Needs Assessment - Question Bank
Leverage these questions to get the most out of your needs assessment.
Michelle Baker
Last Update 20 days ago
The questions asked in a needs assessment will greatly influence the quality of information you get back. Below is a bank of questions you can pull from, or use as inspiration for your own needs assessment. Remember, around 20 questions is ideal. Be sure to ask some identifying information – if a staff member elevates an inefficiency in their program, you’ll want to know which program it is. You may chose to keep the names of responders anonymous though; depending on comfort levels within your organization, you may get more feedback if you don’t ask participants to identify themselves by name.
Basic Info
• Name [comment box]
• Role [comment box]
• Department [comment box]
General Questions
1. Do you feel that volunteers are a necessity to achieve our organization’s mission? [yes/no]
2. Do you feel that volunteers interests align with the available roles we offer? [yes/no]
3. What are the strengths of the current volunteers? [comment box]
4. What is the biggest benefit of using volunteers? [comment box]
5. What are the weakness of the volunteers? [comment box]
6. Do volunteers make your job easier? [yes/no]
Alleviating “Full Plates” of Staff
1. What do volunteers currently do to support your work? [comment box]
2. What are the things that always fall to the bottom of your to do list, or don’t get done in time, because of other urgent priorities? [comment box]
3. What are some routine task that takes up a big chunk of your time, that you would feel comfortable assigning to a volunteer? [comment box]
4. What skillsets are missing on our staff? [comment box]
Expanding Impact
1. If you had more time and capacity, what additional things would you like to get done in your role? Be specific. [comment box]
2. If you had 10x as many volunteers supporting your program as you currently do, what would be the result? What else would you need, besides more volunteers, to achieve that result? [comment box]
3. What parts of the organization do volunteers not currently support? [comment box]
4. If you could multiply the organizational operating budget by 10x, what new ideas would you implement? [comment box]
Removing Barriers
1. What is the biggest frustrater when working with volunteers? [comment box]
2. How comfortable are you with managing volunteers? [scale: Not at all - Very]
3. How much training have you had on managing volunteers? [scale: None – A lot]
4. How much training do you need on managing volunteers? [scale: None – A lot]
5. How comfortable are you with volunteers doing tasks for you? [scale: None – A lot]
6. What obstacles do you see in using volunteers to support your work? [comment box]
7. Do you spend money on the volunteer program? Do you have enough, more than enough or not enough to have a great program? [not enough, enough, more than enough, n/a]
8. Rate the importance of the below options for removing barriers:
o Training of staff
o Training of volunteers
o Recruitment + screening support
o Building in capacity/time for you to manage them
o Pre-scoped project recommendations
o Allocated funding for recognition, food + bev, background checks, etc
o Better system for tracking + communicating with volunteers
o [scale for all: Not at all - Very]