Community Needs Assessments and Strategic Planning: A Deep Dive into Organizational Standards
Community needs assessments and strategic plans form the foundation of virtually all work community action agencies conduct in their communities. For this reason, getting both of these processes “right” is crucially important to the long-term success of anti-poverty efforts.
Please join Michigan Community Action at our special two day intensive training session that takes a deep dive into the details of how to design and manage a community needs assessment and strategic planning process. Both days of the training will walk participants through each stage of these complex processes from start to finish. Activities will include a mix of presentations, facilitated discussions, and small group exercises to ensure participants have the opportunity to apply what they learn.
Day one will focus on the community needs assessment and will cover topics that include options for research design, strategies for engaging diverse stakeholders in the assessment process, using the Community Action Partnership’s Community Commons website for data collection, how to interpret data, and how to get the most out of the final report.
Day two will focus on strategic planning and will cover topics that include strategies for engaging internal and external stakeholders, how to conduct a “SWOT” analysis, aligning mission and programs, how to get from selecting goals to writing action plans, and how to design an implementation process that translates planning into action. Both days will also cover more general topics that include compliance with the organizational standards and how to apply ROMA principles to both processes.
The trainings will be conducted by Dr. Jarle Crocker, Director of Training and Technical Assistance at the Community Action Partnership and Natalie Kramer, Program and Policy Associate at the Partnership.
For attendees needing overnight accomodations, there are two adjacent hotels within a short walk of the MCA office; click on the name for details:
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