February 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 41

NRPA Leaders to
Keynote at 2020 Agents of
Change Summit

RPA President and CEO Kristine Stratton and former
NRPA Board Member Neelay Bhatt are teaming up to deliver a compelling keynote address at the 2020 Agents of
Change Summit, February 10-11, in San Diego, California. Stratton
and Bhatt, who believe in the power of parks to transform lives, will
highlight the important role of parks and recreation in helping address mental health challenges, such as depression and anxiety, and
the critical role of parks and recreation in helping people of all ages
combat the devastating effects of opioid addiction. To learn more
about the summit, visit agentsofchangesummit.org.

Increasing Engagement with the NRPA
Community Needs Assessment Resource

ark and recreation agencies
have a profound impact on
the well-being of their residents. Therefore, it is vitally important to get community member
feedback to inform future strategic
planning decisions.
Community needs assessments are
surveys that provide a sense of how
your community currently engages
with your agency, offer data on satisfaction with offerings and identify
current needs and priorities. This
combination of a satisfaction survey
and an outline of priorities makes
needs assessments a uniquely powerful feedback mechanism.
Needs assessments can be a
daunting undertaking. Seeing
the need for a practical, easy-toimplement tool, NRPA created the
Community Needs Assessment resource - a four-step guide that will
give your agency the information it
needs to set clear goals for the survey, gain a high response rate from

your community and use the data
to strengthen your agency:
Step 1: Clarify Your
Assessment Goals
What exactly are you hoping to find
out from your community? Achieving clarity on this front will ensure
that your questions are focused
where they need to be, and that you
can get data that is relevant and useful to you and your organization.
Step 2: Create the Assessment
This step will guide you through
three key question categories that
agencies use for these surveys:
1. Activation - How does your community currently use your facilities, parks and programming?
2. Satisfaction - How satisfied are community members with the services?
3. Needs - What are the community members' present and future
needs that your agency may or
may not be meeting?

Step 3: Administer
the Assessment
One of the most important aspects
of needs assessments is hearing
from community members who
are not already engaged with your
agency. This step will help ensure
you get a response that is representative of your community.
Step 4: Take Action on the Data
This final step will help you sort
out how to take action on shorterterm quick wins, while also planning how to make larger-scale
changes that may take more time
and resources.
Acting on relevant feedback
builds trust and engagement with
your agency, and strengthens the
work you do for your community.
The NRPA Community Needs Assessment resource will help you do
just that. You can find the resource
at
nrpa.org/CommunityNeeds
Assessments.

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Parks & Recreation

February 2020 - Parks & Recreation

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