Why host a gathering?

• Meet new neighbors
• Get to know your neighbors better
• Improve the quality of life in your neighborhood
• Your neighbors will thank you
• The good feeling will last all year
• Fun!

What defines “neighborhood”?

• However you choose to define it!
• Your street or block or surrounding blocks
• Your apartment or condominium
• Floor of your apartment building
• Area surrounding your nearby school or place of worship
• Houses along your stretch of road
• Your local park
• Your local business district

Planning an NGND gathering is easy and fun and we’ll show you how!

Mayors and Local Government

Why promote NGND in your city or town?

“Communities work better (students perform better, crime rates are lower, kids are safer, people live longer) when neighbors know one another better. Knowing your neighbor on a first-name basis, as National Good Neighbor Day suggests, is a surprisingly effective first step toward a better America.” Robert Putnam, Harvard University Professor and author of Bowling Alone and Better Together

Benefits include:

• Increased social capital: commonly defined as the value of all social networks (who people know) and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other.
• Neighbors will come to know each other better, which produces increases in:
  • Communication, consensus-building, and problem solving among neighbors
  • Neighborhood self-sufficiency
  • Neighbor-led local improvements and collaborations
  • Citizen involvement and community service
  • Neighbor involvement in community organizations and associations

Opportunity for you to:

• Highlight community programs and services that are in place or in planning stages
• Highlight existing resources and programs during events
• Help community and social service agencies get out their message
• Increase local pride and build trust across the entire community
• Get to know your constituents in a friendly, low-key atmosphere

Nonprofit Partners

Why partner with National Good Neighbor Day?

• Strengthen and promote your mission
• Meet your strategic goals
• Use NGND as a communication and distribution channel for your programs and services
• Use NGND to recruit supporters, volunteers, board members, staff for your organization
• Gain visibility and recognition for you among your community
• Enhance your image as a leader in building social capital and increasing civic participation

National Good Day provides a built-in community outreach and community building opportunity for local and national nonprofit organizations. Ranging from Boys and Girls Clubs to Hands On Network to the Red Cross, we seek to establish collaborations that promote and strengthen our mission and our partners’ missions. We strive to develop programs that will highlight our partners’ activities and will engage more people in using and supporting those activities.

Faith Based Organizations

National Good Day is a perfect emphasis for your faith community!

Faith groups are always looking for a simple and powerful way to build up their own community and reach out to others. National Good Day is a fun, easy, family-friendly celebration that faith organizations can encourage their members to host in their own neighborhoods. NGND is flexible enough for it to be tailored by and for each community. Some organizations might host a potluck dinner or ice cream social for their neighborhoods, others may invite the neighbors around the church building to join together in a community service project, such as planting trees or cleaning up the neighborhood, and still others may host a simple meet and greet event. NND was established as an annual day to recognize, reinforce, and celebrate the relationships that are the fabric of our communities.

In addition, NGND:

• builds connections in your community
• increases feelings of safety
• is an opportunity for you to get to know your wider network of neighbors
• can help your organization gain visibility and recognition in your communities