What are the essential components of a philanthropic needs assessment?

The first step is determining who wants the assessment: a potential philanthropist or an organization looking for philanthropic support? That will tell you the purpose/goal: is it to provide support to a particular type of group or work, or is it fundraising for something you or your organization already does or wants to do? As indicated, the purpose should be clear with specific goals/objectives and a good map of either causes you’d like to support, organizations engaged in addressing those causes (if they exist), and/or the range of donors/philanthropists/philanthropic organizations whose missions align with yours.

Agreed. Consider making a specific plan for each stakeholder depending on how you initially conceive their role (donor or implementer). Do you want a donation? Investment? Capital funding? Co-investment or cost share? Management role? Depending on your purpose these may be more or less important.

A coleta e análise deve considerar dados sociodemográfico e indicadores sociais nas áreas de educação, saúde, cultura, lazer e bem-estar, renda, trabalho e moradia. Pesquisas e informações relacionadas à direto social, acessibilidade, equidade, povos indígenas e sustentabilidade, também são necessárias quando se pretende desenvolver ações no campo social. Além disso, é importante utilizar dados em âmbito nacional e também dados específicos regionais e locais, de modo que a análise de fato contribua para um olhar das necessidades do território que se pretender trabalhar.

This should be collected before approaching potential stakeholders/donors or deciding what you would like to fund/support. Being able to talk about the scale and scope of the need and what you propose to do to address it are critical to both finding a credible and competent implementing agency and figuring out your own value added to meeting a need.

Again, this will depend on your role. If you are an aspiring philanthropist, you may desire that you want to support work in an area that is already saturated with philanthropists, fund a neglected area of need, or imitate work in a previously unrecognized sector or with an ignored group. If you are an existing philanthropic organization, you should already have some framing around what you would like to do - just be open to the suggestions, recommendations, or advice of those you speak to. It could be that your initially preferred method of approach might not be optimal or could have been tried before - or that there is a new, innovative, or experimental approach that someone simply needs resources to pilot or scale up.

Don’t forget an honest risk tolerance analysis and a cost estimate for various options that you are exploring. These will vary based on what you decide: to develop a new product (or move into a new space); to pilot an approach; to scale up existing work; engage a donor or partner for the first time (establish a potential long term mutually beneficial relationship) or to capture best practices for others to use or promote further study. Cost and risk tend to not be proportionately distributed across these actions.

The most important part of an assessment or evaluation is looking at lessons learned, what didn’t work, what adjustments were attempted to improve performance/reach, and why something did not achieve what you wanted. More often than not organizations publicize the successes - no matter how minimal or unique - and don’t take the opportunity to understand how to improve in the future. For some donors and philanthropists, demonstrating a capacity and desire to constantly improve performance and impact based on acknowledged mistakes or underperformance is more valuable than a handful of non representative “successes” (which tend to be better for mass public fundraising than philanthropic organization resource mobilization).

Considero importante citar fontes confiáveis para coleta e análise de dados, por exemplo, documentos relacionados aos Objetivos do Desenvolvimento Sustentável e o Mapa Mundial da Fome. Para além dessas evidências, citaria também o Relatório Mundial da Felicidade, que aborda dados sobre bem-estar e felicidade na sociedade, ampliando possibilidades de trabalho no campo social.