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National Cohousing Alliance

  • Organizations

About the Organizations

What we do

We believe the future of housing is rooted in community. Our Blueprint for Belonging 2030 guides our work over the next five years, expanding our reach, strengthening our ecosystem, and supporting more people in creating collaborative, connected ways of living.

This vision reflects an evolution in our mission. Alongside cohousing, we champion a broader spectrum of community-rooted housing models, including co-buying, retrofit neighborhoods, intergenerational communities, and other shared approaches that foster connection, sustainability, and democratic participation.

Our Vision

We envision a future where sustainable, egalitarian communities thrive – where community-rooted housing empowers a diverse group of people to live with intention, connection and collective care.

Our Mission

The National Cohousing Alliance drives the growth and evolution of cohousing and community-rooted housing in the United States. We expand its societal reach by raising awareness and promoting strategies to create vibrant, sustainable communities that are attainable, inclusive and resilient.

  • Scope
  • National
  • Operation type
  • Membership Organizations
  • Support/Service Organizations
  • Format or legal entity
  • Nonprofit/Charity (or equivalent)

What we do

We believe the future of housing is rooted in community. Our Blueprint for Belonging 2030 guides our work over the next five years, expanding our reach, strengthening our ecosystem, and supporting more people in creating collaborative, connected ways of living.

This vision reflects an evolution in our mission. Alongside cohousing, we champion a broader spectrum of community-rooted housing models, including co-buying, retrofit neighborhoods, intergenerational communities, and other shared approaches that foster connection, sustainability, and democratic participation.

National Cohousing Alliance

Needs and Offers

Connecting people and communities through an intentional online marketplace

Offer
Need
  • Forming Communities
3 weeks ago

Looking for: people building relational capacity, with a view to community

What’s here now: An intention, a framework developed over five years, and a programme running in central Victoria to find people to build with. No land, no group, no timeline. The question this is organised around: What makes a community of people living together sustainable over decades – where people enjoy being there, conflict is low, and the conflict that does arise gets handled in ways people value. The distinctive premise is capacity before formation. Most communities form first and build relational skill afterwards, usually under pressure. This one proposes doing it the other way round: people build the capacities first, and the group forms from people who have them. That includes a working idea about collective capacity – that a group has a ratio, and below some threshold it can’t metabolise its own conflict and starts consuming itself. Roughly: in a group of twenty, perhaps three or four with high capacity, most in the middle, and very few without. Untested, and something this project exists to find out. Governance: Sociocracy, with the intention of testing it meaningfully at scale rather than adopting it nominally. What’s actually happening: A three-week residency at a property near Castlemaine, and a practice group running before it. The medium-term aim is twenty to forty people at a rented facility. The long-term aim is a support hub sharing the framework more widely. What I’m looking for: People who want to build this capacity seriously, and who might eventually want to build something together. Not necessarily people who want to live here – the current property probably isn’t the long-term site. Happy to hear from anyone this resonates with, including people already in community who’d rather share what they’ve learned than join anything.
Offer

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Information

Communities

A residential project: people live here as their primary home.

Organizations

An institution, business, network, or project that isn’t a residence (e.g. a learning center, farm, or network with no one living there full-time).

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