How do you conduct a needs assessment?

This is Part 2 of the Needs Assessment Whitepaper series. The previous paper covered why you should conduct a needs assessment and what to consider before starting. Be sure to read it before continuing on.

What have you already determined?

By this time, you should have:

• Determined whether your nonprofit is willing and committed to make the necessary changes that result from your needs assessment findings
• Identified members of your nonprofit who would participate in the Needs Assessment Committee (those that will gather data, brainstorm ideas, and make recommendations for actions). Out of the committee, hopefully you have been able to identify who will manage and lead the needs assessment from your end

Before going any further, it should be stated that there is no one correct needs assessment model or procedure. They generally follow the same process, but how they are carried out may differ. 

What does the process look like?

There are three steps for conducting a needs assessment:

Step I:  define the scope

This includes learning as much about the community issue to be addressed, those in the community impacted by this issue, the location or geographic area to assess, the questions you want answered, and the level of detail you need to know to begin work.  

Before beginning, you should consider whether to request help or include others in conducting the needs assessment.  While it may be easier to manage when done on one’s own, it may go quicker and easier with others involved because (1) more hands get more done, (2) more resources are added to the project, and (3) partners may have helpful connections. Perhaps most important to consider is the relationship that is birthed from the process. 

What does a successful partnership look like?  A Handbook for Participatory Community Assessments outlines successful partners as

• Having equal power for decision-making and problem solving
• Mutually benefitting from the relationship
• Being open to hearing ideas and opinions of others
• Being patient and willing to work through differences
• Trusting each other’s commitment (time, resources) to shared goals
• Acting on results together
• Showing each other respect and sensitivity
• Communicating well with each other

Once it’s been decided on how the needs assessment will be conducted –whether as a joint venture or not–a clear leader should be established as the project manager. Good projects always have clear leadership in order to keep the ball rolling. In setting up the management plan, it is good to outline:

• Everyone involved in the Needs Assessment Committee (considerations for these persons are in the first needs assessment paper)
• Who, how, and when to report to:
  • Leaders
  • Managers
  • Stakeholders
• How often or when the committee will meet–weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc., as well as the general rules of conduct of the committee members
• The general timeline dedicated to the needs assessment–one month, three months, etc.
• What financial and human resources are available

Once the management piece is in place, the goals of the needs assessment should be discussed.  Having a focus is incredibly important as community issues are complex.  Although each issue is important, it is important to determine what exactly you want to explore. In order to get specific information related to that issue, focused questions are critical (a large list of questions to consider is found at the end of this document). Essentially:

• Who is the target audience?
• What is the issue to address?
• What is the desired outcome for the target audience? (Within this, what is feasible? Acceptable?)
• What factors (that you know of) contribute to each outcome?
• Are there factors that seem to be stronger than others?
• Where is the gap between “what is” and “what should be”?
• What/who else is out there addressing this issue?

By discussing these items up front, it creates a framework for where to go with your project and defines your project scope.  It allows you to get to a place where you can place priority on certain areas, which will define the parameters of your data collection step. It is important to note that it may take time to get all the decision-makers to all agree.  Decision-makers will vary depending on how the needs assessment is designed. Typically, they include key leaders, managers, and board members within your nonprofit and anyone partnering with your nonprofit.  Additionally, there are community leaders whose input will be needed; without their input, your program or service will not be accepted or utilized.

Once you have discussed these elements, you can determine what data sources you will utilize to find out more information about those areas and verify your thoughts or introduce new ideas.

At the end of this step, you should have a preliminary plan for what data to pursue.

Step II: collect & analyze data

Learning about the current and goal condition of your nonprofit involves identifying information that has already been collected on the topic, as well as gathering new information. Data collection can happen at two different levels:

• Primary where you collect your own data
• Secondary where you collect and review others’ data

Before starting, think about the questions you want answered from the data collection—you can call these your key questions. Without identifying the purpose and setting a timeline, scope creep in data collection is inevitable. 

To guide your data collection efforts, consider mapping out how you will find the data to answer your key questions. For example:

For data collection, it’s easiest to start with what’s already out there – secondary data.  In fact, your questions may already be answered through existing data. Strengthening Nonprofits suggests the following sources:

• Census data
• Federal and state department information
• United Way
• Local newspapers
• University faculty and graduate students
• Local faith-based and community organizations
• Local government task force/reports
• Foundation reports
• Bureau of Justice Statistics

As with most things, your focus should be on the quality of data and source of data versus the quantity of data.

