Community Needs Assessment Process

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A second approach to identifying community assets builds upon the experiences of other communities to highlight resources that may be available. The community assessment can identify communities with similar demographics that have successfully addressed similar needs, and can provide insight about the assets used in those communities. The community can then determine if similar assets can be found in its community. Why Should You Conduct a Community Assessment? There are many benefits to conducting a community assessment. Listed below are just a few. You can work with your community partners to identify additional benefits in your community as an exercise to build consensus and buy-in for the process. • There is increased understanding within the community about its needs, why they exist, and why it is important for the needs to be addressed. • Community members have the opportunity to share how the needs impact the quality of life for the larger community. • Community engagement is increased because members from different parts of the community are included in discussions about needs, assets, and the community’s response. • The community’s strengths and weaknesses are identified. • There is an inventory of the resources currently available within the community that can be leveraged to improve the quality of life for its community members. • Communities identify the asset gaps that exist in their communities. • Community members have an increased awareness of how they can contribute to their community’s assets. • Community organizations can use the information about community needs to assess their service delivery priorities. • There is data for making decisions about the actions that can be taken to address community needs and how to use the available assets. • Data can be used to inform strategic planning, priority setting, program outcomes, and program improvements. THE COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT PROCESS This guidebook recommends a six-step process for planning and conducting a community assessment: Step 1: Define the Scope Step 2: Decide to Go Solo or Collaborate Step 3: Collect Data Step 4: Determine Key Findings Step 5: Set Priorities and Create an Action Plan Step 6: Share Your Findings 5
Steps one through three should be considered an iterative planning process. Each step should be discussed independently. But the information identified in one of the steps may change the approach to another step. For example, an organization may decide to collaborate with a key partner to complete the community assessment, but the key partner has to wait three months before it can start. The organization now has to decide if it wants to wait before beginning or decide to change the community assessment scope, look for a new partner, or move forward without a partner. Steps four through six focus on analyzing the community assessment data. Step 1: Define the Scope Community issues are complicated. One issue is often related to many others, and it is easy to keep expanding the range of issues to include in your community assessment. Let’s look at the following example: • High school dropout rates are related to homelessness. • Homelessness is related to head-of-household unemployment. • Unemployment can lead to gang involvement. • Gang involvement is related to high school dropout rates. • Gang involvement can be prevented if efforts are targeted at middle school youth. All of these issues are important. A community assessment can address all of the issues and their interrelationships, or it can focus on just one issue. To define the scope of your community assessment, you must clearly identify the community issue to be assessed, the impacted community members, the geographic area to assess, the key questions you want answered, and the level of detail you want to include in the assessment. Here are some examples of key questions: • What are the basic demographics of my community (income levels, races/ethnicities, number of youth)? • Who are the faith- and community-based organizations serving people in my community? What services are they providing and to whom? • What services are local public agencies providing, and to whom? (Include law enforcement, probation, courts, schools, and workforce development.) • What organizations are funded by foundations and government agencies to address the community issues? What do local residents see as the primary needs for this community? • What are the various intervention strategies being used in my community to address the issues? Are these practices demonstrating any clear outcomes? • Who are the leaders in my community? What key players in local government are concerned with the issues we want to address? • What local volunteer groups (e.g., Rotary Clubs) serve the community? • Who are the people in my community who care about the issue? • What community organizations focus on these issues? Are they delivering service in a meaningful way? • Are there partnering opportunities with other nonprofits or faith-based and community organizations? • What are the gaps in service to people in the community? What would a complete system look like? • Are community members ready for a change in the issue we are trying to address? 6
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The e-Advocate Monthly …a Compend
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The Advocacy Foundation, Inc. Helpi
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Dedication ______ Every publication
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The Transformative Justice Project
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1. The national average cost to tax
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The Advocacy Foundation, Inc. Helpi
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Biblical Authority Psalm 133 (NIV)
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Table of Contents …a compilation
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I. Introduction Community Needs Ass
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needs assessment according to Kaufm
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geographical areas, available on a
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Examples The "Santa Clara County Tr
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Organization level Training/worksho
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Interviews: Using a series of prede
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How will the data from the communit
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etween focus group members is a ves
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nature and scope of a problem at wh
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community to draw a map of the comm
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Community needs assessment as a tec
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Library and Information Science Use
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Today, using audience response keyp
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Douglas Rushkoff argues that focus
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Sentence Completion- participants a
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II. Data Collection and Data Analys
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The data is necessary as inputs to
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feedback, which results in addition
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analyze the distribution of the key
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and a quantitative attribute of int
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techniques employed by analysts, wh
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although this can also be done duri
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In case items do not fit the scale:
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follow up an exploratory analysis w
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International Data Analysis Contest
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III. Economic Impact Analysis An Ec
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Another method used for economic im
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IV. Social Impact Assessments Socia
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V. Stakeholder Analysis Stakeholder
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The former Office of Government Com
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VI. Social Return on Investment Soc
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Understand what changes. Value the
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3. Value what matters (also known a
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thinking, and Resilience Theory and
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VII. Social Earnings Ratio The Soci
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Metrics Focus Metric Application 1
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arguing it as an instrument for cha
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VIII. Future Forecasting Techniques
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1. Lone signals (individual factors
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Backcasting (eco-history) It is a t
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may be used to evaluate risk manage
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As the complexity of real systems i
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As trends never speak for themselve
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IX. References 1. https://en.wikipe
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Notes _____________________________
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Attachment A Advocacy Foundation Co
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COMMUNITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT GUIDE Cr
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4
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agencies “develop a picture of or
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conducted and finished and added to
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The Higher Ground process mentioned
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agencies can draw upon to use for t
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• Do you address this issue or ne
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Employment is a problem in this are
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_____Vocational Rehabilitation Pote
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Lack of dropout prevention programs
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ISSUE AREA - HOUSING Finding afford
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ISSUE AREA - NUTRITION Those strugg
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ISSUE AREA - USE OF INCOME All Amer
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ISSUE AREA - TRANSPORTATION Missour
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ISSUE AREA - HEALTH According to Fa
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Page 187 and 188: TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION.....
Page 189: OVERVIEW In order to effectively se
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Page 201 and 202: APPENDIX D Worksheet: Determining K
Page 203 and 204: This work was created by the Compas
Page 205 and 206: Advocacy Foundation Publishers Page
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Page 223 and 224: The e-Advocate Newsletter Genesis o
Page 225 and 226: Extras The Nonprofit Advisors Group
Page 227 and 228: About The Author John C (Jack) John
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