Community Preparedness: 11 Steps to Start a Neighborhood Resilience Network
In Part 1 of this series on Mutual Aid and Community Preparedness, I covered the conceptual and historical framework for community resilience and mutual aid, and how it differs from traditional, stigmatized notions of “doomsday prepping.” If you’d like to understand more about why working together is preferable to isolated, bunker-mentality prepping, give it a read. But it kinda boils down to this excerpt from my Rolling Stone piece, “Journal of a Progressive Prepper”:
This works better if everyone is doing it. Much like vaccinations, we’re a safer neighborhood and community if everyone has taken steps to be prepared for emergencies. If all your neighbors have a stash of emergency food, there’s less chance for scarcity and panic when the Shit Hits The Fan.
This article, Part 2, will provide a more practical, step-by-step process for getting a neighborhood resilience network started in your community. No foreplay, let’s dive right in.
1. Get clear on your motivation
Mine was simple: during a snowstorm power outage that lasted about a week, I realized I didn’t have a great way to communicate with the people in my neighborhood or understand how to take care of my family’s needs. Full stop.
Your "why" might be climate change preparedness, disaster response capability, racial disparity/injustice (helping vulnerable or targeted populations), or simply a desire for stronger community connections. Whatever drives you, write it down — you'll need to articulate it clearly to others.
2. Map your territory
Think about the scope of what constitutes “your neighborhood” or the area in which you want to create a mutual aid network. Maybe it’s a single floor of an apartment building, maybe it’s your specific cul-de-sac or broader subdivision, maybe it’s a few square miles of rural territory.
I’d like to preserve some level of privacy, and I’m also an 1980s kid who watched a lot of John Hughes movies, so as a means of illustration for this blog post, rather than sharing my own neighborhood info I’m going to use a semi-random, semi-famous suburban neighborhood: Winnetka, Illinois — home of filming location for suburban classics like "Sixteen Candles," “Home Alone,” "Uncle Buck," and "The Breakfast Club."
The next step is to “map” your community. If you’ve got a printed map already, that’s great. Either way, I highly recommend Googling “GIS [insert name of your county/city]” to pull up the GIS (Geographic Information System) platform for your region. “GIS Winnetka Illinois” brings you to this handy “Community Map Viewer,” and from there you can insert a specific address, like Kevin McAllister’s “Home Alone” house at 671 Lincoln Ave (some insanely large homes in this map, so not representative of a “normal” neighborhood, but let’s go with it).
Most regions have a free, public, somewhat easy-to-navigate digital system like this that’s easily Googlable and can pull up various map layers. You can view topography, street addresses, property lines, and often owner names. On my county’s GIS system, you can even select an area (my entire neighborhood) and “Create Spreadsheet.” Which I did. Which gives me a great starting point .xls file to gather and organize data for the 100+ people in my neighborhood. Slightly creepy? Sure! But all publicly available info and, if we can get over the trust hump (see below), it’s a basic first step in knowing your neighbors. I’ll add more columns to this spreadsheet listing skills, resources, and other notes about the neighborhood (again, see below).
You can take screenshots and print out paper versions of this map/spreadsheet and start marking what you know: the nurse three doors down, the carpenter across the street, the family with the impressive vegetable garden. You can note gathering spots — the pond, the playground, some grassy spots in the middle of cul-de-sacs.
This exercise reveals how much you already knew about your neighbors, your neighborhood’s resources, and, more importantly, how much you can still learn.
3. Find your first five
Don't try to organize your entire neighborhood all at once. Just find four or five interested neighbors. In my case, it started with asking our bestest neighbor BFFs a couple houses down, and a friend from the bus stop who always impresses me and seems to know how to run shit, and chatting with a nurse in a different part of the neighborhood (who introduced me to another medical professional), then one or two people who’d read my novel or articles and told me they were also into this stuff.
Your core team ultimately needs a mix of skills and personalities, a neighborly version of “The Breakfast Club.” You can get lucky – maybe your BFFs have a badass bunch of power tools, your bus stop friend is also great at building systems and databases, and your nurse friend is motivated to talk with people.
But you also don't need perfect matches for every role, and certainly not right away. You need some dedication and reliability (remind people they’re not signing up for a five-year term; a few months of help might be all they can manage and all you need to get going).
4. Reach out
One of the hardest parts of building a community network is knocking on that first door or sending that first text or email to a broader group. Take a look at this template and use or adapt it as a way of getting the ball rolling with your community:
Paragraph 1 is about recognizing our isolation. But, like, in a totally chill way.
