As part of a body of work that focuses on the role of community needs and interests in charter authorizing, this brief provides guidance to charter school operators and authorizers about promising practices for assessing community needs. The brief begins by summarizing how other fields assess community needs, reviewing documentation and practices from the social services, health care, and education sectors. It then provides suggested steps for assessing community needs. Finally, to showcase what this work can look like on the ground, the brief provides examples of strategies that two charter schools and two authorizers have used for assessing community needs.