Bonner Leader Program Start-Up Guide

Program Planning

Step 2: Designing A Bonner Program

Program components are designed to accomplish specific outcomes central to the Bonner Program’s mission while being flexible enough to be shaped in a way that best suits the unique character and structure of each campus.

(a) Campus Infrastructure

Management of the Bonner Program should be integrated into your campus-wide service center or infrastructure; and yet, the Bonner Program should be positioned as a distinct program with its own set of expectations and character. This approach allows for more effective and efficient allocation of a campus’ community outreach resources.

The Bonner Program is not meant to identify and then isolate a small group of individuals; rather, it is designed to support a group of students who will then disperse throughout the campus to help create and maintain campus-based service activities. Ideally, the Bonner Program is intentionally designed to further strengthen the campus-wide culture of service.

If your campus does not already have a campus wide center the Bonner Foundation encourages participating schools to utilize the Bonner Leaders to provide the student enthusiasm and leadership to help create one. Through various committees and organizations the students can provide vital links to other campus service initiatives such as service-learning, community-based research, and student service groups. The Bonner Program can play an integral role in uniting these diverse service initiatives into a broad-based, comprehensive service program.

In addition, a coordinated campus-wide structure makes it easier for community groups to access campus resources. In fact, as other divisions, departments, and groups on campuses become involved in various forms of community outreach — including community service, service-learning, community-based research, technical assistance, and community economic development — one of the biggest challenges will be to present a coherent roadmap of opportunities for students, faculty, and community partners who want to become engaged in these efforts.

Questions to Consider:

• Who would coordinate the Bonner Leader Program on your campus?
• Where would the program be based?
• How could this program work with currently existing service initiatives on your campus?
• How can students assist you with the creation of the program?

(b) Financial Support — “Access to Education Opportunity to Serve”

The goal of providing access to a college education for students with high financial is paramount to the Bonner Program model. Students are supported financially as they engage in intensive and sustained service. Typically, students in Bonner Leader Programs receive Federal Work Study funds. If Federal Work Study is not available, we recommend establishing other institutional resources to support these students. Many campuses access Bonner AmeriCorps Education Awards as a supplement to the students' stipend.

Questions to Consider:

• What additional sources of funding could your campus leverage to supplement the students’ scholarship package?
• Will the Bonner AmeriCorps Education Award be an appropriate resource?
• Who on campus is utilizing (spending) community based work study? (Review the Federal Work Study Packet for more information).

(c) Community Partnerships

The Bonner Program brings campus and community leaders together on equal footing to forge a new vision of what campus and community partnerships can achieve. The community development goal of the Bonner Program is to have campuses, students, and community partners address needs and mobilize assets in building stronger, healthier communities. The spirit of collaboration ensures a channel of communication in order to more effectively respond to the evolving needs of the community and help close the historical divide between campus and community.

The work of community organizations is significantly enhanced because the Bonner Program structure provides students with the financial support and training to engage for multiple years with the same agency, issue area and.or organization, enabling the students' to take on increasing responsibility and leadership in their service.

The Bonner Program follows a comprehensive service placement process used by members for both their school year and the summer placements. The model also describes a collaborative, community problem-solving process that builds in the placement process. Taken together, these two components of community partnerships help the progam achieve your community partnership goals.

The Bonner Program emphasizes the quality and investment of relationship that exist when students and their campus make long term, meaningful commitments to the community. The highly collaborative nature of the Bonner Program has provided space for community organizations and campuses to take part in the national service movement as well as to be true partners and co-educators. We offer extensive resources for building and managing partnerships of this quality: see the Community Partnership Implementation Guides.

Questions to Consider:

• What community partners would be candidates for participation in this program?
• How can we involve community partners in the early stage of the development of the Bonner program’s creation and implementation?

(d) Start Up Timeline & Logistics

Successful programs require planning. As this guide suggests, there are many factors to consider. It is best to give yourselves enough lead time to design a strategy for implementing your Bonner Leader Program. It is our recommendation that campuses begin with a smaller number of students (10-15) and community partners. This approach allows you to establish a solid foundation of strong program elements from which to build in future years. Building a Bonner Leader Program may be full experimentation and revised plans, but we expect that you will find the extensive resources and the collective experience of the Bonner network ease this process significantly.

Questions to Consider:

• When would you like to implement the program?
• How many Bonner Leaders would you want to recruit for the first year?
• How would you handle the summer component of the Bonner Leader Program?

Step 3: Creating a Plan for Your Student Developmental Model

All students in the Bonner Program are guided through intentional opportunities to develop as thoughtful, engaged citizens of our national and global community. We recognize the individualized nature of a student’s participation in and development of values, cognitive abilities, skills, and experience. We envision graduates who have a multitude of experience, commitment, and proficiency to continue as effective “servant leaders,” even while they contribute through different localities, occupations, political persuasions, networks, and viewpoints.

The program follows a student developmental progression which we call the Five E’s: expectation, explore, experience, example, and expertise. The Bonner Community has defined six Common Commitments as well as a set of twenty-four personal, professional and leadership skills. The Common Commitments: community building, civic engagement, diversity, international perspective, spiritual exploration, and social justice represent a core set of value exploration we expect students to have the opportunity to explore in the program. The skill sets were articulated as concrete examples of what can be mapped into the program experience.

Programs execute their student development plan in both co-curricular and curricular contexts. Regardless, there are key components to every Bonner Leader Program. These include: Orientation, Advising, All Bonner Meetings, Vocational Discernment and a Presentation of Learning. For the training and enrichment component, programs make extensive use of the more than 60+ training modules the Foundation commissioned from the Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL). COOL/Idealist-on-Campus hosts a national conference annually that has come to be a key experience for training and enrichment for many Bonner Programs.

See the Sample Bonner Program Calendar for an illustration or model to use.

Questions to Consider:

• What campus and community professionals could assist with training and enrichment activities for students?