Announcing San Francisco Good Neighbor Week
Yes, it’s finally happening!
🎉 We are thrilled to announce that Community News Lab is a founding partner of San Francisco’s inaugural Good Neighbor Week, Sep 28- Oct 4, 2025.
President Jimmy Carter proclaimed National Good Neighbor Day in 1978. It is celebrated each year on September 28. 2025 will be the first year officially celebrating the holiday in San Francisco.
How did we decide to do this?
🎓 🎓 Recent grads
This spring, we were honored to be part of two (!) global neighborhood accelerator programs, one run by Village Co and one run by Cabin. (Yes, we’re overachievers.)
With Village Co, we were part of the inaugural Village Builders cohort, a six-month program to support community leaders around the world using the Village Gathering Model. Village Co’s goal is “self-sustaining regular community gatherings that promote deepening connection in all kinds of communities around the world.” Huge shoutout to Jason Sears, the founder of Village Co, for guiding us, and to our pod leader Christine Callo for the extra warmth and support. We used our time as Village Builders to apply the Village Gathering Model to our Mission Feedback Day in January. We met some amazing people in our pod— special shoutout to Stephen Silha, founder of Journalism That Matters, who continues to guide and support us.
With Cabin, we were part of the third Neighborhood Accelerator Program (NAP), a 10-week program to help residents get to know their neighbors and build local community. We knew other San Francisco residents who had gone through NAP and we were excited to check it out. Huge shoutout to Savannah Kruger for leading the accelerator and being the ultimate cheerleader. We used our time in NAP to apply NAP and Community News Lab principles to neighborhood building in the West Portal neighborhood and to our Castro Feedback Day in May. We also bonded with some amazing people in our pod— shoutout to Nate Tubbs— who’s doing big things in Chicago— and Justin Munroe— who’s doing big things in New Hampshire— who are kindred spirits.
Coincidentally, the Village and NAP accelerators both ended the last week of April. We went from an abundance of support and regular checkins with our cohorts, to being out on our own. Extra coincidentally, the day we officially graduated from both accelerators, we joined Hopeful Neighborhood’s 2025 Vision Sharing meeting for National Good Neighbor Day. During the Vision Sharing meeting, we learned how cities and states around the US celebrate National Good Neighbor Day each in their own ways. We were inspired to bring National Good Neighbor Day to San Francisco. Shoutout to Jennifer Prophete for leading the national effort and being so helpful in guiding us.
🖋️ The Plan
Putting together SF Good Neighbor Week feels like such a natural continuation of the two neighborhood accelerators we just graduated from. It gives us an opportunity to continue flexing our neighborhood building muscles, applying what we learned through Village Builders and NAP, and a way to showcase Community News Lab in a context greater than neighborhood bulletin boards.
We are actively recruiting founding partners for SF’s very first Good Neighbor Week, and we are excited to have strong support already. We are planning five tracks to organize our work: a city-wide proclamation, Good Neighbor Awards, neighborhood events, resources for block leaders, and a technology & innovation showcase and hackathon. Get in touch to join the party!
