Assessing Community Needs and Resources:
Conducting Needs Assessment Surveys
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WHAT IS A NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY?
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WHY SHOULD YOU DO A NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY?
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WHEN SHOULD YOU DO A NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY?
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HOW DO YOU CARRY OUT A NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY?
You want to do something. You've got a bunch of people together. And you're just about ready to go out and act. Then someone comes along and says, "Wait a minute. Have you done a needs assessment survey?"
A needs assessment survey? Should you ignore that person, or tell him (politely) to get lost? Or should you listen to what that person has to say, and maybe even follow his advice?
This section will help you become clearer on what a needs assessment survey is, and on whether and when you want to do one and then, if you do, what to do next.
WHAT IS A NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY?
Very briefly, it's a way of asking group or community members what they see as the most important needs of that group or community. The results of the survey then guide future action. Generally, the needs that are rated most important are the ones that get addressed.
Depending on your resources (time, money, and people) a needs assessment survey may take many different forms. It can be as informal as asking around with people you know in your community: your postal carrier, the people you work with, the woman at the corner gas station. Or, it could take the form of a professionally-written survey that is mailed to hundreds of people. In general, however, true needs assessment surveys have some common characteristics:
- They have a pre-set list of questions to be answered
- They have a pre-determined sample of the number and types of people to answer these questions chosen in advance
- They are done by personal interview, phone, or by written response (e.g., a mail-in survey)
- The results of the survey are tabulated, summarized, distributed, discussed, and (last, but not least) used
WHAT IS A NEED?
In most needs assessment surveys, a need means something that specifically relates to a particular group or community. It's not usually a universal need, such as the need for food or affection. But it's more than an individual need, as in I need a new couch for the living room, or I really need a vacation. Those may truly be needs, but they are not generally the types of needs that are assessed in needs assessment surveys.
Instead, such a survey usually asks about needs that concern your particular community or group. This could include hundreds of possibilities, ranging from trash on the streets to vandalism, or from stores moving out of downtown to ethnic or racial conflict. These are examples of needs that might be perceived as a group or community issue or problem.
Note that some surveys are very broad, and ask about any and all kinds of needs. Others are narrow, and limit themselves to learning more about one or two. Both kinds of surveys are common and helpful. Which to choose depends on what you want to find out.
WHY SHOULD YOU DO A NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY?
TRY OUT THESE REASONS. DO THEY MAKE SENSE FOR YOU?
- To learn more about what your group or community needs are. A good survey can supplement your own sharp-eyed observations and experiences. It can give you detailed information from a larger and more representative group of people than you could get from observation alone.
- To get a more honest and objective description of needs than people might tell you publicly.
- To become aware of possible needs that you never saw as particularly important or that you never even knew existed.
- To document your needs, as is required in many applications for funding, and as is almost always helpful in advocating or lobbying for your cause.
- To make sure any actions you eventually take or join in are in line with needs that are expressed by the community.
AND ALSO FOR TWO MORE REASONS, WHICH ARE LESS COMMONLY UNDERSTOOD:
- To get more group and community support for the actions you will soon undertake. That's because if people have stated a need for a particular course of action, they are more likely to support it. And, for the same reason....
- To get more people actually involved in the subsequent action itself.
You may agree with some or all of these reasons. But you may still have concerns or objections. That's perfectly fine. Let's get them out on the table and deal with them as honestly as we can.
OBJECTIONS AND CONCERNS
- I already know what the needs in the community are.
- Maybe you do. Maybe everyone knows what the community needs are, and there's no doubt about it. In other words, if the building is burning, put out the fire. You don't need a needs assessment to tell you that. If your community's crime rate has doubled, you know you need to do something about crime. And hopefully soon. Leave your surveys at home.
- But a lot of the time, the needs are not quite so clear. You (and everyone else) have opinions and biases, but does everyone feel the same way? Wouldn't it be worth checking what other people think, just to clarify whether others share your point of view? You might or might not revise your opinions a little, but it's worth it to find out.
- We're busy people. We want to get going.
- Fine...but you wouldn't usually want to get involved in something that most of the community doesn't really care about. If you do a needs assessment, you will feel more comfortable knowing that what you want to do meets a real community need. Otherwise, you might be wasting your time.
- We don't have the time to do a survey.
- You probably do have enough time. The actual amount of time you need can vary a great deal. If you really wanted to do a full-scale scientific survey, you could spend a year or more collecting, tabulating, and writing up the data. But we're not normally talking about that kind of time investment. You can collect useful data in hours, or even less. You can go to a meeting where your key audience is, and ask them a few questions, either verbally or with a printed questionnaire. All the forms come back to you in ten minutes. In about ten minutes more, you can get results that will be helpful. If you have a choice, you may want to survey more people, with different questions, in different ways. There are many different degrees of comprehensiveness. But any surveying is almost always better than no surveying at all. It's likely that whatever time you can afford will be worth it.
- Look at it this way: If you care about effective action, do you have the time not to find out about community needs?
- We don't know how to do it.
- It's not that hard. Just about anybody can write useful survey questions, with a little bit of guidance. You don't have to be an expert. The survey doesn't have to be perfect. And there may already be an existing survey that you can borrow from, or simply repeat.
- In any case, others can help you. You can get professional advice (from a local university, for example). And you can test out the survey on a sample group, to work out the kinks (which are almost always present, even in surveys designed by experts).
- People are already surveyed to death. They'll resent you for asking them yet again.
- More often, the opposite is true. In fact, most people are rarely asked about what they think about community needs or projects. Usually, these projects seem to get going, or not get going, independent of collective opinion in the community.
- When was the last time a group asked your opinion about community needs, as part of a formal survey? And if they did ask, did you resent them for it?
- It's a myth that most people are assessed to death. The real problems are not assessing enough and not acting on the basis of assessment results.
Your concerns are valid. But we hope our answers make sense, too. So let's move on.
WHEN SHOULD YOU DO A NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY?
Some good times to do a survey include:
- When your group is just starting out
- When there is doubt as to what the most important needs are
- When your group members disagree on this point among themselves
- When you need to convince outside funders or supporters that you are addressing the most important community problems (Sometimes, these assessments are required.)
- When the community asks you to do it
- When you want to be sure that you will have community support for whatever you choose to do.
And are there times when you shouldn't?
There are. A needs assessment is not necessary before every action, and especially:
- When there is absolutely no doubt what the most important needs in the group or community are
- When it is urgent to act right now, without delay
- When a recent assessment has already been done, and it is clear that the needs have not changed
- When you feel the community would see an assessment as redundant or wasteful, and that it would be harmful to your cause
How do these factors bear upon your own situation now? Do you think things would work better if you had some needs assessment data to guide you?
And please note: There are other ways to learn about community needs. You can do interviews with community members, or conduct observations, or study community records. And certainly, you should always check about surveys that might have been conducted in the past, and use them as best you can. You don't have to reinvent the wheel.
HOW DO YOU CARRY OUT A NEEDS ASSESSMENT SURVEY?
Access Checklist, Examples, & PowerPoint.