Lessons Learned From the Community Outreach Partnership Centers Program

In 1994, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) launched the Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) program to foster and support collaborations between institutions of higher education and their communities. COPC is HUD's primary vehicle for engaging colleges and universities in community development. HUD commissioned Lessons Learned From the Community Outreach Partnership Centers Program to review the experience of a sample of early COPC grantees in order to distill lessons about the challenges and contributions of campus-community partnerships and about how community outreach efforts like those supported by COPC are being institutionalized by colleges and universities. This report, based on the experience of 25 COPC grantees and their partners, presents the results of that review and analysis.