Placemaking and a sense of place are increasingly foundational to the work of grantmakers and philanthropists. This trend reflects a realization that policies and investments must be responsive to and reflective of the people, neighborhoods, and communities they are designed to affect. This responsiveness is central to the notion of equity, also trending, which suggests that the cookie-cutter approach of simply providing the same thing for every community does not serve anyone well. As practitioners, we may be tempted to take the latest, greatest evidence-based model and import it into our work. But when creation or adoption of a program strategy is divorced from an assessment of the needs of the community, the disconnect can limit or even thwart effectiveness.
Community needs assessment is especially important for organizations with place-based missions that focus more on the “where” than the “what.” For those organizations, the first step to effectiveness is to actively listen and learn in order to develop a clear sense of their community’s needs and assets. For instance, one of our clients, Revitalize Arlington, is a Florida community development corporation (CDC) that, according to its mission statement, “is dedicated to sparking sustainable growth and allowing Arlington to shine as an economically thriving part of Jacksonville.” For that organization, and others like it, to be successful, they must take time within their strategic planning and program planning processes to understand the target community’s needs and assets. This article focuses on community needs – we will discuss asset mapping in a later post.
We define community needs assessment as a systematic process of identifying and documenting the unmet needs of a group defined by one or more shared characteristics. A systematic approach is one for which there is a rationale and a planned strategy. The fact that this is a process means that it occurs over time; there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Ideally, a group such as the organization’s board, a workgroup, or a team of staff members works together to conduct the community needs assessment.
The first step in this process, one often neglected, is to clearly define the community. A community may be defined geographically, demographically, associationally, or using a combination of these traits. Geographical definitions of community are relatively straightforward – a municipality, census tract, district, street boundaries, or even a commercial corridor may designate the focus community. Demographic definitions of community specify groups that are linked by ethnicity, gender, age, language spoken, income level, or other such characteristics. Associational definitions of community may focus on persons in a particular profession — such as farm workers — or who participate in certain activities, for instance, recreational running. Once arrived upon, the definition of community should be written or visualized in some way, such as a map, in order to help focus the group and limit compelling but unrelated distractions.
Once the group conducting the needs assessment has defined its focus community, it can begin to assess that community’s needs. Needs are different from problems – they are gaps that negatively affect the community and its members. For instance, if the problem attracting the group’s attention is an increased incidence of crime, gaps that contribute to that problem may include unemployment, environmental and human blight, lack of sufficient lighting, mistrustful relationships with law enforcement, inattentive property management, and/or insufficient recreational activities. Identifying the gaps is the first step toward developing approaches to address those needs and make a positive impact on the problem.
In our work, we have identified five strategies organizations can use to understand their community’s needs. This list is not exhaustive, but it represents strategies that we have utilized successfully to help organizations develop a solid foundation of understanding their communities, which is critical to any work they plan to do.
Run the Numbers
Gathering statistical data is an excellent way to document community needs. The advantage of this strategy is that funders love to see data that help to paint a picture of the community’s demographics and other characteristics, as well as its challenges. Great sources of statistical data include the U.S. Census Bureau’s data website, local health departments, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the Opportunity Atlas website, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, state departments of education, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book, and other recent reports and surveys. Remember when using statistics to find the most recent ones available and to always document and note the sources so as to demonstrate credibility. When documenting the statistical data, avoid simply listing statistics. Organizing the data and using them to tell a story is much more helpful, as is presenting data visually using charts, graphs, or infographics; those methods of presentation can help tell a story while at the same time preventing information overload.
Interview or Survey Stakeholders
Another great way to generate credible data regarding community needs is to conduct interviews and/or surveys with stakeholders. A stakeholder is any individual who has a connection to and/or a stake in what happens within the focus community. Collecting interviews or surveys is a great way to deploy the organization’s team or board. The group can take some time to brainstorm key figures they may know in the community. Then the group leader can match each interviewee with a team/board member and empower team/board members to make appointments for phone or in-person interviews. Armed with a list of questions, they can take notes during the interview or audiorecord it and then capture notes following the interview. When we used this strategy with the regional board of a nonprofit that was updating its strategic plan, the stakeholder survey included questions such as:
- What do you see as the critical needs in our community?
