Community members who wish to partner with the NWU can take note of the following:

The SCI support unit has a database of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), faith-based organisations (FBOs) and civic-/society-based organisations (CBOs/SBOs) that is utilised to connect our internal university community with external partners for a variety of community engagement purposes. However, it does not link up to procurement or services rendered to the North-West University (NWU). 

Only organisations that can or are adding value to our wider communities' social development and intend to contribute to social justice are registered as part of the Forum for Continuous Community Development (FCCD). 

Community engagement and achieving a sustainable impact are about working collaboratively as partners. However, the NWU does not partner with organisations that only wish to utilise the NWU brand to advance their business. 
Partners, groupings or individuals with specific needs that approach the university are welcome to contact Mrs Bibi Bouwman at the SCI support unit on 018 299 4220 or at email bibi.bouwman@nwu.ac.za.

Following contact, the partnership process is:

1. Firstly it will be determined if the issue requiring attention is indeed part of the CE mandate of the NWU, or if this requires referral.
2. If the issue can be addressed via the various engagement practices at the NWU, the internal potential partners will be contacted by the SCI unit to determine the availability of resources and expertise to address the need/s, and various line managers for CE (as well as other stakeholders if required) will then be involved.
3. Parallel to the above process, the intent and standing of the external partners will be verified. A due diligence process will be carried out on the party/parties asking for assistance. This will include verifying the disclosed needs, venues, the registration status of parties with the Department of Social Development and other legislative bodies, a visit to active projects/activities, the governance of the activities, whether parties have a structured executive and who the beneficiaries are. (If the intent and need are aligned, but the governance and registration requirements are not met, parties will be assisted in putting this is place.) 
4. The next step is that, together with potential partners, we identify how to address community needs using an asset-based approach. This means each group identifies the assets that they can share in this collaboration and we then develop a project/activity proposal in which the deliverables, terms and so on are also identified.
5. In some of the cases neither the NWU nor the external stakeholder may have a budget for executing such a community engagement project and then we have to then find a solution to funding the activity collectively.
6. Once these details are acceptable to all parties, we sign an MOU or MOA, depending on the nature of the project. 
7. Where the need involves the placement of staff or students for services (e.g. service learning or work-integrated learning) as a requirement, this may be a shorter process, but elements of the due diligence process will still be implemented as part of safety and risk management before an MOU will be signed with the partners. The partners will be added to the SCI’s stakeholder database. The SCI unit will utilise this database to assist internal implementers of service learning with placements at relevant partners.
8. Requests for donations will be handled on a case-by-case basis. The university generally cannot sponsor external projects.