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Campus Action Planning (CAP) is a national initiative and comprehensive framework designed to empower colleges and universities to advance civic and community engagement as an institutional priority.
Our adaptive approach helps align campus resources and encourages collaboration between community-engaged professionals across functions to build on campus and community assets. Through convenings, cohorts, learning communities, and technical support, Campus Action Planning increases the capacity of higher education to embrace its public purpose, cultivate collective flourishing, and help build a just democracy.
Apply for the CAP Innovation Cohort
A yearlong experience for teams of six to ten campus and community members at 20 member institutions that are committed to deep, transformative planning. This exciting pilot program offers campus-community teams a structured seven-month arc of support designed to guide the development and initial implementation of a Campus Action Plan.
The History of Campus Action Planning
New Name, Same Holistic Impact. Campus Compact launched the Civic Action Planning initiative in 2016 in honor of Campus Compact's 30th anniversary. This new initiative provided campuses with a framework for aligning practice with values—envisioning an integrated approach to teaching, scholarship, and institutional policies. Campus leaders were encouraged to sign on to an Action Statement, a declaration of shared commitment to the public purposes of higher education and commit to develop and publish a Campus Civic Action Plan within the next year. Within the first five years, Civic Action plans from over 100 campuses were completed and added to Campus Compact's Civic Action Plan library.
In the 2024-2025 academic year, Campus Compact began efforts incorporate the learnings of the past to revise and enhance this initiative under a new name, "Campus Action Planning for Civic and Community Engagement." The revised framework offers new tools, online repositories, and in-depth workshops, that respond to the needs of today and more holistically support campuses in actualizing sustainable change.
