Explore and Assess Community Needs
Needs are a good way to ground a partnership—whether you are seeking partners or have a partnership in place and need to identify a cause. Good decisions depend on good information. The Community Needs Tool outlines several approaches that will help you identify your community's needs. Each approach has a different degree of depth and focus.
Additional Resources
The following resources can further help you Recognize the need:
Community Asset Mapping
Community Asset Mapping is a technique to assess community needs that uses appreciative inquiry to focus on social capital as opposed to the more traditional method of focusing on deficiencies.
Conducting Leadership Summits
The National Center for Outreach (NCO) has conducted a number of leadership summits. This link contains information about those summits.
Partnership for 21st Century Skills
This organization explores the future needs of businesses regarding workforce skills and assesses current education for alignment.
Current Episode
Principal Alia Escuela has an idea...a grand idea. One that could benefit not only her students, but quite possibly the whole town as well. Now if she can just get that Smoky Hollow Public Broadcasting producer and Train Museum curator to share her excitement. Crossing her fingers, she tucks the PNL grant application into her briefcase, and heads for the door...
