a suggestion in turn, and ideas are recorded on a flip chart. This is a more organized approach and prevents domination of the session by only a few individuals.
• Slip: Each member submits anonymous suggestions on a slip of paper, and ideas are then recorded on a flip chart.

CDC suggests that a group facilitator follow these guidelines for a brainstorming meeting:

• No critical remarks allowed; evaluation comes later
• Give the thought only; explanation comes later
• Give only one idea at a time
• Adding to or improving on someone else’s idea is appropriate
• Give all participants a chance to share ideas.
• Ask one or two people to record ideas.
• Keep a lively tempo to the process.
• Praise the quantity versus quality of ideas.

Convening and facilitating a planning group for a common vision, mission, or purpose can be challenging yet rewarding. Participation of diverse individuals can require skilled facilitation. However, you can successfully facilitate a group meeting by applying the guidelines presented above. The more meetings you lead throughout the action planning process, the more confident you will become!

Develop an action plan to address proposed changes

Your planning meetings, brainstorming sessions, and other group discussions will yield an extensive compilation of great ideas (and maybe some that are not so great!).

What do you do with all of that information? How do you sort through the pile of rocks to find the gems?

First, you will need to distill the many ideas and voices into a common vision and mission. Next, you will need to refine the relevant ideas into objectives with corresponding strategies and actions.

As you distill the large number of ideas into a common vision, the VMOSA process (vision, mission, objectives, strategies, and action) will help your planning group develop a blueprint for moving from dreams to actions to positive outcomes for your community. VMOSA gives both direction and structure to your initiative. The five components of VMOSA should be completed in the order in which they are presented here.

Your planning group needs a vision statement to serve as a unifying statement for your effort, help communicate you goals and attract participants, remind participants of the desired outcome, and guide important decisions. The vision statement should be a few short phrases or a sentence. Catchy phrases such as "Healthy teens," "Safe streets, safe neighborhoods" and "Education for all" illustrate the common characteristics of a vision statement.

Craft a vision statement that is:

• Understood and shared by members of the community
• Broad enough to include a diverse variety of perspectives
• Inspiring and uplifting
• Easy to communicate

Your planning group’s mission statement will be more specific than the vision . As the next step in the action planning process, it expresses the "what and how" of your effort, describing what your group is going to do to make your vision a reality. An example of a mission statement: "Our mission is to develop a safe and healthy neighborhood through collaborative planning, community action, and policy advocacy."

While your vision statement inspires people to dream, your mission statement should inspire them to action.

Create your mission statement to be:

• Outcome-oriented

Objectives are the specific, measurable steps that will help you achieve your mission. Develop objectives that are SMART+C: specific, measurable, achievable (eventually), relevant to your mission, and timed (with a date for completion). The +C reminds you to add another important quality to your goals: make them challenging!

Strategies explain how your group will reach its objectives.

Broad strategies for change include:

• Coalition building
• Community development
• Policy or legislative change.

The big picture

Charting a logical pathway for community and system change: A key question to ask as your group formulates strategies is, “What combination of changes in programs, policies, and practices are necessary to make a difference with the mission of promoting health for all?” Your group will want to take inventory of potential community and system changes for addressing the problem or issue of interest. To do this, sort your “inventory” of ideas and objectives generated via the planning group into five specific strategy categories:

• Providing information and enhancing skill
• Altering incentives and disincentives
• Modifying access, barriers, and opportunities
• Enhancing services and support
• Modifying policies and practices

To facilitate the process of thinking about how ideas fit most logically together, you may want to draft a one page flowchart that forms pathways leading logically to widespread behavior change and elimination or reduction of the problem to be addressed. You might want to think of this flow chart as a way to double check for any gaps that may remain despite your extensive planning and discussion up to this point. Furthermore, as you look at the pathways and linkages along the way to change, the visual representation may prompt you to think of potential resources and barriers for accomplishing objectives. These noted resources and barriers will be applied to the development of action steps—the last piece of your action plan (to be discussed in the next section).

Determining strategies within your community’s context

Once your planning group has a clear vision and mission and has chosen community and system changes to be sought, you will have the foundation for making informed decisions regarding types of strategies to implement. The information below is a guide to talking through the development of strategies as they relate to the priorities and desired changes in the context of your community.

When developing strategies to accompany your objectives, consider the following factors:

• Population levels to be affected
• Universal versus targeted outreach
• Personal and environmental factors
• Which community sectors can benefit from and contribute to efforts
• Behavioral strategies to be used.

The levels to be targeted (individuals vs. families and kinship groups vs. organizations and sectors vs. broader systems).

Whether the strategy will be universal (e.g., include all of those who may be at risk or may benefit) or targeted (e.g., targets those who may be at greater risk for the problem):

• Universal example : targeting all men ages 40 and over in the community regarding the importance of prostate cancer screening.
• Targeted example : targeting all men ages 40 and over in the community with a family history of prostate cancer.

The personal and environmental factors to be addressed by the initiative:

• Personal factors : knowledge, beliefs, skills, education and training, experience, cultural norms and practices, social status, cognitive or physical abilities, gender, age.
• Environmental factors : social support, available resources and services, barriers (including financial, physical, and communication), social approval, policies, environmental hazards, living conditions, poverty.

Individuals who can most benefit and contribute and how they can be reached or involved in the effort .

• Targets of change - those who may at particular risk for the issue and those whose actions (or omission of actions) contribute to the problem.
• Agents of change - those who may be in a position to (and have a responsibility to) contribute to the solution or initiative (includes targets of change)
• Community sectors through which targets and agents of change can be reached or involved

The behavior change strategies to be used. Approaches may include:

• Providing information and enhancing skills - Delivery of information or training through media, courses, workshops, webinars or other modes.
• Enhancing services and supports - Increasing, improving or expanding assistance or social or technical supports related to the identified goal(s). This could include expanding or changing components or offerings such as mental health or social services or expanding hours or to new locations.
• Modifying access, barriers, and opportunities - Changes in the environment (e.g., changes in office hours, reduced entry fees, changes to the built environment such as trails or lighting) that reduce barriers and improve access.
• Changing consequences - Changing the incentives or disincentives for outcomes. This might include public recognition or tax breaks. This might also take the form of implementation of policies that call for consequences to actions, such as a junk food tax.
• Modifying policies and broader systems - Changing existing policies or regulations at the organizational or governmental level to promote desired behaviors/ outcomes. This might take the form of written regulations or organizational policies.

For each strategy, consider what programs, policies, and/or practices should be created or modified. Make a list, keeping in mind how they work together to address the problem or goal. And finally, review your planning group’s strategies for:

• Consistency with the overall vision, mission, and objectives
• Goodness of fit with the resources and opportunities available
• Anticipated resistance and barriers and how they can be minimized
• Whether those who are affected will actually be reached
• Whether those who can contribute will be involved

Building consensus on proposed strategies for change Once you think that the strategies are finalized and in place, you will want to build consensus on proposed changes within your planning group. Keeping in mind the fact that multiple sectors of the community are represented in the planning group, you should complete two types of review:

• Taken together, do these proposed changes maximize this sector’s contribution to the mission
• What other changes in programs, policies, or practices could or should be made in this sector
• Would all changes, taken together, be sufficient to reduce the problem?
• What other changes in programs, policies, or practices could or should be made within the community or system?
• “Is this proposed change important to the mission?”
• “Is this proposed change feasible?”

You can even put these two questions into a survey format and create a table for planning group members to respond to. Before administering the survey, set criteria for which sought changes will be kept or eliminated with a ranking score system.

You can see below that a sample ranking system ranging from ‘1’ for “Not at All [Important or Feasible]” to ‘5’ for “Very [Important or Feasible]” has been used. We suggest that you set criteria of an average value of 3 or higher for a proposed change to be retained.

How do you calculate the average ranking score using a scale like the one in the table above?

Example: For a proposed change, 20 planning group members select one of the score values in their response. Of those, you have: 10 responding “3” 4 responding “2” 6 responding “4” Given the suggested criteria of an average ranking of 3 or higher, will you keep or toss the proposed change? Step 1. 10(3) + 4(2) + 6(4) = 62 Step 2. 62 / 20 responses = an average ranking of 3.1 Step 3. Based on the scoring criteria, you determine to keep the proposed change since the overall consensus via the survey is 3.1.

What is most important about the process demonstrated above is that each group member participates in the consensus vote on each proposed change. And when you are finished, your community will be armed with a targeted action plan that has the approval of all community sector representatives.

The Grande Finale – The Complete Action Plan!

By now, you have come a long way in your action planning process. You have gathered information, involved key community members, outlined a vision, mission, objectives, and developed appropriate strategies for your community. In this final step of action plan development, you will specify in detail who will do what, by when, to make what changes happen. The action plan will also note the resources needed, potential barriers or resistance, and collaborators or communication lines that need to be active. You can rely on this plan to know what actions you should take day by day.

Action Step Criteria

Your action plan will consist of numerous action steps needed to bring about change in the community. Each action step should outline:

• What actions or changes will occur
• Who will carry out those changes
• By when the changes will take place, and for how long
• What resources are needed to carry out proposed changes
• Communication (who should know what?)

Drafting Action Steps

Action steps are similar to well-written objectives in their structure and content, but include some additional information. First, let’s start by looking at how to draft a strong objective. Then, we will take it one step further and write a comparable action step. You may already be working from objectives in a funded grant proposal. If that is the case, you have a time saving, solid foundation for your action steps.

The best action steps have several characteristics in common with well-written objectives. Those parallel characteristics are:

• Specific . That is, they tell how much (e.g., 40 %) of what is to be achieved (e.g., what behavior of whom or what outcome) by when (e.g., by 2010)?
• Measurable . Information concerning the objective can be collected, detected, or obtained from records (at least potentially).
• Achievable . Not only are the objectives themselves possible, it is likely that your organization will be able to pull them off.
• Relevant to the mission . Your organization has a clear understanding of how these objectives fit in with the overall vision and mission of the group.
• Timed . Your organization has developed a timeline (a portion of which is made clear in the objectives) by which they will be achieved.
• Challenging . They stretch the group to set its aims on significant improvements that are important to members of the community.

Example: Your community is working to establish on-site childcare for community health clinic clients by the year 2010. Based on the desired systems change, here is a sample action statement: “By June 2009, all necessary regulatory permits will be obtained.”

Now, let’s take this information and generate a complete action step. In addition to the criteria for well-written objectives, action steps address resources needed, anticipated barriers, and a communication plan. Now we will complete the five action step criteria (what, who, by when, what resources, and communication) using the sample, “By June 2009. . . “

Criteria 1 : What actions or changes will occur?

    All necessary regulatory permits will be obtained [for the on site provision of child care for health clinic clients.

Criteria 2: Who will carry out those changes?

    Danelda Jackson and Tom Glinn, staff of the community health clinic

Criteria 3: By when will the changes take place, and for how long?

    2009, in order to open in 2010. They will be renewed annually after that.

Criteria 4: What resources are needed to carry out the proposed changes? (For example, resources may be material, financial, or temporal).

Contractors

What potential barriers might affect this action step? Barriers to success might include:

• Faltering commitment on behalf of collaborators
• Key individuals or groups opposing efforts
• Lack of sustained interest in the initiative at the community level
• Simultaneous events such as economic downturn or parallel or competing initiatives
• City staff may resist providing a permit because it may appear to intensify the use of the clinic site.

