Webinar: Community Action Guide to Comprehensive Community Needs Assessments

Click here to register for this webinar

During this training, based on the Community Action Guide to Comprehensive Community Needs Assessments, participants will learn the five major steps in planning a comprehensive needs assessment. Additionally, they will receive guidelines, ideas, and resources for implementation and use in the community needs assessment process.

Just what is a Community Needs Assessment? The question is being asked by Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) state offices, local CSBG-eligible entities (hereafter referred to as Community Action Agencies or CAAs) and policy-makers at many levels. Community Needs Assessments have greater importance today because of the increased focus of funders on identifying, tracking, and reporting on results of program investments. CAAs are now expected to choose strategic goals and follow a clear plan to achieve desired results. It is essential to explain how the priorities in an agency's strategic plan meet the proven needs in the community. For many CAAs, this will require a new way of thinking about and doing Community Needs Assessments.

Eric Stam from NASCSP will be the webinar presenter.  Eric is a Senior Analyst with the Carbon Trading Project at the National Association for State Community Services Programs. He works with the Community Services Block Grant Division at NASCSP providing training and technical assistance to State members, especially around the CSBG IS Survey and data collection. Eric also works closely with State Weatherization Assistance Programs on the NASCSP Residential Carbon Program. He received a Bachelor of Arts Degrees in Economics and International Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.