A Calvin Community Partnerships Network exists to foster communication and strategic planning, as well as to nurture and celebrate relationships between Calvin College and community organizations in which each partner uses its resources, meets specific community and campus needs, and furthers the mission of the other. An annual Community Partnership Celebration recognizes some of the most unique and successful partnerships between Calvin and community partners.

The divisions, offices and programs at Calvin which are represented on this team are Academics, Admissions, Alumni and Advancement, Community Engagement, External-Community Relations, Pre-college Programs and Service Learning Center.

History of Calvin's "Community Partnership Team"

During the 1997-98 academic year, a group of staff and faculty worked on an action plan for community partnerships after the President's Cabinet approved the mandate to develop strong community partnerships between Calvin and the Grand Rapids community...it is a crucial time for Calvin to build on its legacy of service and service-learning toward Ernest L. Boyer's 'scholarship of engagement' … our intent is for Calvin to enter genuine, intentional and strategic partnerships with local groups and persons that resonate with the college's mission and demonstrate Calvin's faithfulness to God's call to engage, to learn, to transform, and to redeem."

After an internal survey which proved a broad range of involvements by Calvin people in the local community, the findings indicated that there are primarily three current issues in Grand Rapids which Calvin faculty and staff identified as being in the strategic interest of the college - Education (both public and private), Race and Diversity Issues, and Core City Matters (e.g. housing, transportation, urban sprawl, crime, poverty).