Community Development

What is the work about?  Community Development offers opportunities for schools, businesses, nonprofit organizations, government, faith-based groups and others to engage in dialogue to address critical and challenging issues.  Through professional services and customized training, mentoring and youth development outreach, and program evaluation and research, our faculty and staff seek to foster understanding, action, and positive growth for our communities and citizens.

What's our goal?  Our goal is to leverage the resources and expertise at the university and work in partnership with community partners to build the social and economic capital in Southeastern Wisconsin, Northern Illinois and beyond.   In a nutshell, our work is to help make our community stronger and more vibrant. 

How do we do it?  There are multiple ways we seek to foster community development, partnerships and civic engagement, including:

• Professional Services & Customized Training:  Through meeting facilitation, strategic planning, and customized training, our professional staff can work with your organization or business to get you where you want to go.   Our faculty and staff facilitate meetings that result in engaging discussions for groups of 5 to 500 people at conferences, community forums, businesses and schools.  Customized training for businesses and organizations have focused in areas such as project management, leadership development and team building.
  
  
• Mentor Training & Program Development:  Through our Mentor Kenosha & Racine partnership we work to train and recruit mentors, provide professional development for mentor program staff, and help build capacity and best practices in mentor programs through a certificate process. 
  Learn more at Mentor Kenosha & Racine
  
  
• Program Evaluation & Community Based Research:Whether you need support in writing an evaluation plan for a grant, a focus group to learn more about the impact of your program, or data analysis to document your outcomes, our staff and faculty can support your efforts.  Our team is particularly interested in projects regarding educational attainment and youth development, but has experience in wide array of areas.  Recent evaluation projects have included programs funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Drug Free Communities, among others.
  
  
• Workforce Development:  Our work in this area includes the customized training for businesses mentioned above, and direct partnerships with leaders and agencies within the state’s workforce development system.  Through a strong long term relationship with the Racine County Workforce Development Center, our staff work on-site or in close connection to our partners to serve adult and youth job seeker needs.  The Racine County Higher Expectations Strategic Plan guide the substance of this work that includes connecting education and business leaders, as well as providing leadership for the nationally acclaimed E3 Summer Youth Employment Program.

What are the costs?  The costs and related fees that are charged for community development outreach vary depending on the scope of the project, connection to the University's mission and budget capacity of the partners.