Final Report for June 2011 Community Needs Assessment 

Scrolling Powerpoint Presentation

Final Executive Summary

Kansas City, KS—On Tuesday June 7, 2011, from 9-11AM, the Economic Opportunity Foundation and the United Way of Wyandotte County will jointly host a community presentation and dialogue at Donnelly College to rollout the results of their 2011 Community Needs Assessment. This project was the result of collaboration between these two entities, with participation from ten other nonprofit agencies serving Wyandotte County. The Community Needs Assessment results include data from more than 600 clients receiving services at nonprofit agencies, as well as more than 500 donors, agency employees, and other community stakeholders who completed an online version of the assessment.

“We weren’t interested in convening just another Community Needs Assessment,” explained Wendell Maddox, President/CEO of United Way of Wyandotte County. “We wanted to work in partnership with other entities in our community to spark a meaningful conversation, not just about the fact that we have needs, but about how, in a climate of scarce resources, we should best prioritize those needs, and about how we can capitalize on our community’s existing strengths to begin to address our needs more effectively. We are excited about the data that we have gathered, but especially about what they can tell us about Wyandotte Countians’ experience of need, and about our collective capacity to meet it.”

Economic Opportunity Foundation has regularly conducted Community Needs Assessments as part of its efforts to better understand the clients it serves, and to gauge the agency’s impact on these families. This year, the agency sought to utilize the United Way’s strong relationships with other community organizations to expand the scope of its investigation. “We needed to understand not just who we serve, and how well we’re responding to their greatest concerns,” said Executive Director Mrs. LaDora Jackson. “We also needed to understand who we’re not serving, how others are serving them, and how we can best complement each other’s work, especially given the limitations that all nonprofit organizations face today. We also had questions about how others in Wyandotte County, including elected officials, business leaders, and our neighbors, see the work of EOF and other social service agencies, because they are critical constituents of ours, as well. The methods used in this particular Community Needs Assessment allowed us to explore how clients experience life in Wyandotte County, and their interactions with us, but also how those experiences compare to stakeholders’ perceptions.”

The rollout event on June 7, 2011 will include a brief presentation of the key findings of the Community Needs Assessment and a panel of experts discussing the implications of these findings for institutions, including social service organizations, especially in light of the pending release of new 2010 Census and American Community Survey data, which will complement these results. Panel members will include Maddox, from the United Way of Wyandotte County; from the Board of Public Utilities; Dr. Cynthia Lane, Superintendent of USD500; and Mayor Joe Reardon. The public will be invited to ask questions and offer their own thoughts, through a variety of formats, about how to best respond to need in Wyandotte County.