Once you’ve collected what is available and applicable to your issue, fill in the holes or dig deeper with your own data collection.

Primary data can be gathered through:

• Community or social surveys
• Community mapping
• Focus groups
• In-depth interviews
• Case studies

After data has been collected, consider prioritizing needs based on the data. As presented by the US Department of Migrant Education, the following can be used to organize your thoughts:

• Needs: List needs that were previously identified in the needs assessment.
• Causes: List all possible “treatable” causes of each need (concern), itemized separately for each need. A given need may have more than one cause.
• Consequences: List consequences if the cause is not removed and the need is not met and itemize separately for each need. There may be more than one consequence for each need.
• Correction: Enter a rating (low, medium, high) for the difficulty of correcting the problem once it has occurred.
• Criticality: Enter a rating, on a scale of 1 to 5, for the degree of criticality if the need is not met, with 5 being the most critical.

At the end of this step, you should have criteria for action.

Step III:  make decisions

Now that you have the data, discovered what your primary issues are, and reviewed the data for difficulty of correction and degree of criticality, probably the most difficult piece—making decisions—now awaits you. In order to be efficient in your decision-making, you will need to:

• Prioritize the issues to be addressed
• Create a plan of action, which includes how you will measure the effectiveness of your actions
• Publish your report(s)

Setting priorities can be a task in and of itself. Getting everyone on board may take several rounds of discussion, as importance is most often subjective. Understanding whether the barriers are human (difficulty in getting people to focus), process (difficulty in managing information and ideas), structural (difficulty in setting priorities across issues), or institutional (difficulty in moving from priorities to action), will help you with these conversations.  Cornell University Cooperative Extension offers suggestions for minimizing these potential barriers; these can be found at the end of this whitepaper.

After priorities are identified, specific actions, deadlines for those actions, and person(s) responsible for those actions should be set.  Include how you will measure success in the plan and determine how you will know when you have adequately addressed a priority. 

Lastly, after your plan-of-action is in place, take your findings back to the community. Whether it be through community meetings, press releases, or report forms to key leaders, share with those involved what was found and what you are planning to do about it. Explaining why you made your choices to address the priorities will help them support your work.

When publishing the full report, consider including the following flow:

• Executive Summary
• Introduction (Overview-why was it conducted? Where was it conducted? Who was involved as partners?)
• Methods used to Gather Information (How was data collected?)
• Participation (Who participated? How many?)
• Strengths and Limitations (What relationships were forged? Survey response? Etc.)
• Key Findings (What were the major themes and findings?)
• Recommendations & Actions

This report should also be available to anyone who asks and always available on your website. Transparency is key to onboarding support (from beneficiaries, donors/funders, etc.).

At the end of this step, you should have an action plan, presentation materials to submit to the public, and a final report.

What do you do now?

1. Determine whether you want to move forward solo or in collaboration with another partner. If collaborating, be sure to complete a Memorandum of Understanding which outlines each party’s contribution to the assessment.
2. Set up a management plan that outlines leadership, the timeline, meeting and reporting, resources, etc.
3. Find out as much information from program decision makers as you can on the issue of concern; answers should begin to paint a good picture of what the needs are, who is facing them, what is potentially needed, etc. Use the committee to gather and synthesize as much information about the need, the goal, the gap(s), gap causes, gap consequences, and potential solutions.
4. Determine target groups, as well as locations.
5. Identify and prioritize the outcomes or goals of the needs assessment.
6. Determine and implement the data collection method (focus groups, drive through mapping, etc.) to determine the current state of the target group in relation to the desired outcome/goal.
7. List and rank concerns as indicated by the community.
8. List and rank needs as indicated by the community.
9. Determine causes of needs. Determine the factors involved.
10. Prioritize issues to be addressed based off of your own organization’s ability to address the factors contributing to the gap for meeting needs.
11. Identify the factors you are able to change through your program/service.
12. Create a plan-of-action. A template is provided for you at the end of this document.
13. Present summarized findings and a full report.

