Case Study 2 — RYCC Proves a Need Without Inflating It
Composite, for teaching. RYCC, the data, and the funder are illustrative.
The Situation
Denise Okafor must write RYCC's needs assessment for the Hartwell Foundation. She has two temptations: to pile on every alarming statistic she can find about the digital divide, and to claim "nothing is being done" to make RYCC look indispensable. This chapter warns her off both.
Applying the Chapter
She builds a lean so-what chain. Instead of a statistics dump, Denise writes five tight links. Problem: neighborhood middle-schoolers lack access to computer-science education. Magnitude: fewer than one in ten students at the three target schools has any CS coursework, versus a higher state figure, concentrated in the lowest-income tracts (cited). Consequence: without early exposure, these students are far less likely to enter high-school CS tracks or the regional tech economy, which is adding jobs faster than schools produce candidates — foreclosing a documented pathway out of poverty. Insufficiency: the district offers CS only at two cross-town magnet schools, inaccessible by distance and selective admission. Necessity: a free, neighborhood-based program is needed to close the access gap.
She pairs national context with local specificity. Denise cites a national figure on the CS-access gap (establishing the problem is real and recognized), then her local numbers from the district's own enrollment data and the school's records (establishing it is acute here). The pairing answers both "is this a real problem?" and "does it apply to your community?" — and the local data, dug out of a district report and a hospital Community Health Needs Assessment, makes the gap vivid in a way national figures alone could not.
She names the gap type honestly — and credits existing efforts. This is an access gap, not a "nothing exists" situation. Denise credits the district's magnet programs ("the district offers strong CS at two magnet schools") and then names the specific gap: those programs are inaccessible to her students by distance and selective admission, leaving neighborhood students without any option. This is far more credible than claiming nothing is being done — and it matches RYCC's project precisely, which is a neighborhood-based, open-access program (the exact fix for an access gap).
The Temptations She Resists
Denise finds a dramatic national statistic she could frame as local ("90% of low-income students lack...") but it is about a broader population than hers; presenting it as local would be misrepresentation, so she uses it correctly as national context and supplies her real local numbers. She also drafts, then deletes, a line claiming "no one is addressing this gap" — untrue (the magnets exist) and easily refuted — replacing it with the honest, stronger access-gap framing. Each honest choice makes the section more persuasive, not less, because it reads as trustworthy and informed.
The Payoff
Denise's needs section is short, honest, locally grounded, and built as an argument that ends exactly at RYCC's project. It credits the district, names a real access gap, and proves that gap is what RYCC fills. A Hartwell program officer reads it and concludes both that the problem matters and that RYCC clearly understands the local landscape — the two impressions a strong needs section is designed to create.
Discussion Questions
- Denise resisted presenting a national statistic as local. Walk through why that specific misrepresentation is so damaging if caught — and what the honest alternative cost her.
- RYCC's gap is an access gap, and its project is open-access and neighborhood-based. Explain how naming the gap type correctly strengthened both the need and the project's fit.
- Compare Denise's needs assessment to Hernandez's significance section (Case Study 1). What is identical in their method, and what differs in their evidence base?