Community Assessment Guide

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2	3. Community Assessment Guide
3	Section 01. Instructions
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5		The Climate Receiver Places Project
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7		The Community Assessment Guide is a tool within PLACE Initiative's Climate Receiver Places Project.
8		https://placeinitiative.org/receiver-places/
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10		Make a copy of this document to your own Google Drive for your own use. Select File > Make a Copy.
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12		Before using this tool, please make sure to reference the following documents:
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14		0	Project Summary		https://placeinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/00_Place-Initiative-CRPP-2-Pager-01.pdf
15				What is this project?
16		1	Receiving Geography Guide		https://placeinitiative.org/receiver-places/01-geography/
17				Is my community a good candidate for this project?
18		2	Community Principles Guide		https://placeinitiative.org/receiver-places/02-principles/
19				What should my community consider when preparing for the future?
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21			Also, please connect with us at:		https://placeinitiative.org/receiver-places/communities/
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23		Use of this Document
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25		Make a copy of this document for your own use. Select File > Make a Copy.
26		The Community Assessment Guide is an interactive form of the Community Principles Guide, which we've converted into a community rating system.
27		This document is a work in progress. You may see comments in the document as we create revisions.
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29		This rating system can be used to:
30		1	Assess current conditions in a community
31		2	Prioritize issues requiring attention and action
32				What one improvement will create the biggest difference?
33				What priorities must be addressed to prepare our community for climate change and climate-induced migration?
34		3	Act upon those identified priorities
35		4	Perform a post-assessment to measure success and to determine the next round of priorities
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37		Project Implementation Steps
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39		The use of this document fits within the bolded steps of locally implementing the Climate Receiver Places Project below.
40		These same steps are copied from document 0, Project Summary.
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42		STAGE 1: CONNECT & PREPARE
43		-	Team Building. Establish a core, dedicated local team. This team will expand through capacity building but success relies upon strong core advocates.
44		-	Information Gathering. Build an internal picture of your place physically, socially, and culturally; identify data sources; organizational and municipal programs, goals, and capacity.
45		-	Assessment. Score your community on the goals and principles from the Community Principles Guide, using the Community Assessment Guide. Use this to create your place’s Community Assessment Report. Identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas of focus for targeted next steps in this report as well.
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47		STAGE 2: PLAN & ADVOCATE
48		-	Capacity Building. Identify local and regional partners and community advocates; craft project materials focused on their areas of concern; build a coalition to implement the community principles.
49		-	Planning. Create a plan of action that responds to the conclusions of assessment report. Make meaningful resource commitments to implement changes that touch upon all principles and goals of the Community Principles Guide as a part of this plan.
50		-	Education. Educate the public and officials on the Community Assessment Report and the changes that you’ve planned and committed to making in order to address the strengths and weaknesses in this report.
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52		STAGE 3: IMPLEMENT & ADJUST
53		-	Make Change. Create change that touches upon all principles & goals of the Community Principles Guide, both at local and regional scales.
54		-	Measure Outcomes. Reengage the information gathering and assessment steps, to create a post-assessment of the changes you’ve made and other changes in your community. The post-assessment will become the foundation for repeating this process, beginning again with the “Stage 2: Plan & Advocate”.
55		-	Share and Adjust. Share the results of your post-assessment with the community. Regularly return to “Stage 2: Plan & Advocate” to begin the next iteration of implementation towards becoming a stronger receiving community.
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57		How to Use the Assessment Guide
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59		Software
60		-	Ideally, fill out the Score Sheet in Google Sheets, not Excel. Not everything transfers perfectly between the two programs. However, we can build an adapted version of this guide for Excel if needed.
61		-	To the left of the page on the Score Sheet tab, click the + and - boxes to expand and collapse rows of the Assessment Guide to view different sets of information depending on what is most useful for various purposes of inputs and report generation.
62		-	Before you begin, make a copy of PLACE Initiative's original Community Assessment Guide file for your own use.
63		-	Do not modify anything on the Score Sheet Summary tab. This information wil automatically update based on your inputs on the Score Sheet tab.
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65		How to fill out the Assessment Guide
66		On the Score Sheet tab of this spreadsheet file, there are several items to fill out to assess your community as a potential Climate Receiver Place.
67		The names of these three columns are listed below:
68		1	Principles Score - Select a score from 0 to 5 in the drop down menu for each subpoint. Select a score based on the following criteria:
69			0 -	A score of 0 means that this item has not been considered by the climate receiver place.
70			1 -	A score of 1 means that this item has been considered by the climate receiver place.
71			2 -	A score of 2 means that efforts to address this item are in progress in the climate receiver place in a meaningful and significant way.
72			3 -	A score of 3 means that policy, programs, infrastructure, and other solutions to address this item are in place in a meaningful and significant way.
73			4 -	A score of 4 means that policy, programs, infrastructure, and other solutions to address this item are in place and here to stay for the long term in a meaningful and significant way
74			5 -	A score of 5 means that policy, programs, infrastructure, and other solutions to address this item have proven significant success and are here to stay for the long term.
75		2	Goals Met - For each supboint of the score sheet, select which of the six goals of the Climate Receiver Places Project are being addressed successfully.
76		3	Comments - For each subpoint where not all information important to assessment is captured through numbers and checkboxes of the principles score and goals met, write comments to enhance the depth of this assessment.
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78		How to look at the Assessment Guide data
79		1	Principles Score - Selecting drop down menus for the principles score will generate a Goals Rating bar chart, Goals Rating percentage, and Goals Score at the levels of the subpoint, subprinciple, principle, and one overall score.
80		2	Goals Met - Selecting Goals Met checkboxes for each subpoint will generate letter grades, Goal Scores, and Goal Score percentages for each goal when cross referenced with each subprinciple and principle, as well as overall scores and letter grades.
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82		How to gather information
83		-	Look internally within governance structures and other groups to understand what issues are or aren't being addressed.
84		-	Look externally through community engagement to understand current conditions and actions taking place within your climate receiver place.
85		-	PLACE Initiative can help guide you through this process, but with a high-level advisory role. This assessment should be locally run, however that works best for your community.
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87		How to create a report
88		Once the score sheet of the Community Assessment Guide is filled out, there are several items that can be aggregated to create a report:
89		1	Score Sheet Results - Incorporate the results from filling out the score sheet from this document into your Community Assessment Report. It may be useful to directly incorporate a printout of the Score Sheet Summary tab.
90		2	Metrics - It may be helpful to look into several data-driven metrics for each goal and principle, chosen based on what locally available data may be most relevant to your community's situation.
91		3	Writeup of Existing Conditions - In addition to the score sheet and metrics, summarize information from your assessment and information gathering process in a qualitative, written format. Use insights from the score sheet scores and comments, metrics, community engagement, and other research.
92		4	Priorities & Next Steps - Based on your writeup of existing conditions, set priorities and next steps for your community, based on issues that are least addressed currently and would be most impactful to address first in order to become a more resilient, equitable, and welcoming climate receiver place.
93		5	Commitment to Action - Based on the priorities and next steps set by your report, use the final section of the report to set strong commitments to action to ensure that the report is used to move your community forward in a positive and meaningful way.
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95		Summary of Principles and Goals
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97		Please understand the main ideas of each of the six goals and nine principles of this project before filling out the score sheet.
98		Click on the "+" buttons to the left of each goal and principle to expand their descriptions.
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100		Goals