English

Abstract

Service learning in higher education has increased noticeably in terms of number of institutions and range of disciplines. One reason is the expectation of two types of benefits or outcomes: (1) enhancing student learning and (2) helping community organizations. Service-learning outcomes for students have been assessed in a number of studies, primarily in the short term (end of the academic session), but the outcomes for community organizations have been examined in few studies, also primarily in the short term. But service-learning projects in nonprofit classes have the potential for longer term impacts, particularly related to organizational capacity. In this article, we examine impacts from the community partners’ perspective with a relatively unique combination of data: project assessments in the short term (end of academic session) and survey results in the longer term (1 to 8 years later). Findings indicate service-learning projects in nonprofit classes have positive impacts on organizational capacity in various ways, including volunteer management and fundraising.