Table of Contents

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There is a great deal of information gathered and analyzed for the community assessment. Not every detail or piece of raw data needs to be included in the report. In fact, the team will have to make decisions about what information to include and how to analyze and summarize what is included. Visual presentations, such as charts and graphs, can help immensely.

Prepare the Community Needs Assessment Report

Your community needs assessment report should be visually appealing, reader-friendly, and professional. These are key characteristics of effective written presentations. As you write the report, always keep in mind your intended audience; this includes varied groups, such as federal officials, community partners, staff, parents, and others. Some may know little or nothing about your agency or Community Action, so it is important to provide sufficient context that the published report can stand on its own, without added background information.

  • Write in a logical, organized way.
  • Add maps, charts, and illustrations for clarity. Information displayed visually may be more easily understood by community members, Community Action staff, and other stakeholders.
  • Make sure your conclusions are supported by the data analysis and synthesis.
  • Ensure the sections of the report read smoothly and easily. This is particularly important if multiple authors contributed to writing the report.

  • Use accessible written conventions, (e.g., short paragraphs, headings for major sections, page numbers).
  • Provide visual displays of the data to accompany the text (e.g., charts, graphs, maps).
  • Define Community Action-specific terms, abbreviations, and acronyms. The reader may not be familiar with the your agency, service area, terms, or abbreviations commonly used by Community Action programs. Consider providing a glossary of terms.
  • Provide reference citations for internal and external data. Use a standard style for citations (e.g., report title, authors, date of publication, etc.). Sources can either be entered as footnotes or as in-line citations, with the full reference included in the report’s bibliography.
  • Format charts, graphs, and other patterns with an eye toward high-contrast color combinations that are engaging and easy to see.

  • Include a title for each table, chart, and graph.
  • Use tables to present columns or lists of data.
  • Number tables in consecutive order (i.e., Table 1, Table 2, etc.).
  • Label each visual display of results, such as a graph, map, or pie chart, as a figure, and number each figure in consecutive order (e.g., Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).
  • Place each table and figure close to the appropriate text.

  • Maps are often included in the community assessment because they are helpful in presenting complex data in a way that can be easily understood. They need to be clear, with readable symbols, shading, and legends to differentiate items.
  • Maps should include features like service area boundaries, locations of existing agency centers, and locations of other social service organizations in the service area.

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Additionally, the community needs assessment must include data on community strengths, as well as resources available in the community to address the needs of low-income households. To adequately detail the availability of programs for Community Action clients, the report should start by providing a list of all the agencies and organizations that serve low-income families and children, with a brief description of what they do.

Beyond this, however, the community assessment is expected to go further by discussing which agencies are currently providing needed services. In this way, you can also identify the gaps in services, where community resources for low-income populations are sparse or non-existent. Providing this information in the form of charts enables readers to make easy comparisons across agencies and organizations.

There are many ways to present all the information gathered and analyzed for the community assessment. If you click the button below, then you will find a sample community needs assessment outline and page estimate.

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Depending on the data you have gathered and the recommendations you propose, you may want to structure the community needs assessment report differently.

Above all, keep asking yourself if the report is providing information that helps answer this essential question: How can my Community Action agency ensure that the correct services are provided to the appropriate population?

Communicate the Community Needs Assessment data and recommendations

There are many ways to present recommendations in your community assessment report. However this is done, you will want to make sure all the results and recommendations connect to the data collected and included in the report. It is helpful to frame each recommendation by establishing the relationship between the data and the recommendation. Consider using a phrase similar to “Our community assessment has revealed that…; and therefore, our program will….”

When presenting recommendations, ask yourself:

  • Have all the issues emerged from the analysis of the data?
  • Do our recommendations identify and prioritize the key issues or problems facing low-income residents that need to be addressed by Community Action?
  • Have we described our system for prioritizing or determining the key issues?
  • Have all sources of information been cited?
  • Has objective and research-based data been included to support decisions based on future trends?

Now that your team has worked hard to generate a comprehensive and detailed report, it is time to share it with others. The assessment process will identify potential new assets, partners, and resources. It will spark interest from some key members of the public or the area governments. Before strategic planners get to work, the agency will want to explore these new possibilities through appropriate follow-up to set up options for investing future time and creativity. There will be a surge of interest in your CAA both because the report gets attention and because so many were involved in its development. Plan to spend time to build on the attention it will receive!

A number of audiences will be interested to learn about the data and recommendations:

  • The governing Board of Directors must review the report before it is shared with others.
  • State Office staff will review the community needs assessment report and use it to help them understand and make decisions about your agency. They will want to know about demographic information and how your program anticipates responding to trends. Details from the report, including the long-term goals and measurable objectives, are included in the Community Action Plan application.
  • Program staff will be interested in gaining a better understanding of the individuals, families, and communities they serve. They will also want to know if their roles and responsibilities may change as a result of the findings.
  • Clients will find the report helps them understand more about specific programs and services. In reviewing it, they may have questions, including whether program services will be changed or what new service providers have been identified in the community.
  • Community organizations also will want to hear about the findings because their roles may be expanded if there are shifting population patterns or service trends.
Review and update the Community Needs Assessment

Community Action agencies should set aside time throughout the three-year period until the next full, comprehensive community needs assessment to make sure the data is still relevant and to use it in strategic planning. It is important to be intentional about using data to inform decisions, especially those that will help improve program quality and achieve better outcomes for the agency’s low-income clientele.

It is wise to review and update the community needs assessment on an annual basis to reflect on significant changes. Such a review should also examine the demographic, economic, environmental, and resource changes that impact your agency and the community. Consider new legislation that affects the availability of housing, medical, educational, or transportation services to the low-income families served by your agency, or decreased/increased availability of funding for agency programs and services.

These interim reviews will require an abbreviated community assessment process that will include planning, designing data collection, data-gathering, analysis, and decision-making.

Incorporate the Community Needs Assessment into the agency’s ongoing planning

On an annual basis, Community Action agencies review progress toward their goals to ensure they are effectively meeting the needs of individuals, families, and their community.

The Community Needs Assessment Process

Your program planning team uses the ROMA planning process to affirm goals set each year through the CSBG Annual Report. The team may also use its annual planning process to set new goals as needed in response to incoming data that reflects an emerging family, agency, or community need.

Strategic planning is an active and dynamic process, and it is informed by goals, which are based on information gathered during the community needs assessment process. These long-term goals set the course for continuous improvement and innovation.

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