Dear Regional Community Needs Assessment Participant:

Thank you for taking time to participate in the Regional Community Needs Assessment sponsored by The Bell Tower Foundation, the County of Orange, Office of Supervisor Pat Bates, and our community partners.  

This Needs Assessment involves a series of questions focusing in on the areas of culture, recreation, human services and community service. The Needs Assessment covers the service area of The Bell Tower Foundation which includes the following communities: Rancho Santa Margarita, Dove Canyon, Coto de Caza, Foothill Ranch, Ladera Ranch, Las Flores, Mission Viejo (east of Marguerite), Portola Hills, Trabuco Canyon and Wagon Wheel.
                                          
If you live or work in one of the above identified communities, you qualify to participate. The assessment questionnaire should take approximately 15 minutes to complete, a small but very important investment of your time.

Results from the questionnaire will provide critical information which will help The Bell Tower Foundation better address the needs of the community, allocate proper resources to meet these needs and provide opportunities for community collaboration. Helping meet the cultural, recreational, human service and community service needs will be one big step in helping keep our communities strong and vibrant.

The Regional Community Needs Assessment questionnaire will also be available on the Foundation’s website at www.belltowerfoundation.org after March 6, 2009. Links to the questionnaire will be available on the websites of our various community partners.

The following FAQ sheet will guide you through the questionnaire and provide you with some additional insight about the information we are asking you to provide. Please be assured that ALL of your information as well as your questionnaire input will remain ABSOLUTELY confidential and will not be used for any other purpose than the calculation and provision of data needed to complete the Regional Community Needs Assessment.

If you have any questions regarding the Regional Community Needs Assessment, please do not hesitate to call, Nick Alivojvodic, Executive Director of The Bell Tower Foundation at 949-216-9700 extension 1253.

Click here to take the survey now.

Sincerely,

James C. Bastian, Jr. Vice President The Bell Tower Foundation

Nick Alivojvodic Excecutive Director The Bell Tower Foundation

FAQ's

 

WHY IS MY ADDRESS, ZIP + 4 and/or COMMUNITY NAME IS IMPORTANT?
Your address (home or work) located within the participating communities is crucial to the integrity of the Regional Community Needs Assessment (RGNA). Here’s why…

Once your questionnaire is returned, your confidential address and ZIP + 4 will be entered into a Geographic Information System or GIS. This GIS mapping program will show The Bell Tower Foundation from where the responses to the RGNA are coming.  Your address will be used solely to identify the geographic area from where the response to the RCNA came.

The GIS program places each respondent’s address onto the GIS map as a “dot.”  The Foundation will then review the GIS map and see where the dots are located. This information helps identify which geographic areas or communities have provided enough responses to the RCNA for data analysis purposes, and which communities have not.

The Foundation would then be able to initiate an outreach campaign to those geographic areas or communities which have not fully participated and thus seek to ensure their views are included within the RCNA.

Your address, ZIP + 4 and/or your geographic identifier will also allow the Foundation to segregate the responses from the RCNA down to your specific community instead of solely the general area of southeast Orange County. The Bell Tower Foundation would then be able to focus resources to your community to help meets the specific needs identified by those residents/workers from your community.

If you still do not feel comfortable giving your exact address, a ZIP + 4 would be the next best geographical indicator. Useable, and lastly a geographic identifier (Las Flores, Wagon Wheel, Ladera Ranch, RSM, etc.) would meet the absolute minimum requirements.

HOW DO I FIND OUT WHAT MY ZIP + 4 IS?
Your ZIP + 4 can be found on most pieces of mail that you receive at your house. The most probable pieces of mail to include your ZIP + 4 would be one of your utility bills.

WHY DO YOU ASK IF THE ADDRESS PROVIDED IS A WORK OR HOME ADDRESS?
The Regional Community Needs Assessment is meant to be an all-inclusive initiative to help identify the needs of our community. People who live in the community have a specific insight to our community as do those people who work in our community. We are looking to gauge the needs of our community from both points of view.

WHY DO YOU ASK IF I AM A NONPROFIT OR A COMMUNITY SERVICE ORGANIZATION SERVING OUR COMMUNITY?
As stated above, the Regional Community Needs Assessment is meant to be an all-inclusive initiative to help identify the needs of our community. People who serve our community under the auspices of a nonprofit or community service organization may have a separate and unique insight into the needs of our community. We ask that you fill out the Regional Community Needs Assessment ONLY one time, regardless if you qualify under more than one category (resident, work in the area, nonprofit or community service organization).

WHY DO MANY QUESTIONS ASK ME FOR MY OPINION ABOUT MY IMMEDIATE COMMUNITY AND THE SOUTHEAST ORANGE COUNTY REGION?
The communities and people of southeast Orange County are linked together through our proximity to one another and through the way that we share our own community’s resources. Whether these resources are parks, recreation facilities, shopping centers, theaters, restaurants or general services, no single community currently includes all the resources needed to support and independent community; thus we have all become inter-dependent in sharing the resources and growing together as a thriving region.

WHAT WILL BE DONE WITH THE COMPLETED QUESTIONNAIRE?
Once the communities have each returned a representative number of responses to the questionnaire, the data will be organized into several categories:

• By community (as identified by the responders)
• By the categories of: cultural, recreational, human service, community service and “unclassified.”
• By age group of the responders

 

Once the data is organized it will be analyzed for current and emerging trends in the above named categories.

WHEN CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE THE RESULTS OF THE NEEDS ASSESSMENT?
The RCNA questionnaire will be available for public input as of March 6, 2009. The RCNA questionnaire will be available on The Bell Tower Foundation’s website, www.belltowerfoundation.org. A link to the RCNA will also be available on our community partners’ websites.

The response period will close at the beginning of June or sooner if enough responses are received from the various participating communities which could provide a representative basis for the collected data. Responses received after the closing date will be added to the GIS information for a follow up report, if the new data changes the previous results.

WHO DO I CONTACT IF I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS?
You may contact Nick Alivojvodic, Executive Director of The Bell Tower Foundation at 949-216-9700 extension 1253, or Karen Hume, Associate Director at extension 1254.The e-mail addresses are nicka@belltowerfoundation.org and karenh@belltowerfoundation.org.