Reframing Impact Through Storytelling

A Community-Led Methodology for Exploring Transformative Community–Academic Partnerships

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18060/29534

Keywords:

storytelling, impact, community-academic partnerships

Abstract

Institutions of higher education often rely on quantitative indicators to assess community–academic partnerships, yet these metrics frequently overlook the relational, transformative, and equity-centered dimensions of long-term collaboration. To address this gap, we developed a community-led storytelling methodology to more authentically capture partnership impact. Our center partnered with nonprofit organizations in Baltimore City through two participatory approaches: (1) partner-to-partner conversations, in which community partners interviewed one another using a co-developed interview guide, and (2) personal narratives from community leaders reflecting organizational and community-level impacts of sustained partnerships. Grounded in co-created guiding principles for ethical community engagement, the methodology centers mutuality, community-defined impacts of partnership, and the shared value of telling stories that are too often ignored in academic spaces. This process generated rich qualitative data that surfaced outcomes often missed by conventional metrics, including trust-building, mutual learning, organizational growth, and alignment with community-defined values. Community partners reported that the narratives reframed how impact was understood and validated the depth of relational work. This praxis-based methodology offered an equity-centered approach for assessing partnership impact and expanding institutional definitions of value in community-engaged scholarship.

Author Biography

Mindi B. Levin, MS, CHES®, Johns Hopkins University

Mindi B. Levin, MS, CHES®

Mindi Levin is the founder and director of SOURCE, the community engagement and service-learning center, serving the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Schools of Public Health, Nursing, and Medicine. In this capacity, she leads the team and supports the creation of strategies to integrate public health practice and community outreach activities into academic training in the health professions. These efforts are accomplished in partnership with approximately 100 Baltimore community-based organizations, as well as faculty, staff, and students. Mindi cultivates community-academic partnerships and uses critical service-learning pedagogy to promote health and social justice, with a special commitment to Baltimore.

Additionally, she is an Associate Practice Professor in the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Health, Behavior and Society (primary), the Department of Health Policy and Management (joint), and the JHU School of Nursing (joint). She teaches and supports a variety of critical service-learning courses on campus. She created and serves as the faculty sponsor of the certificate program in Community-Based Public Health. She worked with colleagues to develop several key SOURCE initiatives, including SOURCE Service-Learning Academy for faculty and community partners, SOURCE Service Scholars, Connection Community Consultants, Baltimore Action Projects, and the HIV Counseling and Testing Program.

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Published

2026-07-29

Issue

Vol. 37 No. 2 (2026): 2025 CUMU Conference Issue Part 1

Section

Praxis Articles

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Copyright (c) 2026 Mindi B. Levin, MS, CHES®, R. Tyler Derreth, PhD, La'Tonya T. Bryant, DOL, MBA, CPM, Jayson J. Green

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.