Whether you’re running a medical business or you’re doing nonprofit work, assessing community needs is important. Community needs assessments can inform you and your board whether or not the service you provide or plan to provide is actively working to help the community it’s based in. Let’s take a look at some more information about community needs assessment.
Community needs assessment, at its heart, is a research-based approach that helps identify which services are working well within a community and which aren’t. The results of this community research can then help determine which services require expansion and which could use some improvement before expanding.
In doing this research, communities are better able to have access to the programs they need and the programs that are truly making a difference in the community at large.
Assessing community needs happens in a few different instances. First, when you want to serve a community. A needs assessment can tell you whether that’s necessary. It’s also a great tool to find out what your community actually needs, as well as how to address those needs.
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