- What do you see as cutting-edge work for our organization?
- If everything goes as well as it could, and our organization does everything it ought to in the best possible way, how will the community be stronger three years from now?
- Who else should we interview?
Conduct Case Studies
Case studies offer a third strategy that organizations can use to assess community needs. Cases selected for a “deep dive” may be individual community members or larger units such as households or schools. Case studies allow organizations to capture stories, which is increasingly important as storytelling becomes a critical component of nonprofit communications strategy. Stories have several advantages. First, many if not most people find it easier to connect to stories than to a bunch of numbers or words. Another great thing about stories is that they can showcase multiple types of media such as photos, audio, and videos. A downside is that the data from case studies are not generalizable to an entire population – each person, household, school, etc. is different and has its own unique set of needs, assets, and circumstances. However, case studies can present points of view that help to fill out and complete the picture painted by other data.
Serve and Observe
An excellent way to get a sense of needs in the community while also engaging in meeting those needs is to serve community members, either by initiating a project or volunteering with another organization. Volunteer service creates an opportunity for team/board members to interact with neighbors in the community while also observing and noting their visible needs. Another benefit of this strategy is that, while serving with other organizations, team members build relationships that may become partnership opportunities leading to greater collective impact in the future.
Bonus Strategy for Faith-Oriented Organizations: Pray
For faith oriented organizations and leaders, prayer – including individual prayer, team prayer, and prayer walking – can be a great way to begin the process of identifying where to dig in within a community, especially one that is defined geographically. Praying within the focus area helps to incorporate the unseen spiritual aspects of a community’s needs into the assessment process. The leader may want to do pray first, then invite the team – for instance, the staff or board – to come together periodically to pray corporately. Prayer walking expands participation even further, to the greater community. During prayer walking, the emphasis is on observing the community through one’s five senses, then talking to God about thoughts or impressions that accompany that observation. For instance, when walking past a home with children’s toys in the yard, the prayer walker may pray for the children who live in that home as well as their parents, guardians, or caregivers. During prayer walking, participants may encounter neighbors who are curious about what is going on. That is a wonderful opportunity for group members to ask whether neighbors have any prayer requests. If so, those can be prayed for immediately and also documented as evidence of the felt needs in the community.
Next Step: Document
As mentioned above in our definition of community needs assessment, identification of needs is only half the battle. The next step in the process is to document the findings. This step pays dividends for months and years to come, as it provides a narrative that can easily be adapted into the statement of need for multiple grant proposals and other documents. Documenting the needs assessment also gives the board and management team a tool that can be used to focus the group when discussing programs and other impact strategies. Ideas that do not address a documented need can be tabled in an objective way. If there is nobody on the team with the bandwidth or gift for written communications, this task may be an opportunity to deploy the services of a professional grant writer. When documenting needs assessment findings, the team should be careful to include data sources in either footnotes or endnotes. Once a draft is completed, obtain feedback on it from several community residents and tweak as necessary to ensure that it is accurate, as judged by those with expert knowledge regarding the community.
Unfortunately, a community needs assessment is not something that can be undertaken once and never revisited. Each year, there are new statistical data to incorporate and update. Therefore, it is recommended that the organization’s board incorporate a needs assessment review and update into its agenda at least once per year.
In closing, here are some questions leaders can ask to help shape the community needs assessment process:
- What is the best group to convene to conduct the community needs assessment?
- How long should the process last? When should it begin and end?
- How is the community being defined? Where is this definition written?
- What publications or websites contain statistical information regarding the defined community?
- What organizations offer volunteer opportunities to serve the community?
- What “cases” in the community would be interesting to study?
- What questions would be good to ask stakeholders to get their input on community needs?
- For faith-oriented organizations: How can prayer be incorporated into the needs assessment process?
- Who on our team has the bandwidth and skills to document community needs assessment findings?
