Principles of Community Engagement (Second Edition)

• Coalitions require that each party believe it needs help to reach its goals.
• The goals and perspectives of the members of a coalition will not all be
shared However, the coalition requires sufficient common ground that the
parties can agree over time on a purpose, set of policies, and strategies
• Coalitions require continuous and often delicate negotiation among their
participants
• The distribution of power and benefits among the members of a coalition
is an ongoing concern; all members need to believe that, over time, they
are receiving benefits that are comparable to their contributions (Sofaer,
1993)
Coalitions can help the engagement process in a number of ways, including
maximizing the influence of individuals and organizations, creating new collective
resources, and reducing the duplication of efforts The effectiveness of
coalitions has been evaluated on two distinct bases: how well the members
work together, and what kinds of community-level changes they bring about
While noting that the research literature is inadequate for determining which
factors are associated with the effectiveness of coalitions, Zakocs et al (2006)
suggest six possibilities: formalization of rules/procedures, leadership style,
participation of members, diversity of membership, collaboration, and group
cohesion
Based on their review of the literature on coalitions, Butterfoss et al (2002)
developed community coalition action theory, which provides 23 practice-based
propositions that address processes ranging from the formation of coalitions
through the institutionalization of long-lasting coalitions These propositions,
which shed light on how to create and support effective long-term alliances,
will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4
THE ETHICS OF COMMUNITY ENGAGED RESEARCH
Debates about the ethics of clinical research are not new (Chen et al , 2006;
Emanuel et al , 2000; Levine, 1988), but community-engaged research (CEnR)
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