What is the goal for your education or outreach initiative? What community or regional water education needs have you identified? What gap in ___________’s [add the name of your target audience here] knowledge about water have you identified?

If you aren’t sure how to describe the goal of your initiative, choose one of the goals outlined in the Decision Tree. The Decision Tree helps you to choose a goal and refine it.

Decision Tree sample education or outreach goals:

I need to develop an education program or outreach strategy:
Tree 1 — To tackle a specific water use or management problem

Tree 2 — To increase public awareness or help a community meet a water management goal

Tree 3 — To build community capacity to manage water use and environmental impacts

If you followed the first two steps of this Planning guide, you have already identified your target audience and described the “community” context. How does your goal fit what you learned? Add detail to your goal or revise your goal to better match audience or community characteristics.

Use one or more of the following methods to involve the “community” in identifying needs and clarifying goals.

• Youth input (by survey, informal discussion, etc.)
• Target group or citizen input (by survey, informal discussion, etc.)
• Public discussion of important local issues (reported by local news or brought to referendum)
• Advisory group input
• Grant or funding agency requirement(s)
• Educator or natural resource specialist(s) input
• School-identified water education needs