Compare methods

	Community Needs Assessment	Logic Model
Field	Social Work	Social Work
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1972	2004
Originator	Social-planning tradition; need typology by Jonathan Bradshaw	Program-evaluation tradition; popularized by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation
Type	Systematic assessment of the unmet needs of a community or population	Diagram linking program resources and activities to intended outcomes
Seminal source	Bradshaw, J. (1972). A taxonomy of social need. In G. McLachlan (Ed.), Problems and Progress in Medical Care: Essays on Current Research, 7th Series (pp. 71–82). Oxford University Press.	W. K. Kellogg Foundation. (2004). Logic Model Development Guide. W. K. Kellogg Foundation.
Aliases	Needs Assessment, Community Needs Analysis, Needs Assessment Survey, Community Assessment	Program Logic Model, Logical Framework, Program Theory Model, Logic Model (Social Work)
Related	4	4
Summary	A community needs assessment is a systematic process for identifying, documenting, and prioritizing the unmet needs of a community or population in order to plan programs, allocate resources, and justify funding. It draws on multiple kinds of evidence — statistical indicators, what people say they need, the services they actually seek, and comparisons with other areas — and a guiding typology, such as Jonathan Bradshaw's four types of social need, helps assessors recognize that 'need' is not a single, self-evident quantity but a judgment that depends on whose definition and which standard is applied.	A logic model is a diagram that lays out the intended logic of a program — how its resources and activities are expected to produce outputs and, through them, short-, intermediate-, and long-term outcomes. Popularized in human services by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation's development guide, it makes a program's underlying theory of change explicit and testable, providing the backbone for program planning, communication with stakeholders, and evaluation by clarifying exactly what the program does and what it is supposed to achieve.