GRANT RESOURCE CENTER

April 2005 Featured Article Conducting a Community Needs Assessment Pat Bohse, President of Bohse & Associates, Inc. Happy Spring!   This month’s article is on the importance and the how-to’s of conducting a Community Needs Assessment.  We are recommending that local municipalities consider conducting a Community Needs Assessment because it will provide them with valuable information that could be used in a variety of ways such as justifying grants, designing new local programs, promoting collaboration among local agencies and businesses, and supporting funders in decision making.     The results of a Community Needs Assessment can provide your municipality with good information about what services are needed in the community; how the citizens of your community view present services; what their recommendations are for improvements; and, identifying any new needs that the community may need to address.    Steps to Conducting a Community Needs Assessment:   Appoint a task force/committee to oversee the project and determine the timeline, the focus of the assessment, the tools and how the outcomes will be reported.  The task force/committee will identify the stakeholders who will be part of the assessment.  These stakeholders can come from the following:                 •Local elected officials                           •Paid municipal staff                 •Community volunteers                          •Community members                 •Educational organizations                     •Business groups                 •Social/cultural/recreational organizations                 •Environmental groups                           •Senior group                 •Churches/Synagogues                         •Other 3. Once the stakeholders have been identified the next decision will be deciding upon the focus   of your Community Needs Assessment.  Is it going to be a general assessment versus specific (e.g. general would be any concerns of the citizenship - specific would be individual   topics such as crime, safety, housing, etc.)? 4. Next, you will need to develop the questionnaire/survey and decide what forum will be used to capture the information (i.e. public meetings, focus groups, questionnaires, telephone surveys,  mass mailings, and/or interviewing key community representatives).    The following links are good examples:                 Links to tools on how to conduct a Community Needs Assessment:   • Utah State University Extension • Port Jervis New York                 Links to completed reports as a result of Community Needs Assessments:   • Oxford County, Southwestern Ontario • Essex County, Ontario   5.   Next steps:   Implement the plan with a timeline Generate a final report with recommendations Leverage the final report for future growth of the municipality WOW your future funders!      Full version of April Article in Adobe PDF format for printing