Community Situational Analysis – Original material presented by Lori Garkovich, University of Kentucky

Brief Overview –

A situational analysis can take many different forms and can offer a multitude of benefits to the community development process in a community. The analysis is a systematic method of gathering and delivering information to the community. A situational analysis might include: analyzing secondary data for trends, SWOT analysis, key informant interviews, focus groups, and network analysis.

Analyzing secondary data for trends: Examine the community and the county’s population, economic, income, and other trends in relationship to similar communities, all rural counties, or the state average using existing data sources.

SWOT analysis: An assessment of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats within a community. A commonly used technique for more details see:  http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/swot-analysis/main

Key Informant Interviews: key informants are people in leadership positions in multiple organizations in the community or those who know a lot about the community’s history and earlier community development efforts

Focus Groups: Conversations among small groups of invited people, the facilitator asks the group questions and encourages all members in the group to respond to one another and have a voice in the conversation.

Network Analysis: Diagrams of the working, organizational, and social relationships between people in a community.

Key Points

• Do not decide to do an analysis without a clear statement of purpose – define what information needs to be known and what needs to be done with the information
• Done properly, the analysis should lead to community conversations, be used by local planning/non-profits/governments to inform development conversations
• The analysis itself offers an opportunity to develop skills in a community – it gauges commitment from different organizations and leaders and offers an opportunity for community members to collaborate
• The analysis contains different levels of complexity, communities may need outside expertise or broad participation by various community members
• Some parts, especially network analysis and key informant interviews, address power norms for enacting change in a community by identifying people and groups who are the most influential and how they interact with others in the community.

Translating these concepts into practice, examples in Oregon:

• The posted resources contain more details about translating these concepts into practice. The Extension Service can help communities in Oregon.

•  Situational Analysis: Community Vitality Indicators Project – a  survey based comprehensive overview of a community’s progress towards a range of stated goals, completed by Tillamook and Wallowa counties. http://oregonexplorer.info/rural/CommunityVitality

Project Overview: http://r2r.rdiinc.org/pdfs/Community_Indicators_of_Vitality_Slides.pdf

•  Secondary Trends Analysis by Extension Community Economists – http://ruralstudies.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/presentation/pdf/DouglasCo10_28_10_OSU_med.pdf

A fuller description of the situational analysis is available from this Extension document by the University of Kentucky: Situation Analysis by Roger Rennekamp, Martha Nall and Julie Zimmerman

http://www2.ca.uky.edu/psd/Learning%20about%20PD/Situation%20Analysis.pdf

In the next session we will be discussing six strategies of economic development.