Needs assessments are a key resource for nonprofits who are serious about the communities they serve.  Being efficient and effective are at the heart of accountability and mission fulfillment, but only by planning well can nonprofits hit their mark.

Questions for Program Decision Makers

• What issue or problem concerns them?
• What do they know about it right now?
• What information has led them to this knowledge?
• Are clientele, employees, or administrators most affected by the problem?
• Programmatically, what is currently being done in the organization to address the problem?
• Are they considering offering new services?
• Is their program going to back this needs assessment endeavor, regardless of findings?
• What do they think is causing the problem?
• Are there historical events associated with these problems?
• If there are different points of views, which individuals or groups hold them and why do they hold them?
• Is this really a high priority?
• Has their program looked at this before? If so, what was done and what was learned?
• Any prior evaluation on this project or program?
• Are people from an earlier effort available for discussion?
• Are previous data collection strategies accessible?
• Has any organization done this kind of assessment before?

Source: Oregon State University’s Needs Assessment Primer and Strengthening Nonprofit’s Conducting a Community Assessment

• 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?

Source: Strengthening Nonprofit’s Conducting a Community Assessment

Priority Setting: Barriers and Suggestions on How to Minimize Them

• The Human Problem — the difficulty of getting people to focus on key issues, decisions, and conflicts
  • Start by striving for consensus on what you are trying to accomplish by priority setting. Why are we doing this and what are the stakes?
  • Actively recognize that there is strength in differing viewpoints and don’t place viewpoints in value order.
  • Build in time to allow people to reflect on information presented, digest it, and modify decisions.
• The Process Problem — the challenge of managing information and ideas during a priority-setting process
  • Be very specific in defining priorities to minimize multiple interpretations.
  • Make key information available prior to decision meetings.
  • Beware of taking too much time to analyze information (“analysis paralysis”) and/or rushing to meet deadlines.
• The Structural Problem — the difficulty of priority setting across different issue areas
  • Cultivate open communication.
  • Carefully nurture relationships throughout the planning process.
  • Keep focus on current priorities, not precedent.
• The Institutional Problem — the challenge of translating priorities into action
  • Build on existing strengths in implementation.
  • Ensure that you have a well-defined implementation plan.
  • Make sure that individuals responsible for carrying out key tasks are committed to implementing changes.

Source: Cornell University Cooperative Extension

Needs Assessment Outline

The outline below considers Steps 1-4 as data collection, Step 5 as the analysis of the gaps, Step 6 as the assessment of your organization’s ability to fill that gap, and Step 7 as the plan of action to address the gap appropriately.

Adapted from the Community Research Exchange’s Needs Assessment Tool

[1] Utilize focus groups and interviews

[2] Utilize surveys and questionnaires

[3] Utilize local officials, federal agencies (ex. Department of Health), the United Way, community members, and other nonprofits

[4] Barriers may include things like price, language, accessibility, location, hours of operation, hostility of staff, waiting list, etc.

[5] More information may be required before decisions can be made

Plan-of-Action

Source: Strengthening Nonprofit’s Conducting a Community Assessment

Sources

From “A Handbook for Participatory Community Assessment: Experiences from Alameda County,” Alameda County Public Health Department, URL:  http://www.livingknowledge.org/fileadmin/Dateien-Living-Knowledge/Dokumente_Dateien/Toolbox/LK_A_Participatory_community_assessments.pdf

From ‘Community Needs Assessments,’ Learning to Give, URL: https://www.learningtogive.org/resources/community-needs-assessments

From ‘Comprehensive Needs Assessment,’ US Office of Migrant Education, URL: https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/compneedsassessment.pdf

From ‘Conducting a Community Assessment,” Strengthening Nonprofits: A Capacity Builder’s Resource Library, URL: http://strengtheningnonprofits.org/resources/guidebooks/Community_Assessment.pdf

From ‘Needs Assessment Tool,’ Community Resource Exchange, URL: http://www.crenyc.org/resources_tools

From ‘Needs Assessment Primer,’ Oregon State University, URL: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/for-employees/employee-resources/needs-assessment/needs_assessment_version_7_-_final.pdf

From “Priority Setting Resources: Selected Background Information and Techniques,” Cornell University Cooperative Extension, URL:  http://staff.cce.cornell.edu/administration/program/ documents/priority_setting_tools.pdf