Intersecting Assets

How Successful Community Engagement Built a Leading Social Procurement Program at York University

Abstract

This article investigates how strategic community partnerships form the bedrock of successful institutional community engagement activities. In this investigation, these engagements encourage institutional practitioners to consider how truly effective community economic development materializes when the university assumes a reactionary role by tailoring activity to respond to outcomes community defines for itself. Using the formation and development of York Unviersity’s successful social procurement program as test case, the article explores how key community partnerships have led to successful program outcomes – which, to date, have amounted to over $8million spent on diverse suppliers and 63 apprenticeship opportunities created. To demonstrate this evidence, the article considers how to identify and align with community champions to create tangible outcomes as well as how those defined outcomes are translated into creating activities that are aligned with what the institution can reasonably deliver to achieve the community’s stated outcomes. In this article, this will be considered as it explores York’s Social Procurement Vendor Portal and how its formation and refinement was directly attributed to community need. Finally, the investigation considers the interplay between how institutions can design impactful reporting that responds to community need.