office on volunteerism and community service october 23, 2014 comprehensive community needs...
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OFFICE ON VOLUNTEERISM AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
OCTOBER 23, 2014
Comprehensive Community Needs Assessments
Presentation Purpose/Content
ROMA Cycle
Why a comprehensive community needs assessment?
Tie to the Strategic Plan, including the Board
Planning
Data/Information Choices and Collection
Analysis
Action
ROMA Cycle Includes Assessment and Planning
Comprehensive Community Needs Assessment
A community needs assessment is a requirement of CSBG Act (Section 676(b)(11), part of ROMA cycle
A comprehensive community needs assessment seeks: Greatest community needs Available community resources Organization’s needs/abilities (to meet needs
identified)
Why a CCNA?
For Strategic Planning (information for making choices)
ROMA (targeting)
Support community partners decision-making process
Community Needs Assessments and the Strategic Plan
A comprehensive community needs assessment isn’t the strategic plan, but it is essential to a good one
Feeds yearly goals/outcomes, specific expected improvements in the community long- and short-term
Setting Family, Agency, and Community goals requires more than just needs data
Initial Planning
Severely underestimated in importance and time required
All stakeholders involved in this phase (not staff only) Board, Mgmt. Staff need to set aside substantial time Prepare Board for the process
Fresh process, reexamination of how we’ve done this What do you need to lead?
Initial Planning
What are the expectations for a finished product?
Identify needs
Identify partners
Identify big-picture concerns (policy, funding)
Community education (of what the needs are)
Initial Planning
What are the expectations for a finished product?
Defining terms
Timetable
How will we use it?
Who will need to see it?
Initial Planning
What categories do leaders want to use?
Broad, agency-wide?
Specific CSBG, ROMA?
Planning Assessment Implementation
Assessment Leader
Assessment Team Diverse skills/viewpoints, adequate time to contribute Community, partner, Board, management
Planning Assessment Implementation
Refine the work of the Leadership
Needs, categories to look at
What are the indicators?
The data that will be needed
Tools to get that data that you have, needed
Groups you’ll need to target to get the rest
Information/Data
Community Profile is the one most often included in every assessment Target population and its characteristics
CCAP tool can provide you with some of this
Dig deeper, look for trends, emerging conditions that could create need
Information/Data
Create a planning tool
What data you want, the place to get it from, and how you will get it?
Identified issues and their indicators From leadership and Assessment Team Brainstorming
Ensure that all goals, expectations, categories, and outcomes are planned out before beginning the collection of data!!
Data Collection
Statistical Data (Quantitative)
National Performance Indicator/Outcome Data for your agency
Available Public statistics (census, govt, partner data, PDC, Income, Employment)
Demand for services at your agency, in community
Multi-year databases within the agency or partners for finding trends
Data Collection
Qualitative Surveys
How it’s administered impacts the results greatly (online, mail, onsite)
Keep language simple, with a positive feel, to encourage participation
Question choice needs to be specific enough to be useful Ex. Health Care as a need doesn’t give enough to
determine partners, types of services, whereas dental care for kids under 5 is better.
Data Collection
Partner Surveys
Looking at the capacity/resources the organization has/needs
The needs of those they serve
Their view of your agency? If anonymous….
Data Collection
Qualitative Community Forums, Community Meetings
Can yield great information, and keep the community in tune with the agency processes Need good outreach to get participation, and careful
choices on the issues and where meetings are held matter.
Have a good agenda with flexibility built in
Data Collection
Qualitative Community Forums, Community Meetings
Have plenty of ways to capture input
Community Forum/Meeting could be done first, to educate the survey
Know the audience before the conversation, if possible Strong voices and frequent contributors may lessen
input of others
Data Collection
Qualitative Focus Groups
Can be more specific, easier to control, easier to facilitate, easier to plan
Skill of the facilitator greatly increases the outcomes of a focus group discussion
Record and review later
Data Collection
Qualitative
Interviews Target community leaders
Leave more room for conversation, less bulleted questions• Active listening
Assessment Report
Analyzing the Data
Use your Community Profile (from Statistical Data mainly, but can include qualitative)
Find the areas of interest, the places that make sense to focus Analysis
the relationship of community to State/Nation data
Comparing your CSBG/program data to more general data
Past/present
Comparing similar communities
Assessment Report
Analyzing the Data Qualitative
Review results of surveys, interviews, forums, groups
This is where the early planning really pays off
Assign this information to an issue from your planning tool/framework
You are interpreting the information you’ve collected• Not all information collected is good, helpful
Assessment Report
Create reports, personalized for the receiver’s need
This is a comprehensive set of information, analyzed and made useable Decisions and an Action Plan come from this Describe the process for how this will occur
Strategic planning will……? Presentations will be made to partners by…..? Community members can hear more about the results at
…..?
ROMA Cycle Includes Assessment and Planning
Questions?
Matt Fitzgerald (804) 726-7142
Go to NASCSP for the document from which the ideas in this presentation came