An online learning resource for community groups
Module 3: Finding out the needs of your community
Introduction
The purpose of this module is to help you involve your community in the work of your group and find out as much as you can about their needs. This is also known as community engagement
Discussing what matters to them and how you can do something about it gives your community a chance to be involved in your organisation and to get their views heard.
It is also important that you can show funders that your funding bids are based on good quality community engagement and that you understand the needs of your community.
This module will help your group to:
Involve your community in the work of your group.
Understand the needs of your community.
Create a Community Conversations Plan to help you find out the needs.
Learn about different methods you can use and what might stop people from taking part.
Put your plan into action and review what you learned.
Use this information to help you run better services/activities and make better funding applications.
Let’s get started - Knowing your community
Now work as a group to complete the following exercise on understanding the needs of your community.
Discuss:
Why is it important for you to understand the needs of your community?
What are some of the things that you would like to find out?
Download this group discussion form, fill in your answers and keep as a record of your learning.
What is community engagement?
Now watch this presentation on what we mean by community engagement.
Now take a few minutes to think about the presentation and any questions or thoughts on how it relates to your group.
What to ask your community?
Now watch this presentation on what kinds of things you could be asking your community.
Now take a few minutes to think about the presentation and any questions or thoughts on how it relates to your group. You may want to note these in your learning notes.
Making a Community Conversation Plan
When you ask your community about their needs, it's important to make a plan for how you are going to consult and involve people and how you are going to have these conversations.
This isn't the same as advertising your services to people. It is more about gathering their views, so that it can help you plan better services in the future.
Communication is really important, so it is a good idea to work together to make a Community Conversation Plan template.
Once you have completed your plan, you can agree on a date to review it and check how you are getting on.
What should be in it?
To help you make a Community Conversation Plan, there are eight key things to think about.
These are:
Purpose of your conversation
Involving people
Methods
Support
Working Together
Communication
Starting your conversation
Impact of putting your plan into action
We will work through each of these eight areas and describe them in more detail. For each of the eight areas, there is a short input and an exercise for you to complete, by filling in the Community Conversation Plan.
These areas are adapted from the National Standards for Community Engagement which are good-practice principles designed to improve and guide the process of community conversations.
Purpose of your conversation
Now watch this presentation on the purpose of making a plan for your community conversation.
Explore the modules
Group discussion 1 - The purpose of your conversation
Think back to the first discussion you had in this module. Discuss:
What do you want to find out?
What questions do you want the community to answer?
Once you have agreed who will be involved, note this down in the Community Conversation Plan.
2. Involving people
Now watch this presentations on involving people in your conversation.
Group discussion 2 – Involving people
Discuss:
Who will we invite to take part?
Who might be harder to reach and what barriers might they face?
Once you have agreed who will be involved, note this down in the Community Conversation Plan.
3. Methods
Now watch this presentations on the methods you can use to get people involved.
Group discussion 3 - Methods
Discuss:
What methods will we use? What will we do?
Once you have agreed who will be involved, note this down in the Community Conversation Plan.
4. Support
Now watch this presentation on the support people might need to take part.
Group discussion 4 - Support
Discuss:
Are there things that might stop people from taking part?
What can we do, if anything, to help?
Once you have agreed what support you can provide to help people take part, note this down in the Community Conversation Plan.
5. Working together
Now watch this presentation on what you need to do to get the job done.
6. Communication
Now watch this presentation on getting people involved and sharing the results.
Group discussion 6 - Communication
Discuss:
How will we communicate with the people taking part, both before and after?
What kind of things might we want to share?
Who will do it?
Once you have agreed how you will communicate with people taking part, note this down in the Community Conversation Plan.
7. Starting your conversation
You've done the thinking about what needs to be done and the planning on how to do it. You've made careful plan of action - now it's time to get it done.
Make sure you are sharing the work across your team and look for support or help if you need it.
Make sure to talk to each other about how you think the conversation is going, and if there’s anything you need to change.
Please note there is no presentation or group discussion in this section. The main activity for this section is to put your plan into action. Good luck!
8. Impact of putting your plan into action
This section has to be completed after you have carried out your community engagement activities.
Once you have carried out your plan and engaged with your community, it is good to take time afterwards to reflect on what you did and to consider your impact.
This is about learning what worked well and how you could do it better in the future.
Now watch this presentation on impact.
Group discussion 8 - Impact of putting your plan into action
In your committee or in a small group discuss:
Have you achieved the aims of your Community Conversation Plan?
What would you say were the main messages from the community?
What would you do differently in future?
Involving your community - Conclusions
From doing this module, we hope that you understand how important it is to understand your community’s needs and to know how to make a plan and put it into practice.
This is an ongoing process. You should ask your community what matters on a regular basis.
As well as asking your community what matters and asking for their views on how your organisation can help, there are also other things you can do to involve your community. These include:
Providing opportunities for people to help design new services and services
Providing opportunities for people to help deliver events and services
Supporting community members to become volunteers
Supporting community members to become board members
Looking at how you can build on the strengths of community members within your activities, for example giving people more responsibility within groups or activities
We will look more at providing opportunities for people to give you feedback about the services you run in Module 5: Showing that you’ve made a difference.