Our Needs Assessment Report
At Just Love we want to raise up a generation who have cultivated the character, values, theology and practices that will enable them to pursue justice faithfully with their whole lives. We are always striving to do this in the most effective way and to do that we need to know what needs we are aiming to meet.
This is a passion that is shared by Eido Research, who help Christian organisations measure and improve their impact in society, through impact strategy and research services. Together with Eido, we carried out a needs assessment, asking 184 students questions around justice and both their and the church’s response.
Christian students care about social justice and most commonly define it linked to equality. There was a wide variety in the issues they thought were most important.
Our key findings:
Christian students’ understanding of social justice is influenced by their faith, but much of this influence occurs outside of preaching and teaching in the Church.
Most respondents hold the belief that social justice should be important to Christian students, but that does not translate into an active pursuit in the lives of individual Christian students.
Christian students are changing their consumer habits, engaging in large-scale politics and seeking out content from marginalised groups. Far fewer students are volunteering regularly and giving money to charities.
Christian students believe that the Church is paramount to bringing justice, however most Christian students are not convinced that the Church is currently achieving this.
Recommendations for Just Love:
To carefully re-consider:
a) the nature of their role in students’ understanding of social justice.
b) the extent of their role in shaping and equipping students in issue selection.
To steer groups more into helping a belief become a practice, or plans to put their belief into practice after graduation.
To help students and alumni to pursue the things they currently do not, by:
a) looking to better coordinate volunteering and campaigning opportunities,
b) continuing to lean into teaching and language around the “whole life, life-long pursuit” of social justice
c) putting more effort into linking giving to social justice.
To consider what part it should play in influencing understanding and engagement of social justice.
The alumni department within Just Love works to set up mentoring relationships between students and alumni.
To carefully consider designing a condensed version of this survey and a survey for alumni to gather data on a regular basis and adapt at a faster rate.
Needs Assessment Report
To learn more about how we arrived at these findings and recommendations, click the link below.