Criteria 5 : Communication (who should be informed about these actions?)

    Clinic staff and patrons and community residents should be made aware of the availability of on site child care at the clinic.

Note: You may find it most helpful to set up a template for a table in a word processing program so you can efficiently record each action step generated by your planning group. The table below has been filled in with the criteria and sample information listed above.

Review your action plan for completeness

Once the planning process is complete, be sure to obtain review and approval of the final action plan from all group members.

Assess the action plan for:

• Comprehensiveness
• Feasibility
• Flexibility

Remember that the action plan will be revisited from time to time for modifications, as a community’s needs change. However, ultimately, this “blueprint for action” will be used over time, across sectors of the community, and across issues of interest. Therefore, strive to make it a powerful tool for community change.

Follow Through

Your completed action plan may contain many action steps . And while you will have mapped those out carefully along a timeline, you will probably have action steps that should occur simultaneously. Furthermore, you may sense a need to prioritize the order in which you execute action steps that are supposed to take place in the first six months of your initiative.

You may find it easier to determine that ordering or prioritization strategy if you ask the following questions:

• Which changes are the most important or key to the initiative's objectives?
• Which changes would inspire and encourage participants and build credibility within the community?
• Which changes need to be completed before others can? For example, some changes may require other changes and relationships to be established.
• Which changes are easier or quicker? Could completing them give the planning group’s members a sense of success?

Part of following through with proposed action steps will be the task of maintaining collaborator commitment and interest. An invaluable approach to fostering this working relationship is communication: communication about timelines, upcoming planning meetings, progress, results, intermediary feedback, etc.

Communicate progress

Communication is paramount to continued support and commitment within all sectors of the community. Continue to hold planning group meetings and additional public forum meetings, making sure to publicize these appropriately via local newspapers, email listservs, etc. Communicate with all relevant audiences, and let them know how their feedback was used to modify the action plan when relevant. You may want to refer back to the “communication” column of your action step table to make sure that you have corresponded with all people who need to know about the status of a particular action step.

It is best to include a communication plan in your action plan, and regularly share information about progress and outcomes relevant to the initiative. And the best means of having sound information to report is an evaluation plan.

Document progress

After you have worked so hard to plan and implement action steps, your community group will most certainly want a means of measuring progress towards the vision. It is important to evaluate your initiative toward that end.

The purpose of evaluation is to document and measure the completion or success of action steps. From your action planning group’s perspective:

• Evaluation may help you clarify action steps so they are measurable.
• Documentation and evaluation help you continually refine your program. Remember—an action plan is an ever-changing blueprint that can be modified according to community needs. If evaluation of action steps reveals successes, failures, or other lessons learned, that information should be applied to future planning cycles or revision of the overall action plan.
• Evaluation data provide information about the relative costs and effort for tasks so activity and budget adjustments can be made as needed.

It is important to include evaluation components as you develop your action plan versus as you implement it. Be sure that your action plan details how information will be collected, analyzed, and communicated. Because the action plan will be implemented over a long period of time, you may want to document intermediary accomplishments on a monthly basis. Such cumulative records help you identify trends in rates of community and system change over a number of years

Celebrate progress and revisit/renew the action plan

Even the most effective initiatives can benefit from reflection on their accomplishments. Therefore, you should review your action plan as frequently as needed, but at least annually. Arrange for ongoing review and discussion of group progress and proposed changes in the action plan. And, when new and important changes occur (e.g., a long-awaited policy change by a major employer), celebrate them.

Overall, focus on “small wins” versus creating “the perfect program.” This approach will:

• Reward outcomes versus actions
• Provide multiple opportunities for celebration
• Allow coalition partners to work together by asking each other to do their part while not demanding that everyone be locked into a single course of action
• Provide a sensitive measure of progress that can be monitored periodically to support improvement and accountability

Throughout evaluation of progress, celebration of progress, and renewal of the action plan as the community environment changes over time, maintain this key perspective:

Your community coalition is a catalyst for change, helping to bring about a series of community and system changes related to the mission, rather than simply the delivery of a single program or service. While evaluation has its place in all initiatives, try to focus more on contribution rather than attribution as your community implements its action plan.

Action planning includes:

• Key officials
• Grassroots leaders
• Representatives of key sectors
• Representatives from all parts of the community, including diverse ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic groups
• Listening to the community
• Documenting problems that affect healthy youth development
• Identifying risk and protective factors
• Developing a framework for action
• Becoming aware of local resources and efforts
• Refining your group's vision, mission, objections, and strategies
• Refining your group' s choice of targets and agents of change
• Determining what community sectors should be involved in the solution
• Developing a tentative list of changes to be sought in each sector
• Building consensus on proposed changes
• Outlining action steps for proposed changes
• Documenting progress on bringing about community and system changes
• Renewing your group' s efforts along the way

When you complete these activities, celebrate (for now)   You have developed a blueprint for action.

• Understand the community’s perception of both the issue at hand and its potential solutions.
• Assure inclusive and integrated participation across community sectors in the planning process.
• Build consensus on what can and should be done based on the community’s unique assets and needs.
• Specify concrete ways in which members of the community coalition can take action.

Myles Horton, the late founder of the Highlander Center, talked about "making the road by walking." The work of transforming communities and systems to promote healthy youth development will be made by joining with local people who care enough to make needed changes. As we do this important work, we realize that we walk the path of those before us. And, eventually, with those who will carry on this cause after we are gone.

Online Resources

Concerns Report Handbook: Planning for Community Health

Preventing Adolescent Substance Abuse: An Action Planning Guide for Community-Based Initiatives

Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy: An Action Planning Guide for Community-Based Initiatives

Preventing Youth Violence: An Action Planning Guide for Community-Based Initiatives

Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect: An Action Planning Guide for Community-Based Initiatives

Promoting Child Well-Being: An Action Planning Guide for Community-Based Initiatives

Promoting Health for All: Improving Access and Eliminating Disparities in Community Health

Promoting Healthy Living and Preventing Chronic Disease: An Action Planning Guide for Communities

Promoting Urban Neighborhood Development: An Action Planning Guide for Improving Housing, Jobs, Education, Safety and Health, and Human Development

Reducing Risk for Chronic Disease: An Action Planning Guide for Community-Based Initiatives

Youth Development: An Action Planning Guide for Community-Based Initiatives

Print Resources

Fawcett, S., Carson, V., Collie, V., Bremby, R., & Raymer, K. (May 2000). Promoting Health for All: An Action Planning Guide for Improving Access and Eliminating Disparities in Community Health. KU Work Group on Health Promotion & Community Development, Lawrence, Kansas.

Francisco, V., Holt, C., Swenson, J., & Fawcett, S. (November 2002). Youth Development: An Action Planning Guide for Community-Based Initiatives . KU Work Group on Health Promotion & Community Development, Lawrence, Kansas.

Puddy, R., Fawcett, S., & Francisco, V. (July 2002). Promoting Child Well-Being: An Action Planning Guide for Community-Based Initiatives . KU Work Group on Health Promotion & Community Development, Lawrence, Kansas.

Tarlov, A., & St. Peter, R. (2000 ). The Society and Population Health Reader: A State and Community Perspective . New York: The New Press. Chapter Four: Fawcett, S., Francisco, V., Hyra, D., Paine-Andrews, A., Shultz, J., Russos, S., Fisher, J., & Evensen, P. Building Healthy Communities.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Planned Approach to Community Health: Guide for the Local Coordinator . Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

6 Reasons Why Public Participation and Community Engagement are Important

Community engagement can transform communities. By encouraging public participation in projects that impact society it facilitates fair, equitable, and sustainable outcomes. It is an essential decision-making process for any organization, government, or individual that is driving projects which will have an impact on the community.

Traditional, executive-led approaches to community projects are becoming less effective. The dated top-down approach is slowly being replaced by collaborative decision-making and communities are asking for more say in the design and delivery of the services that impact them. Community issues are complex and it’s important to make the problem-solving process inclusive so that decision-makers have a better understanding of their community’s needs and aspirations before setting a course of action.

Here are six reasons why an effective community engagement strategy is important for both decision-makers and the public.

1. gain a better understanding of the community’s needs and aspirations..

Community engagement isn’t a one-way street and it’s no longer about spreading information and telling people about what is being done in their community. It’s an ongoing dialogue between decision-makers and stakeholders. By enabling and engaging in a community-led conversation, decision-makers get to understand what people like or dislike about their community and the initiatives that could impact it. You can paint a far better picture of the needs and aspirations of your local community, and design appealing, transformative projects. When you understand the community’s perspective, you can also frame and communicate your initiative in a way that hits the mark and is aligned with the public’s top priorities .

2. Diverse perspectives empower decision-making.

Input on community initiatives needs to be gathered from a diverse and representative group in the community. When engagement projects are inundated with input from those with the loudest voice or the strongest opinion, the outcomes are only beneficial to one group and can be detrimental to the community as a whole. Without allowing a diverse set of perspectives to be aired, decision-makers can be swayed by the loudest voices and put their focus in the wrong areas. You should seek out marginalized or overlooked voices and create avenues for people of all backgrounds, motivations, and persuasions to speak up. That will give you a balanced understanding of the community’s views and enhance the value of the final decision.

3. Community engagement increases transparency.

Community engagement is a public process and it keeps decision-makers accountable. The community deserves to have transparency over the decision-making process and should feel that their input was taken into account. It also gives individuals in the community the opportunity to understand how a perspective or need which was different from their own had to be catered for and give them a better understanding and acceptance of a final decision or outcome. Knowing that all ideas and inputs have been fairly addressed and incorporated can drastically improve public sentiment around an initiative that you are driving. By engaging all stakeholders of public policy projects – local governments and organizations, businesses, residents and communities – we can deepen democracy and ensure that people have a say over the decisions that impact their everyday lives.

4. Community engagement helps your initiative to run smoothly.

Community engagement can help to identify roadblocks, which might otherwise blow out the timeframes and costs of a project that you are running. By taking an ongoing scan of the community’s needs, priorities, and key stakeholders, you can ensure that the project runs smoothly and that the budget is used effectively. Complaints and protests that might otherwise hold up your initiative can be identified, addressed, and catered for when your strategy, resources, and budget are established.

5. Create a greater sense of community ownership.

Community members have a deep and intimate knowledge of their local area, as well as scientific, technical, historical, and cultural insights. When these perspectives are shared between all parties and incorporated into decision-making, public decision-makers are better informed, more confident, and able to meet all needs. The flow-on effect is increased community trust in organizations and governance to make better public decisions. By establishing communicative relationships between your organization and the community, you can also improve the uptake of your services and people feel like they have played their part in the positive outcomes.

6. Create some fun.

This one is pretty simple, but online community engagement and public participation can be so much fun. You have the opportunity to fuel big dreams, talk about community aspirations, and brainstorm with your neighbors. Social Pinpoint can be used to create fun and exciting online engagement for your community or host some interesting activities for a younger audience .

Ready to kick start your community engagement journey? Book a demo to discover Social Pinpoint’s intuitive online tools.

Start engaging with your community today.

Our expert team is available to show you how to get the most out of your online community engagement platform.

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Essay Papers Writing Online

The impact of community service – a deep dive into the power of giving back to society.

Community service essays serve as a powerful tool for individuals to reflect on their experiences, values, and impact on the world around them. Through the process of writing about their volunteer work, students are able to articulate the positive changes they have made in their communities and explore the lessons they have learned along the way.

