Why should your organization conduct a community needs assessment?
When nonprofits and community groups want to take action, influence policy, change things around or shake things up, community needs assessment studies are an effective way to find out what people are thinking and how they feel. While information from a needs assessment study is valuable and useful, the process of gathering the information is valuable, too. Needs assessment studies allow an organization to:
- Gather information about citizen and constituent attitudes and opinions regarding precisely defined issues, problems or opportunities.
- Determine how citizens and constituents rank issues, problems and opportunities in order of importance and urgency.
- Give citizens and constituents a voice in determining policy, goals and priorities.
- Determine support for initiatives.
- Evaluate current programs and policies.
- End speculation about "what people are thinking" or "what people really want".
