Principles of Ethical and Effective Service

Stanford University’s Principles of Ethical and Effective Service guide our work with students, faculty, and community partners to inform program design, implementation, and evaluation, as well as to ensure that our work aligns with our values.
 

Humility  |  Respect and Inclusion  |  Reciprocity  |  Preparation  |  Safety and Well-being  |  Accountability  |  Evaluation  |  Learning and Reflection

As we engage in public service, we want to take seriously our responsibilities to the communities and organizations with whom we partner. Stanford's Principles of Ethical and Effective Service provide a framework for ensuring that our work aligns with our values.

Public service and community engagement within higher education are bound by a dynamic tension between a commitment to deepening student learning and a desire to advance the priorities and values of community partners. Here, and in their future roles as citizens and leaders, our students must grapple with ethical dilemmas as they strive to maximize positive impact and minimize potential harm. The Principles of Ethical and Effective Service are a tool to examine these dilemmas in order to work toward an appropriate balance, but not full resolution, of the tensions that arise in public service. The principles are aspirational and continue to evolve as our understanding of public service deepens. Ethical and effective service is itself a process and an orientation, not a checklist. Whether we are engaging in public service for the first time or bring significant experience, our efforts are strengthened by an ongoing practice of critical reflection.

We hope the principles - and the reflection questions that accompany them - can serve Stanford students, faculty, staff, and community engagement professionals elsewhere as a resource for creating and deepening community partnerships that appropriately balance student learning and community impact. We also hope that these principles will serve as an enduring compass for our students, as they move on from Stanford and continue to seek ways to advance the common good. We encourage readers to consider how they can adapt these principles for their own communities and engage diverse stakeholders in a discussion about the opportunities and challenges inherent in university efforts to engage service participants as both learners and meaningful contributors.

Humility

Humility compels us to reflect on and problematize our own certainty, listen generously, remain curious, keep an open mind, and maintain a learning attitude. It calls us to be mindful of the needs, assets, interests, and expectations of others. Humility invites us to reflect on how we relate to ourselves—to our own goodness and limitations—and to others. Humility is not about making oneself small; instead, it requires mindfulness of any individual and institutional privileges that we hold, structures and systems that may inform interpersonal relationships, and a desire to co-create environments where all voices and perspectives can be shared.  

Questions to Consider

• How will I prepare myself and my team to be humble and respectful in service experiences?
• Does my approach to public service elevate others? Am I doing what I can to make sure everyone’s experiences and perspectives are heard, particularly those whose voices have not yet been heard?
• What might make humility challenging for me in my service engagement?
• What does it look like to “lead with curiosity” in my service engagement?
• What relationship do I have with those being served and are there institutional histories and dynamics that impact our interactions?

Respect and Inclusion

Respect is about showing regard and consideration for the dignity of others. It begins with self-awareness, recognition of the intrinsic value of others, and treating others how they want to be treated. Respect and humility go hand in hand, as respecting others can often involve interrogating our own assumptions about problems and solutions, particularly when we encounter values, ideas, and behaviors that differ from our own. When we disagree with others, respect means being hard on the issues but soft on the people.

In the context of public service, respect manifests as cultural humility and the practice of inclusion. Inclusive practices compel us to recognize differences between people as valued assets, and to be aware of and challenge biases, stereotypes, and assumptions that could cause us to prejudge and/or devalue others.

Questions to Consider

• In what ways can I show regard and consideration for others in this service context? How do those I serve want to be treated?
• Am I showing respect and consideration for everyone involved in my service context, including my fellow students, community members, and instructors? Am I ready to acknowledge and value the contributions of others?
• When exposed to attitudes, behaviors, and ideas that differ from my own, how will I manage the tension between accepting others and staying true to my own values? For example, how will I respond if confronted with a view that I believe is wrong and harmful to a group of which I am a member or that I am seeking to serve? How will I approach differences in cultural norms when working with communities different from my own?
• In what ways can I practice inclusion, doing my part to make sure that everyone feels welcome and valued?
• What different experiences do the people involved in this service experience bring to the work, and how can I recognize and respect these differences as valuable assets?
• What biases, stereotypes, and assumptions do I bring to this public service experience that could impact others? How can I minimize them to ensure an inclusive experience for everyone?

Reciprocity

The principle of reciprocity rejects the notion of “service” as something that one person delivers to another, as a gift. A reciprocal relationship with partners is characterized by interdependence and mutual benefit; consideration of our collective strengths, knowledge, and capacity to influence others; and shared responsibility to work toward common goals.