Community service essays also play a crucial role in highlighting the importance of giving back to society and fostering a sense of empathy and compassion in individuals. By sharing personal stories of service, students can inspire others to get involved and make a difference in their own communities.

Moreover, community service essays can help students gain valuable skills such as critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving, as they reflect on the challenges and successes of their volunteer experiences. By documenting their service work, students can also showcase their commitment to social responsibility and community engagement to colleges, scholarship committees, and potential employers.

Why Community Service Essays Matter

In today’s society, the importance of community service essays cannot be overstated. These essays serve as a platform for individuals to showcase their dedication to helping others and making a positive impact on their communities. Through these essays, individuals can share their experiences, insights, and perspectives on the value of giving back to society.

Community service essays also play a crucial role in raising awareness about different social issues and encouraging others to get involved in volunteer work. By sharing personal stories and reflections, individuals can inspire and motivate others to take action and contribute to the betterment of society.

Furthermore, community service essays provide an opportunity for individuals to reflect on their own values, beliefs, and goals. Through the process of writing these essays, individuals can gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their place in the world, leading to personal growth and development.

In conclusion, community service essays matter because they have the power to inspire change, raise awareness, and promote personal growth. By sharing their stories and insights, individuals can make a difference in their communities and create a more compassionate and giving society.

The Impact of Community Service Essays

Community service essays have a profound impact on both the individuals writing them and the communities they serve. These essays serve as a platform for students to reflect on their experiences and articulate the lessons they have learned through their service work.

One of the primary impacts of community service essays is the opportunity for self-reflection. Students are encouraged to critically analyze their experiences, challenges, and accomplishments during their community service activities. This reflection helps students develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their values, and their role in the community.

Another significant impact of community service essays is the awareness they raise about social issues and community needs. By sharing their stories and insights, students can shed light on important issues and inspire others to get involved in community service. These essays can also help community organizations and stakeholders better understand the needs of their communities and how they can address them effectively.

Overall, community service essays play a vital role in promoting social responsibility, empathy, and civic engagement. They empower students to make a positive impact in their communities and contribute to creating a more compassionate and inclusive society.

Guidelines for Writing Community Service Essays

When writing a community service essay, it is important to follow certain guidelines to ensure that your message is clear and impactful. Here are some tips to help you craft a powerful and compelling essay:

• Start by brainstorming ideas and reflecting on your community service experiences.
• Clearly define the purpose of your essay and what you hope to convey to your readers.
• Organize your essay with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.
• Use specific examples and anecdotes to support your points and showcase your personal growth.
• Highlight the impact of your community service activities on both yourself and others.
• Showcase your passion and dedication to serving your community.
• Be authentic and honest in your writing, and avoid exaggerating or embellishing your experiences.
• Edit and proofread your essay carefully to ensure clarity, coherence, and proper grammar.

Examples of Effective Community Service Essays

Community service essays can have a powerful impact on the reader when they are well-written and thoughtful. Here are a few examples to inspire you:

1. A Well-Structured Essay:

This essay begins with a compelling introduction that clearly articulates the author’s motivation for engaging in community service. The body paragraphs provide specific examples of the author’s experiences and the impact they had on both the community and themselves. The conclusion ties everything together, reflecting on the lessons learned and the importance of giving back.

2. Personal Reflection:

This essay delves deep into the author’s personal experiences during their community service work. It explores the challenges they faced, the emotions they encountered, and the growth they underwent. By sharing vulnerable moments and candid reflections, the author creates a connection with the reader and demonstrates the transformational power of service.

3. Future Goals and Impact:

This essay not only discusses past community service experiences but also looks toward the future. The author shares their aspirations for continued service and outlines how they plan to make a difference in the world. By showcasing a sense of purpose and vision, this essay inspires the reader to consider their own potential for impact.

These examples illustrate how community service essays can be effective tools for conveying meaningful stories, inspiring others, and showcasing personal growth. By crafting a compelling narrative and reflecting on the significance of service, you can create an essay that leaves a lasting impression.

How Community Service Essays Empower Individuals

Community service essays provide individuals with a platform to express their thoughts, share their experiences, and make a meaningful impact on society. By writing about their volunteer work and the lessons they have learned, individuals can empower themselves to create positive change and inspire others to do the same.

• Through community service essays, individuals can reflect on the importance of giving back to their communities and the value of helping those in need.
• These essays can serve as a source of motivation and inspiration for individuals to continue their philanthropic efforts and make a difference in the world.
• By sharing their stories through community service essays, individuals can raise awareness about social issues and promote greater empathy and understanding among their peers.

Overall, community service essays empower individuals to take action, advocate for change, and contribute to building a more compassionate and equitable society.

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What is 'community' and why is it important?

Article highlights.

.@tobyjlowe shares his thoughts on what 'community' means & why its an important concept for those interested in #socialchange

.@tobyjlowe defines a community as "a group of people who share an identity-forming narrative", but why is this a helpful concept for understanding & creating social change?

"Community is an important concept for social change because it helps us to see that social change requires a change in some of the most important stories we tell ourselves" @tobyjlowe

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The following thoughts are a brief summary of my PhD. The PhD was written in the 1990s but its central theme — the use and misuse of the term “community” in politics — seems not to have gone away. So, for what it’s worth, here are my thoughts on what “community” means and why it’s an important concept for people interested in social change…

The word “community” has a strange power to it. It conveys a sense of togetherness and positivity. It speaks both of solidarity and homeliness. For example, attach the word “community” to “policing” and it turns the legitimate monopoly power of the state over the use of force into something warm and cuddly.

You will hear “community” from the mouths of politicians, officials and other people with microphones in their hands. They speak of “the community” and how important it is to listen to, consult with or hear the voice of this strange collective thing. You will never hear someone in this context say that “community” is a thing that can be ignored or should be feared. And you will, almost never, hear people say what they mean by “community”.

The word “community” has a strange power to it. It conveys a sense of togetherness and positivity. It speaks both of solidarity and homeliness.

So — what does community mean? And why is it important?

Here are the things that I think a definition of community must be able to explain in order to reflect the various communities in the world, and to be useful as a tool for social analysis.

A definition of community must be able to account for the different types of communities that exist in the world. For example, it must be able to account for both a community of place, and something more dispersed, like “the academic community” or “the Islamic community”.

It must be able to account for the positive feelings that people have about “community” (e.g. the sense of togetherness) but without saying that “community” is necessarily good (after all, one of the best examples of a community is the Mafia, and even with the kindest reading of their activities, you’d struggle to argue that, on balance, they are a force for good in the world).

It must be able to explain the sense of identity and belonging associated with “community”. It must explain the feeling of pride or hurt we feel when a community of which we are part is praised or attacked. And it must explain the in group/out group nature of this identity — why some people are part of a particular community, and others are not.

It must be able to explain why “community” has the normative (moral) power that it does –how communities shape our sense of what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ means. For example, our community shapes our understanding of what being a good neighbour, means — the shared understanding of how we should treat people around here.

It must be able to explain why “community” is different from other social groups — such as “society”, “family” or just a group of people.

It must be able to account for the fact that people can be part of different communities simultaneously.

Given that framing, I offer this as my definition of “community”:

A community is a group of people who share an identity-forming narrative.

This means, a group of people who share a story that is so important to them that it defines an aspect of who they are. Those people build the shared story archetypes (characters) of that community into their sense of themselves; they build the history of those communities into their own personal history; and they see the world through the lens of those shared stories.

So, one of the communities that I consider myself to be part of is the community based around the city of Newcastle. The manifestations of this are that I take pride in showing people around the city. I feel slighted when people say horrible things about it. I feel at home whenever I hear a Geordie (Newcastle) accent (despite not having one myself). And so on.

But what makes me part of this community is my choice to write Newcastle’s stories into my own story: the character traits for how Geordies are supposed to behave (be friendly, talk to strangers at bus stops, support Newcastle United etc etc) are character traits that I have adopted. I take part in shared events where this story is played out — such as attending football matches at St James Park and other cultural events in the city. I feel that arguments about the future of the city (should this building be built here? What green spaces does the city need? etc etc) are arguments about my own future. I see arguments about the UK’s future through the lens of the future of Newcastle.

It is this choice to participate in the making and remaking of these stories about the city that makes me part of the community of Newcastle. It’s not just about where you live, or where you work: it is possible to live and work in Newcastle without doing these things, without becoming part of this community. And there are many people who are from Newcastle originally, but who now live elsewhere, who would still consider themselves part of the Newcastle community because they still take an active part in conversations about what it means to be a part of this community.

Let’s see how this definition works against the six key criteria for being an accurate and useful definition of “community”:

It can account for all the different kinds of community — what people call “communities of interest” and “communities of place”. The essence of community is a shared story — that story can be about a place, or it can be about a religion, or any other social practice. It challenges the notion of “communities of identity” by saying that all communities are communities of identity, so “community of identity” isn’t a helpful concept (it’s tautological).

It can account for the positive feelings people have about being part of a community. The sense of a shared identity, of being part of something larger than we are, is well known as a source of good feeling. But it is also morally-neutral. Being part of a community is just part of how we live our lives. Communities can be positive social forces, doing good in the world, and they can be negative, doing harm (and they can be both of those things at once). Community is not, in and of itself, morally praiseworthy. It just is.

This definition of community explains the nature of shared identity in communities, and highlights the specific mechanism by which this occurs. It is the process of telling a story about yourself that draws on the shared cultural story archetypes which creates and maintains a shared identity. It is the process of a set of people sharing (and arguing) about a particular set of stories — their meaning, interpretation and value — that reinforces those social bonds and creates the shared cultural resources.

It explains why community has the normative (moral) force that it does, because it is our narratives that provide us with our explanations for what good/bad look like. A good neighbour is someone who fits the story we tell ourselves about how a good neighbour behaves, a good colleague is someone who fits with the archetype of how that character behaves etc. Our narratives provide our moral framing.

It explains why “community” is different from other types of social groups. A community is a group with a shared identity-forming narrative. This is different from the set of people who live in a place, or have a shared interest. A group of people waiting at a bus stop have a shared interest, but they are not a community. (Unless they’ve been waiting for a really long time…)

The definition understands that people can be part of many communities simultaneously, and also how they can become part of (and drift away from) particular communities. It also is able to account for the tension that people can feel when they are part of multiple communities — when different aspects of their identity-defining stories clash, for example.

A group of people who share a story that is so important to them that it defines an aspect of who they are. Those people build the shared story archetypes (characters) of that community into their sense of themselves; they build the history of those communities into their own personal history; and they see the world through the lens of those shared stories.

Why does this matter?

On one level, this is simply a plea for a more precise use of language. I am not saying that “community” is the only (or even most important) social grouping, but it is a particular type of social grouping that explains the strong sense of shared identity that people feel, and membership of particular groups give us a lens through which we see the world.

Sometimes, this will make “community” important to our political (policy/management) conversations. Many times community will not be relevant. In those cases people should stop using the word “community” just to generate a warm fuzzy feeling, or as a euphemism for talking about poor people. If you mean “people”, say “people”. If you mean “community”, say which community you mean, and say why those identity-forming narratives are important to what you’re trying to do.

Why ‘community’ is a helpful concept for understanding and creating social change

I think my key message is that community is an important concept for social change because it helps us to see that social change requires a change in some of the most important stories we tell ourselves. Social change requires that we rewrite our communal narratives. Social change is change in community.