“Subject: A Neighborly Invitation
Hello from [names] at [address]. We’ve lived here since [year] but we don’t know most of you. We thought this might be a good time to change that!”
Paragraph 2 acknowledges that everyone is experiencing life differently:
“Some of us have support systems nearby, who become essential in challenging times. Others do not. We’ve been thinking about ways to adapt and prepare for future situations, including predictable things like extended power outages or, hey, even the [insert current/recent local crisis of choice].”
Paragraph 3 extends the invite:
“We would like to facilitate building a ‘hyper-local’ support network here in our neighborhood. We envision a network that could help each other with stuff like:
Sharing supplies (e.g., tools, firewood, OTC medicines, cleaning products)
Bringing pre-cooked meals to families
Checking in on elderly residents
Assisting with DIY/maintenance tasks
Assisting with teaching or caring for young people if schools are closed
Paragraph 4 provides a link to a detailed skills survey (see below) to gather information:
“In order to gauge interest in this idea and help build this network, we would be grateful if you could fill out this survey and share some of your skills and interests, what help might you need, and what help you may be able to give (please only provide what you feel comfortable sharing).”
And, if you feel like it, Paragraph 5 can point to our shared future:
“If unexpected events occur (they will), nobody should feel like an island amid the storm. We’ve gotten through tough times and will again. But rather than simply returning to the status quo, we’d like to form a new, tighter-knit community with you all.”
Skills Are the New Currency
When I started my own preparedness journey, I had to face an uncomfortable truth: despite years of researching survival skills for my novel, I possessed almost none of them myself. I could write a detailed fictional scene about dueling superheroes, but I wouldn't trust myself to identify an edible variety of mushroom if my life depended on it. This gap between knowledge and practical skills is common in our increasingly specialized society – we've become experts in narrow fields while losing touch with basic survival capabilities.
But here's the good news: in your community, these skills already exist. They're just distributed across different people, waiting to be discovered, shared, and multiplied.
Once you’ve laid the foundation above and decided to reach out, this is the next phase of steps to tap into this hidden wealth:
5. Conduct a Community Skills Audit
The big step here is creating a comprehensive skills inventory, built around a simple survey you can send around. This isn't just about fancy, specialized survival skills – everyday needs related to food, transportation, and childcare are crucial during emergencies.
Here's a practical approach based on the skills survey I developed and linked to in my Rolling Stone article…
Create a Skills Survey
My form has three pages, and asks for:
Basic/contact information: name, age, phone/email; within a specific neighborhood, it’s ideal to get street address too, but be aware that giving and receiving that information requires extraordinary levels of trust (more on that below).
What help might you need?
What help might you be able to give?
If someone has a need, we will do our best to use the survey results to match them up with someone who has that resource or skill. And vice versa.
For B and C, consider categories and questions like these to help get the wheels turning:
"What is/was your profession?"
"Can you provide eldercare or childcare? If so, please specify what you can do."
"Can you provide assistance with pets?"
"Can you provide transportation help? What kind of car do you have?"
"Can you cook food for neighbors who can't leave their house?"
"Are you able to provide temporary housing in case of an emergency?"
"Do you have any durable tools that you would be willing to use with or lend to your neighbors?"
"Can you provide translation or interpretation help? If so, what languages?"
"Would you need healthcare assistance? Include things like prescription or OTC medications."
"How many people are in your household? Do others have specific needs?"
"Might you have emergency housing needs?"
Note that we’re focused on human skills here moreso than an inventory of stuff — the goal is to understand who knows what, not who owns what.
Use a free tool like Survey Monkey or Google Forms to create your survey. Include open-ended questions to capture unexpected skills, resources, and stories.
Address Fear and the Trust Paradox in Network Prepping
“Wait!” you might be thinking. “I don’t know or trust all my neighbors, or even most of them! Why would I give out all of this information? How will this be used? I’m going to be a sitting duck!”
Yes, sharing skills or resources means addressing a tension between transparency/openness and privacy/security. These concerns may look very different in an established suburban neighborhood versus a more populated and anonymous urban high-rise apartment complex.
Here are some ways to address this thoughtfully, starting small and building trust gradually:
Begin hyper-local. Start with one cul-de-sac, one floor, one familiar section.
Establish clear community agreements about information usage (see below).
Use common physical or digital spaces for initial gatherings.
Begin with low-stakes community activities (block parties, steam or park cleanup days).
Build trust through consistent, small actions before asking for sensitive information.
Decentralize leadership – instead of one person or group holding all the information, create various geographic, team, or pod leaders who each know their immediate group.
Remember, trust is built in drops and lost in buckets.
