The Social Change Cycle:
Needs Assessment
(Measuring needs: What changes are needed?)
Community Empowerment Research uses the full spectrum of research techniques developed for the social sciences to help you complete a thorough examination of the needs of whatever is your target community. We conduct a workshop that
leverages the knowledge of any group (employees, clients, members, etc.) toward an understanding of what they want the organization to emphasize and what the top goals should be.
We have a large number of surveys–and can create customized surveys–to assess the thoughts and feelings of your target community. Similar to that, we can train your people
to go into your community and interview people, bringing back a much more rich understanding of the community's thoughts than can be obtained from a survey. Lastly, and the most complex,
is our formal need assessment committee process. We lead your people to do the detailed work to discover from multiple sources and in multiple ways of learning, what the community feels
it needs–or even what the community needs, but does not realize.
Notice that the last paragraph often said "helps you". That is what Empowerment Evaluation is about. We empower you, the community-based organization to use the
social science techniques that we know to more accurately learn about your community. In the later stages of the Social Change Cycle, we empower you to use those skills to better assess
your actions and determine the true outcomes.
As you can see in the graphic to the right, once you know what is needed, you need to determine what can be done and what your organization has the capacity to do. Sometimes advocacy
for an increased input from larger organizations is all you can do. In any case, this is where your expertise comes in. You know the field you work in. Whether that is social work,
teaching, spiritual formation, counseling or some other area of social change, once you have a clear picture of needs, you can develop the best intervention for your community that your organization can do.
More information about the Needs Assessment process is at "Where to Serve".
(continue...)
Program Development
(Setting strategies: What will we do?)
Evaluation
(Assessing impact: How well are we doing?)
Developmental Evaluation
Process Evaluation
Outcome Evaluation
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