SOCIAL CHANGE IS ALWAYS PARTICULAR — IT LOOKS AND FEELS DIFFERENT DEPENDING ON THE COMMUNITIES OF WHICH YOU ARE PART

Our communities shape our understanding of the world. If you’re looking to create change in the world, it is these meanings and understandings which have to change. This applies whether the change you seek is macro scale (like gender equality) or micro scale (like making this street a better place to live).

It is easy to understand why changing people’s sense of community is important on the micro scale (if you want to change how it is to live on this street, you need people’s sense of what it means to live on this street, and what is possible for the people who live here —  like this story of change in Granby ).

It is less immediately obvious why ‘community’ is important for macro change like gender equality. I think it is important because what gender equality looks like will be different for each community. Translating gender equality from the abstract language of human rights into the concrete practices of people requires each set of stories that define men and women’s roles in each community to change (and also the stories that construct our sense of what men and women are). It is change in these stories that makes macro change real.

NARRATIVE CHANGE IS (PART OF) SOCIAL CHANGE

This understanding helps us to understand that a key part of social change is narrative change. It helps us to ask the following types of question: what are the stories that define our understanding of how life should be lived in this context? Who and what shapes those stories? Where are they told, and who tells them? In technical language, social change must include the politics of narrative construction.

Obviously, these aren’t the only important questions. But if they’re not addressed, social change becomes significantly harder.

CHALLENGING OUR OWN NARRATIVES

If social change involves narrative change for each community, then it is up to members of those communities to challenge and refresh their own narrative construction processes. We know that imposing change on the stories of others is perilous (and usually counter-productive). That gives each community a responsibility to (critically) reflect on their own stories, and on the story-making process. What do our stories have to say about justice/care/kindness (whatever value is the subject of reflection)? Who is involved in this process? Who gets to explore and tell their stories? Whose voice counts?

Community is an important concept for social change because it helps us to see that social change requires a change in some of the most important stories we tell ourselves. Social change requires that we rewrite our communal narratives. Social change is change in community.

FREEDOM, DIVERSITY AND TOLERANCE

We can also view other questions through the lens of community. What’s our attitude to those who don’t share our stories? What can we learn from the narratives of others? What is required for people to have a voice in our shared story-making?

And finally, community helps us to understand what freedom means. It means being free to write your own story — and that is both an individual and collective process. It means being free to find the community that best suits you, and it means participating in the creation of narratives that enable others to be free.

In conclusion

I hope that’s been useful. Inevitably, some of the shortcuts I’ve taken in order to fit this into any kind of readable length mean I’ve also skipped over a range of important ideas and questions too quickly. But I hope some of the key ideas are expressed with enough clarity to be useful.

My grateful thanks to Pritpal Tamber for giving helpful feedback on drafts of this. Go check out his excellent work on Health and Community .

This piece is also published on Medium here .

Written by:.

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Writing a College Essay About Community and Examples

By Eric Eng

Writing a college essay about community is a common requirement in the series of essay prompts most colleges include alongside their Common Application. If you’re applying to multiple universities, you’ll notice that many of these essay topics overlap, although the wording is always different. 

One main reason for this is that all college admissions committees want to learn the same things about you. They’re all interested in learning more about who you are, what you’re interested in, what goals you have in the future, and why you’ve chosen to apply to this university. 

One of these prompts is a college essay about community. While it varies from college to college, the prompt will roughly sound like this:

Tell us a little about a community you consider yourself part of.

Each university will add its own spin or add-on question, but they’re all asking the same thing: what about your background has had a major impact on who you are today?

Here’s an actual example from Brown University to give you some context:

“Tell us about a place or community you call home. How has it shaped your perspective?”

Another example is from the University of Michigan : 

“Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. ”

From Duke University:

“We seek a talented, engaged student body that embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students makes our community stronger. If you’d like to share a perspective you bring or experiences you’ve had to help us understand you better—perhaps related to a community you belong to, your sexual orientation or gender identity, or your family or cultural background—we encourage you to do so. Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our best to understand and appreciate the real people applying.”

At first glance, this college essay about community seems pretty easy. The question in itself is short and colleges typically only request a brief answer of a few hundred words. However, after you read the prompt a few more times, you might realize how open-ended it is. What are the best words to describe community ? 

How you answer this question depends on your perspective. You might choose to describe the literal community where you live, or you could interpret it more metaphorically to mean a group of people you identify with for a specific reason. 

For example, if you are a person of color, your community could be your cultural group. In some diversity essay examples , focusing on the sense of belonging in a foreign country could be an ideal angle to explore. If you are an international student , you might share how you found your community in a new country. Alternatively, you could see your weekly Dungeons & Dragons group in writing your college essay about community. Think about the groups or environments where you feel a sense of belonging and connection.

Regardless of how you interpret community, the primary thrust of the question remains the same. This is the perfect opportunity for you to talk more about who you are and how you interact with your community at large. 

Admissions officers aren’t only interested in how you can benefit from attending the university. They’re also interested to know what you’ll be able to offer students, teachers, and the larger school community. 

How to Write the Community Essay: Complete Guide (plus tips!)

While all college essays are an excellent time to show admissions officers why you’re a great fit for the school, the college essay about community is especially important. If you’re able to knock this essay out of the park, you can successfully convey to colleges how you would contribute to the school. Let’s look at 10 things to know before you write a college essay about the community to help you write the best response possible.

Decide what community you want to write about

Start by brainstorming the communities you are a part of. These can be defined by factors, such as:

The best tip that we could give you is to choose the community where you can share most about yourself. Think about the different “identities” you have and what groups of people you spend time with at school, work, or elsewhere. Don’t limit yourself to the literal definition of “community” if something truly resonates what your definition of “community” pops up.

Start outlining your essay with guide questions

As we’ve mentioned before, this college essay about community is an open-ended question. So take this as an opportunity for you to get creative! Reflect on your experiences and how they have shaped who you are today. Use these guide questions to help structure your thoughts and outline your essay:

• What specific actions did you take in that community? (Hint: use active verbs like “coordinated” and “led” to clearly describe your roles).
• What types of challenges did you address (on a personal, local, or global level)?
• What particular contributions did you make?
• What skills, qualities, or values did you acquire?
• How did you utilize the lessons learned within and beyond that community?

Don’t be afraid to get personal

All college essay prompts are designed to help admissions officers get to know you better. So a college essay about community is one of the best places to accomplish this goal. One advice we can give students is to get personal! Don’t be afraid to show off your quirky side, something unique about you, a little bit about your background, and everything that makes you…well, you !

Although the college essay about community does involve other people, the question is mainly asking what group you identify with. Similarly, in diversity essay examples, the emphasis is on how your unique background, identity, or perspective has influenced your life and how it might contribute to the diversity of the college community. 

While you’ll no doubt mention and even describe other people, don’t forget to talk about yourself and how this community changed or affected you. This should be your primary focus throughout the piece as it’s what the college is most interested in learning more about.

If you feel that the topic you chose is a little too personal for you to really open up, consider switching to another sense of the word “community” about which you’re more comfortable talking.

Toot your horn.

At the heart of it, a college essay about community is asking you to talk about your achievements… at least a little. As a member of a community, you need to be offering something to the group, not just benefitting. Showing this reciprocity means you are contributing to a larger community.

Many students talk about dreaming of changing the world, but not all of them know where to start. If you are actively doing something positive for your community, in a sense, you are changing the world… your own little world. Positive contributions and acts of service to your community may be small, but they are a start, and that still counts as something.

For example, if you’ve been part of a local food bank, you might talk about how you organized a fundraising event that raised thousands of dollars and significantly increased the food bank’s capacity to serve those in need. Or perhaps you volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and led a team of volunteers in building homes for underprivileged families. 

Since there aren’t many college essays on volunteering, this would be a great opportunity to talk about it. While you shouldn’t go overboard, don’t be afraid to earnestly talk about how you’re helping others within your community. 

Still, what makes college community service essay examples genuine is that you’ll need to share how the experience shaped who you are today. If you have read other students’ community service essay examples before, you’d notice that they talk about how the experience led them to a positive change in their lives. Discuss how leading those fundraising efforts teaches you about perseverance and the power of community. Or how did building homes with Habitat for Humanity instill in you a deep sense of empathy and responsibility? Sharing these insights will make your community service essay stand out.

For admissions counselors, this is an important part of deciding whether or not you’ll fit right in at their university. They want to know how you’re going to contribute to their community other than being an academic member.

Choose a format

The basics of writing a college essay about community is to pick how you’re going to tell it. Choosing the right format is the way to effectively convey your experiences and insights. Here are some points to consider:

The Story Structure

The Story Structure is ideal for students who have encountered a challenge within their community. If you opt for this format, consider addressing these three questions in your essay:

• What challenge did you encounter?
• How did you address it?
• What did you learn from the experience?

The Collection Structure

If this doesn’t apply to you, the Collection Structure might be more suitable. When using this format for writing your essay, check out these points:

• Theme or Central Idea: Choose a unifying theme that ties your different experiences together. This could be a value, skill, or passion that permeates your community involvement.
• Vignettes : Share several short stories or snapshots that illustrate your engagement. These can be varied and highlight different roles, projects, or impacts you’ve had.
• Connection : Each vignette connects back to your central theme and demonstrates how each experience contributes to your overall growth and perspective.
• Reflection : Reflect on what these experiences have taught you and how they have shaped you as a person.

For example, in writing your college essay about community, you might write about your involvement in multiple community projects, such as organizing local clean-up events, mentoring younger students in a science club, and participating in cultural festivals. Each of these vignettes would showcase different facets of your character and how you contribute to your community.

You can also combine the narrative and collection structures by discussing a challenge while highlighting a range of values and lessons learned at the same time. This hybrid approach showcases your diverse experiences and insights within your community.

“Describe a Community You Belong to” Essay Examples

East meets west.

I look around my room, dimly lit by an orange light. On my desk, a framed picture of an Asian family beaming their smiles, buried among US history textbooks and The Great Gatsby. A Korean ballad streams from two tiny computer speakers. Pamphlets of American colleges were scattered on the floor. A cold December wind wafts a strange infusion of ramen and leftover pizza. On the wall in the far back, a Korean flag hangs beside a Led Zeppelin poster.

Do I consider myself Korean or American?

A few years back, I would have replied: “Neither.” The frustrating moments of miscommunication, the stifling homesickness, and the impossible dilemma of deciding between the Korean or American table in the dining hall, all fueled my identity crisis.

Standing in the “Foreign Passports” section at JFK, I have always felt out of place. Sure, I held a Korean passport in my hands, and I loved kimchi and Yuna Kim and knew the Korean Anthem by heart. But I also loved macaroni and cheese and LeBron. Deep inside, I feared I’d be labeled by my airport customs category: a foreigner everywhere.

This ambiguity, however, has granted me the opportunity to absorb the best of both worlds. Look at my dorm room. This mélange of cultures in my East-meets-West room embodies the diversity that characterizes my international student life.

I’ve learned to accept my “ambiguity” as “diversity,” as a third-culture student embracing both identities.

Now, I can proudly answer: “Both.”

Let’s unpack this community essay example.