Reciprocity compels us to collaborate with the communities we seek to serve in the design, facilitation, and evaluation of our efforts to ensure value and relevance to all involved.

Questions to Consider

• How can I tailor my work to my community partners’ stated needs, assets, and interests?
• What should reciprocity look like between community partners and me?
• What experience and knowledge do my community partners have that will contribute to my learning? How am I being served by this experience?
• What strategies can I use to show appreciation to my community partners for their educational role?
• How will I ensure that my learning does not come at the expense of those I serve or those I serve alongside?

Preparation

Taking time to understand the social, ideological, economic, environmental, and historical contexts of service experiences is essential. Preparation requires learning about the partner organizations and communities they serve, developing an understanding of their histories and the institutional relationships that shape the issue you seek to address. It compels us to be flexible and willing to adapt to changing circumstances that can occur before, during, and after the service experience and to tap the knowledge and expertise of community partners, faculty, and staff before engaging in work in a community.

Questions to Consider

• What knowledge and skills do I need to be effective in engaging with this community and/or social issue?
• What resources are available that might deepen my understanding of the context surrounding my service initiative?
• Are there histories and institutional legacies that shape the issue I am focused on?
• How has my academic work prepared me for this experience?

Safety and Well-being

Service should be pursued in environments of safety and well-being. This principle compels us to anticipate and take steps to ensure the physical and emotional safety and well-being of all participants. It also involves awareness of and compliance with the safety requirements and liability concerns of community partners and the university.

Questions to Consider

• What are possible safety concerns (physical as well as emotional) in my service initiative?
• What steps have I taken to ensure physical and emotional well-being, as well as to respect the confidentiality and privacy of all participants?
• Have I talked with community stakeholders and my university advisor about safety issues and made plans to mitigate risk?
• How will I be safe when the cultural norms of a given community are different from my own community’s?

Accountability

Being accountable is about taking responsibility for our actions and commitments. It is not about attaining all of our goals and objectives to perfection, but rather about recognizing, negotiating, and taking ownership of outcomes within our reach and capacity. Accountability sustains trust and respect among individuals working toward shared goals.

We hold ourselves accountable when we fulfill our roles and responsibilities to the best of our abilities and we acknowledge the impact our actions, inaction, and limitations have on others. Accountability compels us to accept our shortcomings with a spirit of humility and commit to redressing our mistakes.

Questions to Consider

• How will I determine my community partners’ needs, expectations, and interests and share my own?
• How can I earn and sustain the trust of community partners, those I serve alongside, and people being served?
• How will I establish clear lines of ongoing communication with my community partners?
• How will I hold myself and others accountable for our actions and commitments?
• How could/will my service effort be sustained? Is it appropriate and valuable to mutually establish a formal partnership agreement?

Evaluation

Evaluation involves the iterative and active incorporation of qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the impact of our efforts throughout the service experience. This principle compels us to be aware of and attend to the direct, indirect, and unintended results (positive or negative) of our service. This principle requires us to intentionally and creatively build in opportunities to gather regular feedback from community partners and participants to assess our values, refine our practices, and improve the quality of our work.

Questions to Consider

• How will I and my partners know whether we have been successful?
• What metrics will I use to measure the impact of my efforts?
• What aspects of my impact might be difficult to measure?
• How will I avoid bias in evaluating the efficacy of my service?
• What methods and/or tools will I use to collect input into my evaluation?
• What is the impact of my public service on the communities being served? What is the impact on my own development?

Learning and Reflection

Learning happens through a cycle of preparation, experience, and reflection. It is essential to make time and space for continual introspection as one engages in service in order to encourage learning opportunities with community stakeholders. This principle compels us to intentionally and creatively build in opportunities to reflect; involve community partners when possible; and acknowledge personal shifts in perspective, understanding, and attitudes throughout the service experience.

Questions to Consider

• What am I hoping to learn through this service experience?
• When, where, and how will I incorporate reflection opportunities into my experience?
• How do I create meaningful opportunities for participants to reflect?
• How is this service experience deepening my understanding of the issue? Where does this intersect with my academic interests, with my professional goals?
• How have my beliefs, values, and knowledge shifted as a result of my participation in the service experience?

About These Principles

In 2002, Stanford University’s Haas Center for Public Service developed the Principles for Ethical and Effective Service in collaboration with community participants, faculty, students, and staff to raise awareness about the University’s responsibility to communities and organizations involved with public service activities at Stanford. They have been collaboratively updated since then, most recently in 2025.