Map Your Network's Knowledge
Next, add to your simple database or spreadsheet (see above) with the gathered survey information for:
Contact info
Specific capabilities (e.g., types of cooking, vehicle capacity)
Availability to help
Willingness to learn new skills
Here’s an template you can download for free [lead gen?].
For digital privacy and security, you might consider:
Using a secure, password-protected platform to store this information
Using code names or ID numbers instead of addresses
Implement access levels so individuals can only see necessary information
Regularly updating the database to ensure information remains current
Remember, this should be a living database that grows and evolves with your community's membership, needs, and capabilities. Regular updates and check-ins with community members will help keep this resource current, vibrant, and useful.
6. Build a Skill-Sharing System
Once you've identified your community's skills and needs and have built some basic trust, the next step is creating structures for sharing these skills and resources. The gatherings and processes described below may be the very thing that builds the trust needed to enact and entrench these systems of mutual aid:
Distribute your Community Skills Audit via a tiered approach to information sharing:
Tier 1 (Public): Share a very general community skills inventory without any personal details attached. “From among the X number of people who responded in our neighborhood, we collectives have these skills, these tools, etc:”
Tier 2 (Semi-Private): More detailed capabilities and contacts could be shared within verified sub-groups, like maybe groups of 10 who are in close proximity to each other.
Tier 3 (Private): Specific resources and names/addresses shared only with trusted neighborhood coordinators.
Your solution may not be perfect, but make sure it’s adaptable. Regularly audit who has access to what information and why. Most importantly, make privacy an ongoing conversation, not a one-time decision.
Organize Regular Skill-Share Events
Consider hosting monthly workshops (in-person, if possible; but online/Zoom gatherings can work too if scheduling, transportation, or childcare is a problem) where “experts” teach basic skills or share a tutorial with others.
This could be a simple presentation or demo (i.e., a “lecture”), but ideally it’s set up as a hands-on practice session where others can learn by doing, rather than just watching someone do their thing.
It’s great if you can document or record these for future knowledge sharing. Videos are easy to capture on smartphones and upload to a shared Google Drive or private YouTube channel, for instance, along with any other manuals or materials that could be shared.
Make these workshops fun, not super serious, with opportunities for socializing. Add music, make cocktails, include kids and let them learn alongside the adults or mix it up in the backyard.
Create Skill Pods
Next, form small groups focused on specific skill areas. The word “committee” is lame, so pick your favorite close synonym that’ll work for your neighborhood. For example:
Health and Wellness Support Squad
Transportation and Logistics Unit
Food Prep and Service Team
Chainsaw Gang
Pet Crew
Your unique community or neighborhood will dictate what is most essential during a challenging time. For instance, we live in the woods, and major snowfalls or power outages often means that some trees have come down, so my neighborhood needs a Tree Removal Group, which obviously wouldn’t be as necessary in a big city.
Teach & Cross-Train
Each pod should include at least
One “Teacher”
Two trained and trusted backups
Several apprentices in training
This “Three-Deep” approach to critical skills builds redundancy through teaching. Some video documentation of skills and procedures (i.e., a written document of what steps this group takes during an emergency or power outage) is also helpful.
Develop a cross-training rotation where people trade and learn multiple skills, even the teachers who have deep knowledge in one or another area.
Example of Skills-Sharing
Here’s what this might look like in practice: in a suburban neighborhood, we discover through our survey that Maria, a retired nurse, knows advanced first aid. Instead of simply noting this, we put out the word that someone in the neighborhood can teach first aid, and organize monthly sessions where she teaches basic medical skills to ten neighbors.
Each of those ten commits to teaching five others. Within six months, we have sixty people in our area with basic first aid knowledge, three or four with advanced skills, and a documented training program or set of videos we can share with other communities.
Remember: The goal isn't to make everyone an expert in everything. It's to create a resilient web of complementary skills with enough redundancy to handle unexpected challenges. Start small, document everything, and keep building. Your community's collective knowledge is a form of wealth that grows when shared.
Coming Soon: we’re working on a free download our Community Skills Audit Template [link to lead magnet] to start mapping your neighborhood's capabilities today. This template will include:
a ready-to-use skills survey with comprehensive categories
a spreadsheet template for tracking expertise and needs
a guide for organizing skill-share events
templates for documenting procedures
In the next section, we'll explore how to organize these skilled individuals into an effective mutual aid network, focusing on practical steps for communication and decision-making.
Communication Systems That Work
7. Establish a Digital-Analog Balance for Communicating
For me, the whole point of this thing (my “why”) is to create a backup support system for when the power goes out. So it’s stupid to rely solely on specific computer-based resources or the internet or maybe even electricity in general.