As a reader, what did you notice in the essay? How did it make you feel? Here’s our take:

• The author uses very descriptive language that does an excellent job of setting the scene, making the piece as engaging as a short story.
• Although the subject is potentially generic (i.e. a story about having two different identities due to cultural differences), the author does a wonderful job of keeping it personal, insightful, interesting, and non-cliche.
• The story comes full circle by discussing something different in the past and how the writer’s experiences have changed it for the better today.
• The author openly admits to having an “identity crisis” which captures the reader’s attention even more without being too overbearing.

Let’s look at another example:

The Pumpkin House

I was raised in “The Pumpkin House.” Every Autumn, on the lawn between the sidewalk and the road, grows our pumpkin. Every summer, we procure seeds from giant pumpkins and plant them on this strip of land. Every fall, the pumpkin grows to be a giant. This annual ritual became well-known in the community and became the defining feature of our already quirky house.

The pumpkin was not just a pumpkin, but a catalyst to creating interactions and community. Conversations often start with “Aren’t you the girl in the pumpkin house?” My English teacher knew about our pumpkin and our chickens. His curiosity and weekly updates about the pumpkin helped us connect.

One year, we found our pumpkin splattered across the street. We were devastated; the pumpkin was part of our identity. Word spread and people came to our house to share in our dismay. Clearly, that pumpkin enriched our life and the entire neighborhood’.

The next morning, our patch contained twelve new pumpkins. Anonymous neighbors left these, plus, a truly gigantic 200 lb. pumpkin on our doorstep.

Growing up, the pumpkin challenged me as I wasn’t always comfortable being the center of attention.

But in retrospect, I realize that there’s a bit of magic in growing something from a seed and tending it in public. I witnessed how this act of sharing creates an authentic community spirit. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday I started my own form of quirky pumpkin growing and reap the benefit of true community.

This time around, pause and reflect on this essay. How did the community the author described change their perspective? How did it affect them personally? What action did the author mention going forward? Here’s what we think:

• In this essay, the author expresses the importance of rituals and family which is an excellent topic for a college essay about community.
• The topic of the essay is mentioned within the first two to three sentences of the piece, making use of limited space.
• The word “community” is explicitly used which shows admissions staff you know how to follow directions while also making it easier for them to understand what you’re writing about.
• The topic is unique to the writer and not something that many – if any – other applicants would be able to write about.
• It comes across as very authentic, personal, and genuine while still being engaging and interesting.

Lastly, once the inspiration finally strikes, seize the moment by immediately putting your thoughts on paper. Start drafting your essay about community with sincerity and passion, and let your heart guide your words.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the words to describe community?

A community is a group of people who share something in common. In writing your college essay about community, you can define it by the shared traits of the people in it or by the strength of the connections among them. It’s about finding a group of people who are similar in some way and feel a sense of belonging or connection with one another.

2. Why do colleges ask for a community essay?

Colleges use community essays to understand how you might fit into their school community. These prompts give you the chance to show admissions officers why you’d be a great addition to their campus.

3. How do I write a college essay about community?

When writing your college essay about community, focus on three main points:

• Highlight an aspect of yourself.
• Show this in the context of a community you belong to.
• Explain how this experience might influence your contribution to the college community you’ll join.

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Why is Community Engagement Important?

With the rise in deepening and expanding public engagement globally, the importance of community engagement has become pivotal for well-functioning, twenty-first century democracies.

Constructive relationships between communities and the institutions of government make community engagement not only desirable, but necessary and viable as it is likely to lead to more equitable, sustainable public decisions and improve the liveability of local communities. This is why community engagement is important for individuals, public organizations, and governments alike.

Where traditional, executive-led approaches are ineffective, community engagement is important in its collaborative approach to the design and/or delivery of services. For the complexity of issues in any given community – where traditional approaches have been ineffective if non-inclusive in the extreme – community engagement enables better understanding of communities’ needs and aspirations.

This article will explore the following topics

Why is community engagement important for:

• building and sustaining cohesive communities
• improving outcomes
• ensuring access and community empowerment
• helping local governments to promote sustainable decisions
• driving social transformation
• deepening democracies

Why should we use community engagement?

Community engagement builds and sustains cohesive communities

Community engagement is primarily, part of a dialogue where organizations and communities can make decisions to create social capital.

Compelling stories of the importance of community engagement range from creating (or indeed preventing) change in local policies and service provisions that not only enrich everyday lives and liveability of communities, but help shape and envision a community’s future, bringing with it not only wider societal change but global impacts.

Community engagement leads to improved outcomes

Community engagement can lead to improved outcomes for communities when government organizations and public decision-making entities seek out the aspirations, concerns and values of communities, who, in turn, share their aspirations, concerns and values with governing entities. Incorporated into decision-making processes, public decision makers are better informed and better able to meet community needs.

Establishing long standing, effective partnerships between government organizations and communities, too, results in a greater sense of community ownership and an improved uptake of services as they are tailored to the unique aspirations of the community.

Community engagement ensures access and community empowerment

Meaningful, inclusive community engagement is important, even critical, to community well being.

Understood through the values of access and inclusivity, where community members are informed and educated on issues at hand, locals are able to contribute meaningfully to engagement and have the capacity to shape those activities. Building on the ideas of empowerment and participation, people’s wellbeing involves participating meaningfully in all aspects of one’s life . Community engagement, then, ensures that community members have access to valued social settings and activities, feel that they are able to contribute meaningfully to those activities, and develop functional capabilities that enable them to participate fully.

By including diverse voices, usually marginalized or overlooked voices are actively empowered within their community to participate in decision making that affects their everyday lives.

Community engagement helps local governments to promote sustainable decisions

Community engagement helps governments improve the efficiency, legitimacy and transparency of their decision making. By embracing and encouraging participation, it enables policy makers to make more informed decisions by engaging with, and carefully mapping out the needs, opinions and visions of local communities on issues that matter to them. It promotes sustainable decisions by recognizing and communicating the needs and interests of all participants – including decision makers. This increases acceptance of decisions and community commitment to outcomes as local knowledge from diverse groups shapes and creates inclusive, effective solutions. The flow on effect is increased trust in organizations and governance to make better public decisions.

This is especially vital given the declining trust in governments worldwide, which, coupled with the Smart City agenda, creates an opportunity for community engagement to deliver a transformative form of continuous engagement between citizens and governments.

“Community engagement is important as it takes action to influence stakeholders with government, political or funding power to implement public projects and policies that primarily benefit individual communities and drive social change.”

Community engagement drives social transformation

With an emphasis on collaboration and the promise of influence on decision making, the importance of community engagement is clear as it drives social transformation. It promotes advocacy that not only works to raise awareness, but passionate, locally-informed voices can be heard – especially during election time. As voters, communities have the power to make their voices heard. And elections represent a significant opportunity to drive change. Advocacy campaigns are at their most effective when local governments, municipalities and councils activate communities, mobilizing on issues that impact their everyday lives. For it is in the local, placed-based arena that community members can have their most direct impact on policy.

Traditionally, local government advocacy priorities have been determined by executive-led approach – essentially, without community input (and often buoyed by third-party research and data at times, leading to advocacy campaigns that worked to benefit external agencies). Community engagement is important as it takes action to influence stakeholders with government, political or funding power to implement public projects and policies that primarily benefit individual communities and drive social change.

Community engagement is critical to deepening democracies

Depending on the types of community engagement, and level of influence given over to communities in a public decision-making process, community engagement strives towards deliberative democracy which facilitates a collaborative exchange regarding a set of policies or actions.

Researchers have observed a pronounced expansion in community organizing since the mid 1980s – where they have increasingly become a locus of engagement during governments’ deregulation of power. Broadly speaking, since the 1990s, we have witnessed a rapid expansion in formal, state-based initiatives to facilitate public participation in decision making, where communities are invited to engage beyond voting.

The attendant mistrust or loss of faith in government and information on public policy through traditional and social news channels walks hand in hand with the shift from top-down governance to more horizontally organized governments. Here, all stakeholders of public policy projects – local governments and organizations, businesses, residents and communities – are brought into the decision-making process, nurturing the very democratic idea of community engagement that people should have a say over decisions that impact their everyday lives.

“All stakeholders[…] are brought into the decision-making process, nurturing the very democratic idea of community engagement that people should have a say over decisions that impact their everyday lives.”

Increasingly, over recent years, through digital democracy and digital participation in open government and e-democracy, digitization has spread into policy and decision making. This is coupled with wider social transformations as there is a call for transparency around public decisions and residents and communities are more motivated to weigh in on policies affecting their cities, towns and neighborhoods.

This is not to overlook the unbridled enthusiasm for technology that has, paradoxically, fuelled the current digital mistrust of tech and big data and the unreliability of information via social media. But, governments now must create intentional interactions that facilitates community engagement. In this way, digital-first engagement has a vital role. While the benefits of online community engagement are manifold in the current global state of digitization, digital-first engagement supports a continuous democracy and can enhance transparency and trust. For, primarily, digital-first engagement is more efficient – giving community leaders added opportunity to focus on community issues.

Community engagement increases the visibility and understanding of issues and empowers communities to have their say over decisions that affect their lives, their towns, cities and neighborhoods.

It provides opportunities for community members to contribute to public decision-making processes – and informing and educating communities on policy issues that impact their everyday lives. Through feedback, community engagement enables government and public decision-making organizations to listen and, in turn, demonstrate the impact of community contribution. Community engagement, then, builds deeper, stronger and more trusting relationships between public organizations and communities.

Explore the Community Engagement 101 Series

What is Community Engagement

Why is Community Engagement Important

Benefits of Online Community Engagement

How do you Engage Communities Online

Fostering Community Engagement

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Community Essay Examples

When crafting your college applications, writing strong essays is essential. Through your essays, you demonstrate who you are–from your values and passions to your lived experiences. Indeed the personal statement is the most common college essay. However, you will also likely have to write some supplemental essays as part of your college application requirements. One of the most common supplemental essay types is the community essay. This essay type is also known as a describe the community you live in essay, cultural diversity essay, or community service essay.

In this article, we will introduce several community essay examples. Most importantly, we’ll describe why they are considered college essays that worked. Specifically, we will share community essay examples from the two schools:

• Princeton University
• Columbia University

By studying these admissions essay samples, you can see what makes these college community essay examples strong and apply those same principles to your writing.

Reviewing Types of College Essays

Each school has different supplemental essay prompts for their college application requirements. However, there are a few types of essays that are most common. By becoming familiar with these essay types, you can begin to brainstorm and strategize what you will write about early on. You might start as early as sophomore or junior year in high school. 

Now, let’s take a look at the most common supplementary essay questions.

Common Supplementary Essay Questions

1. why school.

A Why School essay is, as it sounds, about why you wish to attend a specific institution. The key to answering this prompt well is to be specific. You should identify examples of what you like about a school. Avoid general comments such as “it is a top school” or “it is diverse.” Share specific programs, professors, teaching approaches, cultural elements, or unique opportunities such as research or study abroad.

2. Why Major

The Why Major essay asks you to share specific reasons behind your choice of major and how it relates to your future goals. A strong response to a Why Major essay will highlight your specific motivations. But it will also connect those motivations to a school’s unique opportunities. For example, perhaps you wish to be a pre-law history major, and the school you are applying to offers law-related internships. By highlighting these specific connections, you draw a compelling connection between yourself and the school.

