1. Assessing Community Opinions, Strengths, & Needs
Kathlene Larson
CD-DIAL Research Director
Community Philanthropy Academy Workshop, April 22, 2005

2. Assessing Community Opinions, Strengths, & Needs
Community Assessment
Provides information on
Community strengths and challenges
Gaps in programs and services
Public opinion or perception
Prioritization
Community Philanthropy Academy Workshop, April 22, 2005

3. Conducting an Assessment
Select plan
Implement plan
Evaluate information (and process)
Make decisions

4. Select your plan What is real? What is representative?
What do you know?
How confident are you that this information is representative of “what is real”?
What do you still need to know?
How confident do you need to be in this information?
Other considerations such as resources, timeline, feasibility

5. Items for Discussion
Population – Who has the information you need, including geographic boundaries?
Accuracy – What do you want to be able to say?
Cost – Project management, data collection, analysis, reporting/dissemination, participants’ perceived bias and confidentiality
Feasibility – Where will you find participants? Where is the “big list of everyone you would like to talk to, if you could talk to everyone”?

6. Secondary vs. Primary Data
Secondary data – already exists
Organizational records
Public data (Census, government records)
Existing survey results
Results from other communities
Primary data – if secondary data does not provide information needed
Collected for the specific purpose of answering questions needed for decision-making
Many different methods

7. Primary Data Collection Methods
Focus groups
Telephone interviews
Face-to-face interviews
Population surveys (paper & pencil, web-based)
Others
Select method depending on
How you will use the information
How confident you need to be in this information
Feasibility (access to population and available time, human, and financial resources)

8. Sampling Convenience sample Purposive sample Random sample Simple
Stratified
Others

9. Online publication Preparing for a Collaborative Community Assessment