College and Community Partnerships for Reentry
A Playbook for College Programs and Community Organizations Working Together
Introduction: The College-Community Partnerships Cohort
In 2023, Ithaka S+R undertook a three-year study, funded by ECMC Foundation, to explore how college programs and community organizations partner to create pathways to support students in achieving their educational goals post-release. During the final year, we brought together 10 college-based programs serving currently or formerly incarcerated students and 10 community-based organizations to help them develop, expand, or formalize such partnerships. The cohort participated in three quarterly virtual convenings, a series of monthly community calls, individual or small group consultations with Ithaka S+R staff, and a day-long intensive workshop and in-person convening at our New York office. The focus of our work together shifted gradually over the year and was co-defined by participant needs and suggestions. Roughly, the four phases of the cohort focused on: building relationships and community, identifying common challenges, sourcing strategies and solutions, and considering sustainability and strategic planning. Under these broader topics, participants identified specific areas of interest.
Our aim and approach
There are deep similarities in the structural challenges facing community-based organizations and higher education programs that serve incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and system-impacted individuals. Both often rely on the leadership and dedication of industrious and well-connected leaders, grapple with high levels of staff burnout and turnover, and face both individual financial uncertainty and a turbulent funding landscape. At the same time, community-based organizations supporting reintegration could benefit from more expertise on how higher education systems are structured and function. Vice versa, college-based programs thinking about how to support students’ reintegration and post-incarceration needs could also benefit from the expertise of community-based organizations. In this sense, developing deliberate, structured, and sustainable collaborations could help both types of organizations more effectively coordinate and make use of local resources to serve current and formerly incarcerated and system-impacted individuals.
With that background knowledge, we designed the cohort with three core aims: to raise awareness about the complementary strengths and needs of these organizations and programs, to identify the challenges and barriers that hinder such collaborations, and to source meaningful interventions. We opted to do this work through a sustained cohort engagement because it allowed us to leverage our suite of skills as content experts, researchers, project managers, and strategic planners to help develop and sustain cross-organizational collaborations.
Taking this active role also allowed us to document the process, create tools and exercises to help facilitate collaboration, and collect those tools and learnings in this playbook. It also allowed us to translate what we learned into practical guidance for other college-based programs and community-based organizations as they develop and strengthen their own partnerships.
Programs and organizations represented in the cohort[1]
| College-based programs | Community-based organizations |
|---|---|
| The Bellamy Creek Program at Grand Valley State University | The Center for Community Alternatives |
| Brandeis Education Justice Initiative | Clean Slate Utah |
| Emerson Prison Initiative | Common Good Atlanta |
| Loyola at Rayburn | Criminal Justice Ministry |
| Morehouse Higher Education in Prisons Program | Fresh Coast Alliance |
| North Carolina State University | Louisiana Parole Project |
| Project Impact at the Borough of Manhattan Community College | Our Journey |
| The University of Rochester Education Justice Initiative | Partakers |
| The University of Utah Prison Education Project | The Petey Greene Program |
| Washington University St. Louis Prison Education Program | Thrive for Life |
What we learned and how it shaped the playbook
Over the course of the cohort phase of our three-year study participants often described a common set of challenges:
Program mission, strategy, and collaboration
Many cohort members were working to clarify their missions and build partnerships that support growth without overextending their limited capacity. Many were also focused on strengthening relationships with colleges, correctional agencies, and community partners by moving beyond informal collaborations toward more institutionalized partnerships that would withstand staff turnover and organizational change.
Infrastructure and capacity
A number of cohort members described operating with limited staff, funding, and organizational infrastructure while trying to meet student needs. Many wished to strengthen their internal systems (like onboarding, data management, and case management) in order to improve coordination and effectiveness.
Student supports
Cohort members emphasized that coordination is key to providing students with basic needs resources and services around housing, employment, transportation, and healthcare, alongside support for educational success. Cohort members also described how campus policies (or lack of policies) can limit access to campus resources and create additional challenges for those navigating reentry.
Funding and storytelling
Cohort members emphasized the uncertainty under which these partnerships operate. They often rely on short-term grants while seeking greater institutional buy-in and investment. Cohort members emphasized that sustaining partnerships requires diversified funding strategies, systems to measure outcomes for funders and institutional leaders, and storytelling that can strengthen programs and advance advocacy efforts.
We structured the playbook to address these persistent challenges. The chapters are organized around four areas that cohort members identified as key to building and sustaining partnerships:
- Finding the right partners: Identifying complementary organizations and building strong collaborative relationships.
- Aligning and setting shared goals: Establishing shared goals, mission, roles, and partnership structures.
- Reviewing campus policies and practices: Identifying institutional policies and practices that either support or create barriers for formerly incarcerated students.
- Planning for sustainability: Building partnerships by reflecting on approaches to onboarding, staff transitions, funding, data, and storytelling.
How to use this playbook
This playbook is intended to help college-based and community-based organizations build stronger and more intentional partnerships that support currently and formerly incarcerated students in the process of reentry, social reintegration, and the transition to campus. It draws on information collected through desk research, interviews, and sustained engagement with a cohort of college programs and community-based reentry organizations.
The playbook provides a suite of tools and exercises alongside contextual information documented through the cohort.
Throughout the playbook you will find four types of resources:
- Background and context: Descriptive information on what we learned and observed through research and cohort facilitation.
- Consider: These sections highlight areas where there is no simple answer or advice to give, but where deliberate planning and coordination may be necessary. In many cases, these are areas where participants have identified ethical issues, challenges, or difficult choices.
- Practical tools and exercises: These items are designed to help facilitate the development, formalization, and strategic planning of partnerships between organizations and programs.
- Examples from the cohort: Information, documents, templates, and tips gathered directly from cohort participants. This is provided in two primary ways: (1) via de-identified quotes gathered through surveys and interviews, and (2) in the form of short narrative “spotlights” that focus in more detail on a specific partnership or initiative that the cohort, project team, or advisory thought would be of particular interest to the field.
We hope you will adapt and revise the templates we provide to reflect your organization’s context, capacity, and goals.
[1] Programs and organizations are listed in alphabetical order. Cohort participants were selected for organizational, service, and regional diversity. We prioritized participant selection in pairs using the following criteria: 1) we brought together programs and organizations that already collaborated, formally or informally or 2) selected programs with the intention of helping them to strengthen or expand a new collaboration over the year-long cohort.