Use a Gap Analysis
When you don't have a lot of data to support your need statement, you can pull together a team of people who are collaborating on the grant and have them help you perform a gap analysis.
A gap analysis is a means to identify hindrances or other roadblocks that might otherwise prevent you from achieving a desired goal. It forces a realistic look at the current situation and helps identify the things that need to be done to arrive at the desired future/goals. Use your data (the present state of affairs), your outcomes (the desired future), and the gaps between them (the need). Following is a step-by-step method for a gap analysis.
Where do you want to be? What's the desired outcome? Add detail to your goal statement. List the information and thoughts and details in a box labeled “Desired Future.”
How are things now? Describe the same components featured in the future state, but do so in present terms. For instance, state that you know that 90 percent of prostitutes are drug users. You know that approximately 2 percent of prostitutes are male transvestites. And you know that there are gay male prostitutes but that they are not on the street and you have no way of counting them or analyzing the extent of the problem. Again, be very detailed. Post the ideas generated in a box labeled “Present State.”
Ask teammates and collaborators to talk through the following points:
What are the gaps?
What are the barriers to achieving the goals?
What's missing in already-existing services?
Use the results of the gaps you focused on to assist in writing your needs statement. In the above example, the teammates found that there were no services that addressed the need for child care while prostitutes were in drug rehabilitation. Although they had other data, they were more interested in addressing the greatest barrier they found, that relating to prostitutes seeking drug-rehabilitation services.
