Higher education institutions are becoming increasingly embedded in their surrounding communities in order to learn from and respond to their often complex problems. Potential mutually beneficial--or reciprocal-- collaborations between students, faculty members, and communities are being set up, but few researchers have explored how community actors are involved in collaborative decision-making processes. To fill this gap, this narrative review explores the current literature on community involvement processes in course-based higher education activities. Our research yielded a framework of definitions, guiding principles, and strategies to achieve more successful community involvement in this context. Seven guiding principles and related strategies are presented: alignment, shared ownership, balancing power relations, joint learning and knowledge creation, representation, immersion, and relationship building. The narrative review gave insights into the way community involvement is currently approached in course-based higher education activities and established a basis for understanding and shaping higher education--community collaboration.