Forest landowners are an important target audience for many state Extension programs. Acknowledging the differences and associations between landownership values, characteristics, and educational preferences of forest landowners should lead to improvement of educational programs and ensuring that educational needs are being met. Through an…

As beef industry trends have evolved, beef producers are looking for value-added beef practices and marketing strategies. To ensure that a new value-added beef Extension program framework at Iowa State University aligns with beef producers' needs, a needs assessment instrument was created. We developed a needs assessment tool focused on program…

Due to the nature of Extension, work across counties differs because efforts are grounded in the needs of a community and intentional programming helps address these needs. A common competency required for entry-stage Extension professionals is program development, which includes planning, design, implementation, and evaluation. Understanding a…

Conducting needs assessments serves as a valuable way for Extension educators to ensure that they are designing programs that meet community needs. We developed a needs assessment tool kit that educators across urban, suburban, and rural communities can use to answer the question "What are the youth development needs in my county?"…

Following a daylong symposium featuring tax-oriented presentations, attendees participated in facilitated roundtable discussions centered on identification of educational needs and challenges associated with the symposium subject matter. Participants discussed their educational needs; challenges related to local, state, and federal tax laws; and…

Extension personnel are tasked with ensuring that 4-H volunteers have competencies identified in the Volunteer Research and Knowledge Competency (VRKC) Taxonomy, 4-H youth development's foundational volunteer skills framework. The VRKC Codebook is a qualitative analysis tool for accurately identifying VRKC-aligned needs expressed in volunteer…

This study is a needs assessment of Extension staff in the state of Iowa to implement inclusive programming for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Electronic surveys were completed by Extension staff on their attitudes and beliefs toward people with IDD, inclusive programming, and training needs. Results showed…

We conducted a needs assessment to identify watershed science training needs for locally elected directors of Nebraska's 23 natural resources districts (NRDs). We interviewed NRD staff and surveyed NRD directors to determine training needs and identify relevant topics and preferred delivery formats. We found that training would be valuable;…

Needs assessment in Extension is typically a quantitative process whereby the highest number of votes is deemed to indicate the greatest need. However, this process does not help specialists and county agents know the best response to carry out. A different process is needed to ensure that we in Extension are executing the right responses. In…

Understanding and identifying the professional development needs of 4-H youth development professionals should be the first step in developing the Extension workforce. However, 4-H professionals find it challenging to use the Professional, Research, Knowledge and Competencies (PRKC), which consists of 348 unique competency items, to guide…

Cooperative Extension strives to deliver relevant programming to residents. However, problems facing communities are increasingly complex. We used a three-phase needs assessment to describe Utah residents' perceptions of issue areas for Extension programming. We gathered data from 1,043 Utah residents. Results highlighted four priority issue areas…

As the U.S. population ages, Extension's need for associated organizational readiness increases. We conducted a needs assessment with a sample of 1,028 Extension professionals in the Extension North Central Region (NCR) to identify the current scope of aging-related community needs. Health care, chronic disease prevention and management, housing,…

With an adult obesity rate of 35.6%, Alabama is the second most obese state in the United States. Alabama Extension and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) joined in the first collaboration between the CDC and land-grant institutions to prevent further incidence and reduce the prevalence of obesity. The objective of our study was…

This article describes the curriculum and program development process that was used to create the North Carolina Extension Master Food Volunteer program. We used a rigorous program development process, including conducting a needs assessment, piloting and evaluating the program, incorporating revisions based on feedback, and receiving external…

We present descriptive findings from a North Carolina study of 30 limited-resource older homeowners who want to age in place, and we relate those findings to opportunities for outreach education. We grouped the findings from extensive participant interviews into five key areas. For two of those areas--health conditions and financial…