2025 CDS Annual Conference

An overall description of the program/project. 100 words or less.
Learn how Neighborhood Action Tables (NATs) build thriving communities by fostering neighborhood-scale collaboration.  A key initiative in CDAD’s strategic plan, NATs bring together residents, CDOs, schools, businesses, and faith-based institutions to strengthen social infrastructure, build shared visions, and find local solutions to big challenges.  The session explores NATs as a replicable model for place-based collaboration, offering practical tools to enhance social cohesion and sustainable impact.

An explanation of how your program/project relates to the theme Innovative Pathways to Thriving Communities. You may also include an explanation of how your program/project relates to the conference track(s) selected. 250 words or less.
 Neighborhood Action Tables (NATs) exemplify place-based collaboration by bringing together diverse neighborhood stakeholders – residents, CDOs, schools, local businesses, and faith institutions – to co-create solutions to shared challenges. NATs build social infrastructure at the neighborhood scale, strengthening networks of trust, shared vision, and social cohesion.  The model is part of CDAD's overall capacity building work and serves as an example of an intermediary working with community to build capacity to increase social cohesion. 
Neighborhood Action Tables (NATs) are a powerful example of place-based collaboration, designed to address systemic challenges while strengthening community power at the neighborhood scale.  NATs bring together residents, CDOs, schools, local businesses, and faith institutions in a collaborative network to build social cohesion, shared vision, and locally driven solutions.  
The importance of building robust neighborhood networks has never been clearer.  As funder’s priorities shift – sometimes misaligning with the needs of communities – NATs provide a grassroots framework to build and sustain social infrastructure where it matters most: at the neighborhood level.  By connecting residents and aligning resources, NATs will help communities retain agency over their futures, regardless of external pressures.