Community members and people with lived experience are often called on to “volunteer” their time, experience, and perspectives. Their contributions can be misconstrued as civic engagement, and their expertise may not be valued as much as that of academic or professional experts. But all forms of effort, expertise, and information deserve fair recompense. Community members’ participation demands their time, skills, and knowledge—and asks them to share highly personal, sometimes traumatic, life experiences. As organizations look to partner with community members, they should consider equitable compensation strategies that value such contributions.
This toolkit includes practical guidance and approaches for creating an equitable compensation plan for your organization’s community-partnered research projects. This toolkit is designed to help prepare practitioners interested in participatory engagement to have necessary conversations and preempt potential issues when developing or updating plans for equitable community compensation. It includes a checklist of tasks and considerations to track your progress as you work to develop a compensation framework for your project.