3. Extracurricular Activity

Many schools ask you to describe an extracurricular activity that is particularly meaningful for you. When responding to this question, do not feel limited to only talk about the most popular extracurricular activities for college applications, like clubs or sports. Consider all of the activities you do outside of school. Then choose the one that is most meaningful to you. Also, give specific examples of how you grew or made an impact within your extracurricular activities for college.

4. Community Essay

The Community Essay can have slightly different angles to it. But, the uniting factor is that the school wants to know how you engage with others around you. Some types of community essays are a describe the community you live in essay or a cultural diversity essay. In recent years, the cultural diversity essay has been a more common college application requirement.

Coming up, we will share a bit more about how to break down community essay prompts. We’ll also take a look at college essays that worked. By reading these examples, you’ll know how to approach these common prompts.

How to identify a community essay?

While community essays can have slightly different focuses, they all share the goal of learning about where you come from. A supplemental essay prompt might ask you to share more about your background via a group you are part of. This is likely a community essay. Indeed, a community essay can also be called a describe the community you live in essay, or a cultural diversity essay. Other college community essay examples focus on how you will contribute to a college campus. Finally, in a describe a community you belong to essay example, you will see that students highlight any community that is meaningful to them.

You may be wondering why so many colleges have community essays as a college application requirement. For one, many colleges use a holistic admissions process. This means they care about all aspects of who you are, not simply your grades and test scores. How you engage with your communities shows them your character and values. For example, a describe the community you live in essay example about visiting church every Sunday demonstrates your commitment to religion. Similarly, a cultural diversity essay helps colleges learn more about your cultural background. 

Additionally, colleges want to learn more about how you will engage with their on-campus community. You’ll notice this important factor in the college community essay examples we will share. To some degree, how you have engaged with previous communities can be an indicator of how you will show up on their campus.

How is a community essay different?

As we mentioned, community essays can have slightly different focuses. Some prompts ask you to write a describe the community you live in essay. These types of community essays are more like cultural diversity essays. 

Keep in mind that the word “community” can have many different meanings. A community can be your school, church, or neighborhood. It could also stem from your interests. For example, your dance or robotics team can form your community.

Some community essay prompts want to know specifically how you help strengthen your communities. These types of essays are considered a community service essay. Another term for community service is “civic engagement.” An example of civic engagement might be getting people in your cultural community to sign up to vote. Or, another could be helping with church fundraisers to ensure that your local community has the resources it needs to thrive. 

In sum, the keywords you might see in a community essay prompt are “civic engagement,” “community service,” “serve your community,” “contribute to your community,” or “diversity.” No matter how it’s phrased, your essay should demonstrate the impact you’ve had on your community–whichever one you choose to highlight. 

What are some examples of community essays?

In this article, we will share several community essay examples. Specifically, we will highlight Princeton essay examples and Columbia essays examples. Let’s look at these two colleges’ essay prompts. 

The first Princeton supplemental essay prompt is a part of our college community essay examples and our cultural diversity essay examples. Here is the prompt:

Princeton Community Essay Prompt #1: Cultural Diversity Essay and College Community Essay Examples

Princeton values community and encourages students, faculty, staff and leadership to engage in respectful conversations that can expand their perspectives and challenge their ideas and beliefs. as a prospective member of this community, reflect on how your lived experiences will impact the conversations you will have in the classroom, the dining hall or other campus spaces. what lessons have you learned in life thus far what will your classmates learn from you in short, how has your lived experience shaped you  (please respond in 500 words or fewer.).

In this cultural diversity essay prompt, Princeton wants to know about your lived experiences. By this, they refer to any experiences that have shaped you profoundly. A lived experience can be a specific event, such as experiencing a car crash or winning an award. Or, it could be a set of experiences that resulted from life circumstances, such as being a first-generation college student or having taken a gap year .

This essay prompt will also lead to college community essay examples. Indeed Princeton wants to read about your lived experiences and how they impacted you. But, they also want to know how you will bring those lessons to the Princeton community, should you enroll . Also, note that this prompt mentions challenging ideas and beliefs via conversation. As you respond, look for ways to highlight how you have engaged in fruitful dialogue and how you would do so at Princeton.

To answer this prompt effectively, share specific examples. Additionally, be sure to answer all parts of the prompt. 

Princeton has a second supplemental essay prompt that focuses on how you engage with your community outside of the classroom. The prompt is as follows: 

Princeton Community Essay Prompt #2: Civic Engagement

Princeton has a longstanding commitment to understanding our responsibility to society through service and civic engagement. how does your own story intersect with these ideals (250 words or fewer) .

To answer this prompt well, you must highlight specific examples of how you have positively impacted your community. As a starting point, consider which of your communities you have most engaged with. How have you done so and what results did you have?

The Columbia Community Essay Prompt is another of our college community essay examples. It is a cultural diversity essay, as well. Here is the prompt: 

Columbia Community Essay Prompt: A Cultural Diversity Essay

A hallmark of the columbia experience is being able to learn and thrive in an equitable and inclusive community with a wide range of perspectives. tell us about an aspect of your own perspective, viewpoint or lived experience that is important to you, and describe how it has shaped the way you would learn from and contribute to columbia’s diverse and collaborative community. (150 words or fewer).

While this prompt is similar to Princeton’s, it also references perspectives and viewpoints. In doing so, the prompt opens you up to share opinions or values that are important to you. You might consider highlighting values in your family or community that you either hold close or disagree with. 

Note that Columbia also highlights the word “collaborative” in this prompt. This indicates that your cultural diversity essay should also show how you collaborate with others.

Which schools require a community essay?

In addition to Princeton and Columbia, many other schools have community essays as part of their college application requirements. Here are some other examples of community essay prompts:

In this UNC-Chapel Hill prompt , you must describe a specific example of how you made an impact on a community. The prompt reads:

The University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill: A Community Service Essay Prompt

Discuss one of your personal qualities and share a story, anecdote, or memory of how it helped you make a positive impact on a community. this could be your current community or another community you have engaged. (250-word limit).

In responding, be sure to highlight what community you are referencing, the specific impact you made, and what personal quality helped you do so.

This prompt from UMichigan is a describe a community you belong to essay example, as well as a cultural diversity essay:

The University of Michigan: Describe a Community You Belong to Essay Example

Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (required for all applicants. 1,500 character limit.).

In addition to describing the community, make sure to share how you engage with it and what it has taught you. Remember that community is a broad term. So, for this prompt you can respond with any type of community in mind, whether physical or cultural. In contrast to the describe the community you live in essay, you do not have to be geographically close to the community you describe here.

Duke University: Cultural Diversity Essay Prompts

Duke offers students five supplemental prompts to choose from, of which they can reply to two. Of these supplemental prompts, four are examples of cultural diversity essays:

1. We believe a wide range of viewpoints, beliefs, and lived experiences are essential to maintaining Duke as a vibrant and meaningful living and learning community. Feel free to share with us anything in this context that might help us better understand you and what you might bring to our community.

2. we believe there is benefit in sharing or questioning our beliefs or values; who do you agree with on the big important things, or who do you have your most interesting disagreements with what are you agreeing or disagreeing about, 3. duke’s commitment to inclusion and belonging includes sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. feel free to share with us more about how your identity in this context has meaning for you as an individual or as a member of a community., 4. we recognize that not fully “fitting in” a community or place can sometimes be difficult. duke values the effort, resilience, and independence that may require. feel free to share with us circumstances where something about you is different and how that’s influenced your experiences or identity..

Each of these prompts is a slightly different type of cultural diversity essay, from sharing a range of opinions to not fitting in within a community. Choose the essay prompts that most resonate with you. And share specific examples that bring your cultural diversity essay to life.

In this Yale University supplemental prompt , you must choose a community that you feel connected to and describe why it is meaningful. Here’s the prompt:

Yale University: Describe a Community You Belong to Essay Example

Reflect on your membership in a community to which you feel connected. why is this community meaningful to you you may define community however you like. (400-word limit).

When responding, be sure to highlight what you have learned or how you have grown from this community. In contrast to a describe the community you live in essay, this essay can be about any community, near or far, that resonates with you. Indeed, the prompt gives you plenty of leeway in what you consider community. 

When responding to the UC system prompts , you must choose four of the eight available personal insight questions. One of the PIQs is a community service essay prompt:

The University of California Personal Insight Question: A Community Service Prompt

What have you done to make your school or your community a better place, things to consider: think of community as a term that can encompass a group, team or a place like your high school, hometown or home. you can define community as you see fit, just make sure you talk about your role in that community. was there a problem that you wanted to fix in your community, why were you inspired to act what did you learn from your effort how did your actions benefit others, the wider community or both did you work alone or with others to initiate change in your community.

Similar to many of the other prompts, when answering this question, be sure to identify the specific impact you made on your community.

Now that we have looked at various examples of community essay prompts, we can explore community essay examples. Reading essay examples is a great way to get inspired to write your own college essays. 

In each of the highlighted college essays that worked, note what the author did expertly. Rather than trying to copy their responses, topics, or ideas, consider how you can apply those same skills to your writing. 

Princeton Community Essay Examples

In this section, we will highlight Princeton essay examples that respond to their two community essay prompts: a cultural diversity essay and a community service essay. 

The first of our Princeton essay examples responds to the following Princeton prompt: 

Princeton Essay Examples #1: Cultural Diversity Essay

Now, let’s take a look at a student’s response to this prompt focusing on lived experiences. 

Princeton Essay Examples #1 Student Response

I have spent most of my life living in a 41% minority town of 1.8 square miles called Highland Park, NJ. This typically overlooked town has introduced me to a diverse array of people, and it has been the main influence on my life experiences and core values.

In the face of distinct cultures and customs, we forge a single identity as Highland Parkers and come together to organize large community events. The most prevalent example is our highly touted annual Memorial Day parade, where we join together with neighboring New Brunswick to invite military service members, family members of our fallen war heroes, our legislative and congressional representatives, and our townspeople. Moreover, as our high school band’s vice president, I help organize and lead our ensemble into these performances with a positive and uplifting spirit. We communicate with the town government and arrange the performances every year to perform at the parade. The parade is an example of many of our large community events that serve as a unifying force for our diverse community, reminding us that we are fundamentally connected as one cohesive group, despite our differences. 

As someone deeply interested in historical and political matters, I am well aware of the consequences that arise from dictatorial protocols that limit the freedom of speech and diversity of voices. From my experiences debating in Model UN conferences, I have grown accustomed to being able to present viewpoints from both sides of the argument, and I have learned to incorporate and respect the viewpoints of all sides of an issue before making up my own mind. For example, in a Model Congress debate, I found myself advocating for the interests of a state heavily reliant on traditional fossil fuels. While researching and articulating that perspective, I gained insights into the economic challenges faced by the states that are reliant on these resources. This experience not only broadened my understanding of the complexities surrounding environmental policies but also highlighted the necessity of considering diverse viewpoints for comprehensive decision-making. 

My background and experiences have fostered in me a profound appreciation for the value of diversity, inclusivity, and the pursuit of knowledge. At Princeton University, I will seek to contribute as an active participant in the community, actively provide unique perspectives and insights, and respect and learn from others’ perspectives even if there are disagreements. I wish to partake in student government, which has like-minded peers who want to make a substantive impact, and also participate in service programs like the Civic Leadership Council. Also, I hope to increase my impact from the leadership positions I currently hold on the Red Cross club and teen mayoral advisory council using the platforms in Princeton. I look forward to making a positive impact on both the campus and the broader community. 

