Connecticut has 169 towns and cities—each with its own character, institutions, and remarkable people who show up, year after year, to make their community stronger. These volunteers and civic leaders are the connective tissue of civic life: the board members, the coaches, the food pantry directors, the block association chairs, the emergency responders, the municipal staff, the organizers who serve their neighbors, and more.

Despite sharing common motivations and challenges—volunteer recruitment and retention, succession planning, and civic fragmentation—these leaders struggle to connect across towns and cities, and sometimes even within their own community. Connecticut lacks infrastructure to connect and support them.

The Neighborhood exists to build that infrastructure. We envision a Connecticut in which the state’s most active volunteers and civic leaders are supported by a genuine peer community—a place where geographic distance doesn’t prevent neighborly connection, where good ideas spread organically from one community to another, and where showing up for your community means joining a larger movement.