CCI 4: Community Assessment
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Stakeholders work together to identify the community’s assets, needs, and priorities.
NA The organization only provides technical assistance to community change initiatives.
The initiative uses planned, diverse strategies to systematically identify and analyze:
- the assets, skills, capacities, and resources of community residents, organizations, and institutions; and
- community needs, issues, and concerns.
Interpretation: A variety of strategies may be used to gather this information. Strategies may include, but are not limited to: surveys; extensive one-on-one interviews; group interviews; reviews of existing research and literature, including environmental scans and needs assessments; informal outreach through door-to-door canvassing or visits to community centers and other gathering places; media analyses; and power mapping. As noted in CCI 1, evidence-based assessment strategies should be used whenever possible.
COA recognizes that, in some cases, an initiative might not conduct the community assessment itself -- instead, it might utilize the results of an assessment already conducted by another party. For example, if the state department of health conducted an assessment which revealed that a certain problem existed in the community, the initiative might have been launched in response to that identified need. When this is the case, the organization is not expected to complete another community assessment. However, it should be prepared to provide evidence of the assessment it draws upon, in order to demonstrate that the initiative has been built based on real data.
Regardless of who conducts the community assessment, the information collected should be time-relevant. Ideally the assessment will have been conducted within the last three years.
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Research Note: Literature emphasizes that all communities have considerable assets on which they can build, and that communities will not be strengthened and improved if initiatives focus only on their needs, problems and deficits. Accordingly, although the challenges facing a community should not be ignored, community building often highlights the importance of identifying and building upon a community’s assets, strengths, and resources. Taking this approach makes it possible to deal with problems without becoming so overwhelmed by negatives that action and progress are impeded. |
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The community assessment is conducted in a culturally-responsive manner that respects diversity and difference, and promotes tolerance and understanding.
Interpretation: Parties involved in conducting the community assessment should be respectful of individuals regardless of their age; gender; political orientation; lifestyle; socio-economic status; sexual orientation; and religious, racial, cultural and ethnic background.
Stakeholders work together to develop a guiding vision for the community and define the initiative’s priorities.
Interpretation: In some cases an initiative’s primary priority may have already been established. For example, the initiative might have formed in response to an already-identified concern, or a funder might have launched the initiative to address a specific need. However, the organization should still work with community stakeholders to get their input about the pre-determined priorities, and stakeholders should be able to establish future priorities themselves, whenever possible.