Why This Cultural Diversity Essay Worked

In the first of our Princeton essay examples, the student successfully responds to all parts of the Princeton prompt. They begin by describing their community and sharing some details about its makeup. Indeed, the first sentence hooks the reader–it is unique and compelling. 

Then, the student illustrates how they specifically contribute to their community each year by leading the high school band in the Memorial Day parade. They also highlight how their experience in Model UN shaped their appreciation for diverse perspectives. In sharing these two examples, the student demonstrates their leadership and open-minded thinking. Finally, the student ends by highlighting how they would use these values to contribute to Princeton’s community– by partaking in student government and Civic Leadership Council, among other activities.

In the second of our Princeton essay examples, the student responds to the second Princeton prompt which is: 

Princeton Essay Examples #2: A Community Service Essay

Princeton has a longstanding commitment to understanding our responsibility to society through service and civic engagement. how does your own story intersect with these ideals (250 words or fewer).

And, here is a student’s response:

Princeton Essay Examples #2 Student Response

My first experience with the Red Cross was when my older sister was desperately trying to recruit people to join the club during the harsh COVID year. Things were so bad for the club that I, as a freshman, ran for the position of treasurer unopposed. My first blood drive experience was marked by masks, social distancing, and low turnout among blood donors. Even many donors who showed up ended up being turned away due to health-related issues. Needless to say, it was not the greatest first high school service experience, and I admittedly started to doubt if the time I spent on this front was worth it. 

However, as we returned in person, things quickly turned around. As the vice president of the club, I helped recruit more than twice the club membership compared to the previous year, and our blood drives started to regain momentum; our blood targets have been exceeded every time since. Organizing and participating in blood drives has become a passion. It’s fulfilling, especially when I personally donate, to know that I’m actively serving the community and saving lives. I have realized that, despite my relatively young age, I am capable of making an impact through public service. I plan to continue my commitment to the Red Cross’s adult program and participate in service programs like Community Action at Princeton to serve the Princeton community and abroad.

Why This Essay Worked

In this admissions essay sample, we learn about a student’s volunteerism with the Red Cross as an example of civic engagement. This essay works for several reasons. First, it provides a specific example of the student’s civic engagement and demonstrates their impact by becoming vice president and increasing membership. Secondly, the essay provides an honest take on the struggles of this service experience, which lends credibility and authenticity to the story. 

The student also demonstrates an important lesson learned. This aligns with Princeton’s values– that students can have a positive impact on society. 

Columbia University Essay Examples

In this section, we will highlight Columbia essays examples that landed students admission to the prestigious Ivy League university. The first of our Columbia essays examples is written by the same student who responded to the first Princeton prompt above. Here’s a reminder of the Columbia prompt: 

As you read the example below, notice how the student edited their Princeton cultural diversity essay to meet the prompt and lower word count for Columbia:

I have spent most of my life living in a 41% minority town called Highland Park, NJ. This typically overlooked town has introduced me to a diverse array of people, and it has been the main influence on my life experiences and core values. 

HP has convinced me that we can build institutions that are strong and united while embracing a wide variety of voices and perspectives. It has shaped my core values of diversity and inclusion. An English teacher used to encourage me to talk in front of the class by saying even if I believed my thoughts were “dumb,” I could only enrich the conversation.

At Columbia University, I will seek to continue my contributions as an active participant in the community and look to actively provide unique perspectives and insights. Actively engaging in student groups such as ColumbiaVotes will be a big part of my experience. 

The Columbia essay prompt only allows for a 150-word response. This could pose a challenge for many students. What makes this essay among the Columbia essays examples that worked is how succinctly it completely answers the prompt. 

The response begins by hooking the reader with a relevant detail of the student’s community. Then, the student shares how this community shaped them by influencing their values of diversity and inclusion. Finally, the student shares how they would engage with a Columbia organization that also supports diverse viewpoints. Though short and sweet, this response clearly answers all parts of the Columbia prompt. 

More Community Essay Examples

The final of our community essay examples is a community service essay. Let’s look at how student framed their service experience:

“I don’t believe that’s the best way to do this.” 

The moment I thought this the first time I volunteered at my local soup kitchen was one that resulted in a drastic change. When I was informed of the way the food was being served to the public, the initial excitement that I had felt diminished. We were told that the plates would be served before anyone arrived and would remain in an area where people could pick it up and seat themselves. I felt that this method was impersonal and inconsiderate, and disappointment washed over me. 

I turned to the people that were around me and discovered that they shared the same disapproval I felt. When we agreed that a change must be made, we exchanged ideas on how to present this to the woman in charge of the program. I suggested that we should serve each person one-by-one, and only give them the food if they wanted to/could eat it. They suggested multiple ideas, including that we should offer to seat them, hold their plates for them, continue to check in on them, and dispose of their plates once they finish their meal. We believed that this way would genuinely make them feel better and would allow us to get to know some of them personally. A simple smile and conversation could be enough to improve their day. 

From this day on, the way in which the local soup kitchen serves our community has changed dramatically. This experience taught me the importance of speaking up for what you believe in. In a group setting, it is likely that there will be others who share the same end goal and are willing to contribute different ideas to achieve the goal. These different perspectives can allow you to see situations in ways that you previously hadn’t, and can result in better outcomes. It also showed me the importance of leadership.

If I had never spoken up about the way the food was being served, a change might have never happened. When you work in the group, the end goal may not be for the benefit of anyone in the group, but for others who are in need. This experience also showed me the beauty in doing good for others and making others happy, even through small things such as serving them food to their liking.

In this community service essay, the student shares their experience volunteering at a soup kitchen. Volunteering at a soup kitchen is not necessarily unique in the list of extracurricular activities for college applications. However, the student highlights several aspects of the experience that make it meaningful to them. 

To start, the student shares their experience challenging the way that food was served. The student suggested that food be served directly to attendees in order to better connect with community members. Through this experience, the student learns about leadership and working with others to achieve a common goal. This specific example demonstrates the student’s collaborative values and compassionate way of thinking, both of which are great attributes to highlight in college applications.

How To Write A Community Essay

As we saw in the community essay examples, there are several hallmarks of college essays that worked. To write a good community essay, whether it be a community service essay, a cultural diversity essay, or a describe the community you live in essay, you must start by understanding the prompt. Once you have carefully read through the prompt, brainstorm examples from your own life that relate to it. Sharing specific details and examples will make your response stronger and more unique. 

Additionally, showcase how you grew throughout your response. In each of the community essay examples we shared, the student discussed a skill or perspective they developed through their experiences. Finally, connect your response to the school you are applying to. If you are writing a cultural diversity essay, for example, demonstrate how you would contribute to the cultural diversity at that school, both inside the classroom and in your extracurricular activities for college.  

Topics To Avoid In Your Community Essay

When writing community essays, there is technically no topic that you cannot discuss. However, how you discuss certain topics is important. 

For example, in a community service essay, it is important to not come off as a savior of a community with less privilege than yourself. Similarly, if you are writing a describe the community you live in essay or a cultural diversity essay, you will want to avoid stereotyping any community. Speaking from your own personal experience as a member of a community is fine. However, generalizing your experience to the community at large can come across as insensitive to that community’s diversity. To avoid these pitfalls, have a variety of people read your community essay examples and look for these dynamics.

Additional Tips for Community Essays

We’ve highlighted the strengths in the community essay examples above. Now we will now share some more tips for making your community essays a strong part of your college applications:

Tips for Writing Community Essays

1. research the college.

When reviewing our college community essay examples, you will notice that students highlight specific clubs, programs, or groups on campus to which they will contribute. If you are specific, you demonstrate real interest in the school which adds strength to your college applications.

2. Tell a story

In each of the college essays that worked, students gave details that told a full story . This story incorporated where they come from and what they learned through their experiences. Rather than telling us who they were, the students used this particular story to show us.

As the college admissions landscape gets ever more competitive, students are sometimes tempted to read other students’ essays and copy ideas. Or, more recently, they may even want to use artificial intelligence to write their essays. However, AI and other students’ experiences won’t show admissions who you really are. Don’t worry about whether you have the best extracurricular activities for college or the most unique cultural diversity essay. Instead, talk about the experiences that truly matter to you. By being honest, you are more likely to come across as convincing and interesting. In each of our college community essay examples, students presented a true and well-thought-out response to the prompts.

Other CollegeAdvisor Essay Resources to Explore 

As you work on your college applications, you might be in search of additional resources. CollegeAdvisor has a wealth of webinars and articles that can help you navigate writing your essays. Here are a few:

More CollegeAdvisor Resources for Essays

1. short essay examples.

Some of the cultural diversity essays you may write will be short, meaning that they are 150 words or less. This article with short essay examples can help you understand how to write short and sweet cultural diversity essays.

2. Cultural Diversity Essay Examples

In this article , you will find additional examples of cultural diversity essays. Many community essays are also cultural diversity essays. As such, becoming familiar with how students write about their cultures is useful.

3. The Ultimate Guide to Supplemental Essays

In this webinar , CollegeAdvisor experts provide a rundown of how to write strong supplemental essays for your college applications. In particular, this webinar will help you decode essay prompts and make sure you answer each prompt fully.

4. Editing Your Supplemental Essays

Once you have read up on college community essay examples and written your cultural diversity essays, you might need help editing them. This webinar will provide tips for how to edit your supplemental essays effectively.

Community Essay Examples – Final Thoughts

Completing your college applications can be a daunting task, especially when you must write multiple essays. For some students, writing cultural diversity essays is challenging. These prompts ask you to dig deep and reflect upon your life influences.

In this guide to community essays, we provided an overview of what a community essay is and how to respond to the different types of community essay prompts. We shared cultural diversity essay examples and describe the community you live in essay examples. We also described what makes these essays strong and how they meet college application requirements. 

In short, the key to writing stand-out essays is to be authentic and thorough in your responses. If you need additional help writing your cultural diversity essay, seek out the support of a trusted resource like CollegeAdvisor. We are here to help you craft the best college applications that could gain you admissions to the school of your dreams!

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How to Write the “Community” and “Issue” Yale Essays

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Hale Jaeger in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info. 

What’s Covered

The “community” essay: choosing a community, structuring the “community” essay, the “issue” essay: choosing your issue, issues to avoid, structuring the “issue” essay.

In this article, we discuss strategies for writing Yale University ’s “Community” and “Issue” supplemental essays. Applicants using the Common App or Coalition Application to apply to Yale are required to choose one of these two prompts and respond to it in 400 words or fewer. The first prompt is the “Issue” essay prompt, which reads:

Yale carries out its mission “through the free exchange of ideas in an ethical, interdependent, and diverse community.” Reflect on a time when you exchanged ideas about an important issue with someone holding an opposing view. How did the experience lead you either to change your opinion or to sharpen your reasons for holding onto it? (400 words)

The second prompt is the “Community” essay prompt:

Reflect on a time when you have worked to enhance a community to which you feel connected. Why have these efforts been meaningful to you? You may define community however you like. (400 words)

In this article, we discuss choosing topics for each of these essays and strategies to structure them.

The Yale “Community” essay prompt clearly states that you can define community however you wish, which means you can choose to write about any kind of community that you feel you are a member of. When considering potential communities, start by brainstorming any groups you are part of that have defined boundaries, such as your town, school, team, or religious organization.

There are also informal communities that you could choose from, such as your friend group, family, coworkers, or neighborhood. Even though these groups have less of a formal definition, they are still communities. What matters most is that the community that you choose is important to you, that you have contributed to it, and that you have learned something from it.

