Gathering Community Needs

Now that you and your community have decided to continue with a community archiving event, the next steps are to understand better the community’s wants and needs for the event. Also, you will want to gather information about community members’ skills and availability for the event.

The first assessment gathers information about the type of stories your community would like to share and the objects they own and would like to contribute to the archive.

Click here to view a sample community-needs survey

You can circulate this sample survey with your community. We recommend using similar questions when creating a survey for your community.

Once community members have completed this initial survey, you will better understand the types of stories your community is interested in sharing and the type of material or objects members would like to contribute to the archive. This will help you better plan for the archiving event, such as logistical decisions, the size of the venue, and the number of volunteers needed. It will also help you decide on the equipment you will need to digitize the objects and record the stories.

Assessing Community Skills and Availability

The second assessment gathers information about the skills and availability of community members willing to help organize the event. This information will help you manage volunteers and help you make decisions about assignments for volunteers. You can send this survey at the same time as sending out the first survey, or you can wait until after the first survey and incorporate the results of the first survey into the volunteer survey.

Click here to view a sample skills-and-availability survey

Click on the following link for a sample survey you can circulate among members who have expressed interest in helping organize the event.