Giving back to the community is probably one of the major reasons why you decided to pursue your education. Well, your Alma Mata gives you the opportunity to make such contributions by giving you the role of writing a needs assessment report.

Remember, needs assessments will come in many forms. However, most colleges make it a requirement for their students to write community needs assessment reports that take the form of standalone reports and are meant to address the needs faced by a given population or society. You must treat a community needs assessment as a section of a larger report that is meant to stick to a particular need of the targeted society.

Like other assignments, your community needs assessment paper should be well-structured, and written in a formal tone. Well, here are the steps to follow when writing a community needs assessment paper:

Identify the purpose

You must clearly identify why you are writing the community needs assessment project paper. Remember, you want to present  a specific and cost-oriented report that will outline the needs of the targeted community.

You will get the right data by narrowly tailoring down your purpose of writing the community needs assessment. For instance, if your report wants to focus on the actions that a community must take to reduce poverty, then you will develop a broader topic compared to your peer analyzing a smaller/specific issue affecting the society.

Define the community

Defining the targeted community will give you a clear insight of the existing gaps and why they are present. In this case, defining the community also grants you the rare opportunity to identify the groups and/or sub communities that are affected by the issue at hand the most.

Here are the parameters to consider when defining the community for needs assessment:

ü  The population- These are the groups of individuals affected by the issue at hand. You will seek to understand the social and cultural structures of the community by studying the population.

ü  Attitudes and values- This underscores the elements that drive the community, what they care about, the beliefs and cultural issues to respect and consider their biases, and attitudes towards certain issues.

ü  Place- Where the people leave, gather and work.

Define the scope

The needs of your community are often interconnected and complex in nature. The scope identifies the needs you want to address and will depend on the resources available for the project and the goals you want to achieve.

Identify the assets

Describe the types of assets you will require to create the project. The assets may include:

ü  The policy frameworks

ü  Institutions

ü  Organizations

ü  People

ü  Finances

Begin by identifying the readily available resources like the community organizations, people and financial resources available before looking into other avenues.

Data collection

The community needs assessment must be supported with tangible data (both quantitative and qualitative). The data you collect will help you define the actual needs assessment program and at times, predict the viability of the project.

Writing style

You must ensure that your community needs assessment follows the right writing style and format. It is strongly advisable to write the needs assessment in APA.