When structuring this essay, think about it in three sections. The first introduces the community, the second demonstrates your contributions to the community, and the third explains what the community has given and taught you. As you write, keep in mind that this essay is a two-way street; you want to show what you have given to your community and what it has given you.

Introduce the Community

The first step in writing this essay is to introduce the community. Explain who is part of the community and what the community is like. Highlight the community’s structure by demonstrating how you are part of it and how you interact with your peers, superiors, or inferiors within the group. It is also important to depict the community’s dynamic in this part of the essay. For example, is it fun, relaxed, and loving, or is it rigorous, challenging, and thought provoking? 

Show What You’ve Contributed

The next section of this essay should discuss your engagement with this community and what you’ve contributed to it. Consider what you’ve done, what initiatives you’ve brought to the community, and what your role is within it. You can also highlight anything that you had to give up to be part of the community.

Show What You’ve Learned

The last part of this essay should discuss what you have gained and learned from this community. For this portion, consider things that the community has given and taught you, as well as ways that it has helped you grow. Think about how this community has shaped who you are and who you are becoming.

The other prompt option is the “Issue” essay. The first step for this one is to define what your issue is. It doesn’t matter what you choose, as long as it’s something that has enough nuance for you to talk about it in a complex and intelligent way.

Make sure it’s an issue of some relevance to you; otherwise, it will come across as dispassionate. As you write this essay, you should show that you are somebody who cares about an issue that they think is significant. 

Grand Issues

When selecting an issue, you can either choose a grand one or a local one. Grand issues are big, unsolved problems that are common in society, such as cancer, homelessness, or food insecurity. If you do choose a grand issue, remind yourself of its personal importance. While grand issues are full of nuance, they may lack personal meaning. Examples of personal connections to grand issues could be if you have encountered homelessness, lived with food insecurity, or have lost someone to cancer.

Local Issues

Another topic option is to write about an issue that is local. For example, maybe your high school has a teaching staff that doesn’t represent the diversity of the student body. While this is not a global issue, it’s something that strongly affects you and your community. 

Perhaps you live in a town that is directly suffering from the opioid crisis, or you have divorced parents and have started an activist group for children of divorced parents. Both of these examples of local issues also have personal importance. 

When choosing a topic to write about, avoid issues that you don’t have any connection to and that aren’t personally important. These are often problems that are too grand and can’t be made personal, such as world peace. 

Another category of issues to avoid is anything that doesn’t align with Yale’s values. Yale, like most universities in the United States, generally has a liberal lean. As such, it is likely not in your best interest to write a strong defense of socially conservative values. While there are values that you are free to hold and express—and Yale welcomes people of all backgrounds and ideologies—this essay is not necessarily the best place to express them.

You are most likely applying to Yale because it’s a place that you want to be and have something in common with. This essay is a great opportunity to emphasize the values that you share with the university rather than the things that divide you. Since a reader only has five to seven minutes to go over your entire application, you don’t want them to come away with the sense that you are somebody who won’t thrive at Yale.

Define the Issue and Highlight Past Experiences

When writing the “Issue” essay, start by identifying the issue and sharing how you came across it. Then, provide insight into why it is meaningful to you and your relationship with it.

Next, show the reader how you have already engaged with the problem by detailing your past with the issue. 

Discuss Future Plans to Approach the Issue

After this, you can look forward and discuss your future with this issue. A great strategy is to write about how your Yale education will address the problem and how your field of study relates to it. You can also highlight any Yale-specific programs or opportunities that will give you insight or context for tackling the issue. 

Alternatively, if there is something about this issue that Yale’s academic flexibility will enable you to explore, you can share that in this part of the essay. For example, maybe you are interested in health policy and plan to take classes in the sciences. You also want to take classes in the history of health, science, and medicine, as well as political science and economics courses, which you plan to utilize to write new healthcare policies.

Another option is to focus on an aspect of Yale’s community, such as peers, professors, or mentors who will help develop your ability to navigate the issue. Ultimately, you want to demonstrate in this essay that what (and how) you learn at Yale will prepare you to take action and move forward with confronting your issue in the future.

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Hi fellow applicants! I've been working on the 'community essay' for some of my applications and I'm having trouble figuring out what to write about. Any advice on how to approach this essay and make it stand out? Thanks!

Hello! Writing a community essay can indeed be challenging, but with the right approach, you can create a standout piece. Here are some tips to help you craft a memorable essay:

1. Reflect on your personal experiences: Think about the communities you belong to, whether they're based on a physical location, a shared interest, or a certain background. Consider how your involvement in these communities has shaped the person you are today, and how you've contributed to their growth or well-being.

2. Be specific and provide anecdotes: To make your essay stand out, it's important to focus on a particular aspect of your community involvement. Share personal stories or unique experiences, rather than simply providing general descriptions of your community engagement.

3. Show growth and self-awareness: A well-written essay should convey the growth and personal development you've experienced through your involvement in a community. Don't be afraid to share challenges you've faced and the lessons you've learned from them. Demonstrating self-awareness and personal growth can give your essay a strong emotional impact.

4. Connect to your future aspirations: Reflect on how your community involvement has shaped your future goals and aspirations, and how you'd like to continue contributing to other communities in the future. This can help create a lasting impression on the admissions committee and show that you're committed to using your education for the betterment of your communities.

5. Edit and revise: As with any essay, make sure to thoroughly proofread and revise your work. This will help ensure that your essay is clear, concise, and free of any errors. Consider seeking feedback from a teacher, mentor, or peer to gain additional insights on how to improve your content.

In summary, to craft a standout community essay, focus on specific personal experiences, illustrate growth and self-awareness, and connect your involvement to your future aspirations. Best of luck with your applications!

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The Importance of Community: Why Community Matters

Written by MasterClass

Last updated: Nov 23, 2022 • 4 min read

People form communities—either face-to-face or online—because of common goals and interests. Read on to learn the importance of community for your mental and physical health.

Why community engagement matters even more in times of crisis

For the last year and a half, the world has grappled with a disruptive and deadly pandemic. Earlier this year, the climate crisis reared its head, wiping out entire towns and regions with floods and fires. There’s only way for us to face these trials—by engaging communities and tackling challenges as one.

For most local governments, crisis mode means rushing to develop an emergency plan. Minimizing damage and keeping communities safe, at least for the time being, is key. Few will consider the value—or even the option—of setting up a community-wide participation project as a part of their crisis response.

And we can understand why. Crisis engagement requires time, attention, and funds, all of which tend to be scarce. Yet, in challenging times, involving communities is the wisest decision governments can make. Let’s look at why that is.

Crisis engagement makes communities feel heard

Crises tend to cause strong emotions. At the onset of the pandemic, fear swept our communities. Our resilience was further challenged when the only way out of this crisis proved to be at odds with our inherent need for closeness and support. Rather, we were told to adhere to its polar opposite: physical distance.

COVID-19 made us all scared of the virus. But it also provoked high levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety. It came with bouts of unemployment and poverty. It deprived us of child care, family support, leisure time, and a social life. In defining a strategy, local governments must always gauge how the community is feeling. These feelings, concerns, and needs should be placed at the heart of local crisis plans.

It centralizes information and streamlines communication

In the wake of an emergency, clear and continuous communication is crucial . Local governments must set up effective communication channels to keep the public informed. These should be easy to find, accessible to all, and as centralized as possible .

A participation platform can play an important role here. Governments can use their platform to share updates, gauge opinions, and collect valuable community insights. Besides, as emergencies are often plagued by rumors, speculations, and fake news, a government-owned information hub can infuse the situation with a much-needed sense of objectivity and clarity.

It helps governments tap into the collective intelligence

In times of crisis, scientists and experts hold the truth. They’ve done the research. They’ve investigated the different scenarios and outcomes. They know we’re unlikely to spread covid while 1,5m apart, but likely to suffer if global warming exceeds 1,5°C.

But while virologists and climate scientists can tell us what to do, the question remains how . Every city, town, or council is radically different. Who has a better grasp of the needs and priorities to address than the people living their lives there? Community members are experts by experience , which means they usually possess a wealth of innovative ideas on how to better the community. By collecting their input, governments will develop stronger policies that are rooted in the local reality.

It builds buy-in for new policy decisions

The success of any emergency plan depends on the community’s support . Put simply: people who don’t see themselves or their needs represented in the plan likely won’t adhere to the new rules and policies. The only way to build strong community buy-in is engaging people from the get-go.

If the community feels heard, they’ll be more likely to support the final decision. What’s more, they’ll feel more motivated to take part in future engagement projects , too. This helps governments create relevant and effective policies that are widely supported and enable tangible change.

Crisis engagement in practice

Hopefully, these arguments have convinced you that crisis engagement is indispensable. Still, you might find it hard to fathom organizing a project of this caliber in the midst of chaos. That’s why we’ve listed a few practical examples:

• The Scottish city of Stirling (??) engaged its people in tackling local climate challenges . Aiming to reduce emissions, protect natural areas, and prepare for the consequences of global warming, the Council drafted a Climate and Nature Emergency plan , which was presented to community members in a survey. Read more about Stirling’s community engagement efforts here.
• In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the city of Lancaster (??) has received $39.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding . The city is now actively involving its residents in allocating these funds , encouraging them to rank priorities in a survey, submit feedback on the platform, and attend Council meetings. Read more about Lancaster’s community engagement efforts here.
• The London borough of Newham (??) launched its participation platform to ensure democratic continuity during and after the COVID-19 pandemic . Until then, they’d gathered community input through offline workshops, town hall meetings, and paper surveys. The digital platform helped them centralize engagement efforts and keep the conversation going , even in times of social distancing. Read more about Newham’s community engagement efforts here.

Ready to launch a crisis engagement project?

Whether it’s about defining a local climate change strategy, tackling the aftershocks of the pandemic, or dealing with a more local emergency, community engagement will help you cope.

Sören is a fervent tech enthusiast with a profound interest in politics and democratic innovation.He aims to share stories that inspire and drive impactful community engagement.

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How Do You Define Community and Why Is it Important?

• First Online: 30 September 2023

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• Laurene Tumiel-Berhalter 18 &
• Linda Kahn 18  

Part of the book series: Philosophy and Medicine ((volume 146))

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Researchers have an ethical responsibility to understand the communities they invite to participate in their research and that their research ultimately impacts. The commonalities that characterize a community are broad and complex, and everyone belongs to multiple, diverse, formal, and informal communities. Understanding experiences of members of different communities can help researchers fine tune their questions, assesses disparities faced by these communities, refine recruitment strategies, and assess whether proposed interventions would be equally as effective in the broader patient population. Before planning research with or in any community, it is important to explore what data has already been collected. Incorporating community voices can also help frame research to be the most inclusive and therefore more generalizable. When researchers understand a community, this can help with recruitment and improve study outcomes.

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Acknowledgements

We are truly grateful to the many community partners that we have worked with over the years that have shared their stories, their insight, and their passion with us. We are honored to have been part of your lives and humbled by all you have taught us.

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Laurene Tumiel-Berhalter & Linda Kahn

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Tumiel-Berhalter, L., Kahn, L. (2023). How Do You Define Community and Why Is it Important?. In: Anderson, E.E. (eds) Ethical Issues in Community and Patient Stakeholder–Engaged Health Research. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 146. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40379-8_7

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