While it’s wise to use plenty of digital tools for organizing, never rely on them exclusively. Every crucial piece of information should exist in both digital and physical form.
A resource inventory can live in a secure online database, but also maintain printed copies in trusted locations. Emergency contact lists live in our phones but should also be posted inside kitchen cabinets. Meeting points can be marked both on digital maps and with physical markers in the neighborhood.
For digital tools, consider using:
Email listservs or Facebook Groups for general messaging
Signal for secure messaging
Google Sheets for resource tracking
A local server for document storage
For equally important analog systems, think about:
Laminated neighborhood maps
Printed contact directories, skills database inventories, and other physical documents
Marked neighborhood gathering spots
Visual communication systems, like window cards (green = ok, yellow = need help, red = emergency)
8. Create a Decision-Making Apparatus
Effective Meetings
Monthly meetings can rotate between members' homes or common spaces. Keep it casual — part social gathering, part planning session. The host makes dinner. People are probably more likely to attend and enjoy themselves when breaking bread together.
Consider soliciting items for the agenda and then sharing that agenda with participants ahead of time. A simple majority voting system might work well enough in the beginning for basic decision-making.
We could dive much deeper into how meetings could be structured, and the exact protocols by which decisions are made by group consensus, but that feels like a very different article.
Dean Spade’s book Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and The Next) is a great resource for developing more granular structures of mutual aid, and if you’ve read this far and are interested in getting into the weeds of creating a more nuanced system, I recommend picking up a copy.
Consider Legal and Liability Landmines
What if a skill-sharing workshop on home canning goes awry, resulting in a minor injury? It can be a wake-up call – good intentions don't protect against accidents or legal repercussions. Maybe you can consult with a local lawyer (who, conveniently, has joined your network for emergency preparedness reasons) to draft basic liability waivers for events and clear guidelines for resource sharing.
You can also create simple memoranda of understanding for larger projects, like a community garden or tool-lending library. These may not be iron-clad legal documents, but they will help clarify expectations and responsibilities. More importantly, the process of creating them will spark valuable discussions about trust, responsibility, and community values.
9. Get Started This Week
Start with a single block or cul-de-sac or building floor. Map it. Find your first interested neighbor. Have coffee with them. Share your "why." Listen to theirs. Then ask who else might be interested. Move slowly – this isn't about rapid growth, it's about building trust and reliability.
10. Adopt a Long-Term Mindset
Assume your Neighborhood Resilience Network will take at least six months to grow from that first awkward conversation to a functional community of 25 households. You’ll make plenty of mistakes along the way, but each one will teach something valuable about what your community needs and how to provide it.
Remember: A small, reliable network is more valuable than a large, loose one. Start small, build slowly, and prioritize trust-building over rapid expansion. Your network will grow naturally as people see its value in action.
Starting strong is important, but staying strong is crucial. Speaking of which…
11. Maintain Momentum When the Sky Isn't Falling
The real challenge isn't starting a network — it's keeping it going when there's no immediate crisis. After the initial excitement wears off, after the snow melts, after the power returns, how do you keep people engaged?
I’m just speculating here — I’m still at the beginning of this effort with my neighborhood, so can’t speak to decades-worth of personal experience — but I’m guessing the real endgame here is friendship.
If monthly meetings evolve to include skill-shares, potlucks, movie nights, pool parties, and house concerts, we’re probably doing something right. If our kids want to get involved and eventually start to lead, we’re probably doing something right. If we can organize quarterly community service projects – from park cleanups to food drives – that put our network into action while benefiting a wider community, we’re probably doing something right.
I’m guessing it’s probably also about the power of small, consistent actions. A weekly "prep tip" in the group chat can keep preparedness top-of-mind without being overwhelming. A "resource of the month" spotlight can encourage and celebrate members who share their skills or tools. An annual emergency drill that segues into a neighborhood block party can become an event people look forward to year after year.
The keys to overcoming challenges are likely flexibility, open communication, and a constant reminder of why we're doing this. We're not just preparing for disasters — we're building a more resilient, connected community. Every day. It won’t always easy, but I think it’ll be worth it.
Conclusion: From Doomsday to New Day
When I started my preparedness journey, I was admittedly driven by fear. I started stockpiling some supplies, learned a few survival skills, and worried about the worst things that could happen. But something was missing. I felt more prepared, but not secure. More ready, but not particularly resilient.
Everything changed when I knocked on my neighbor's proverbial door. I realized that true preparedness isn't about how much you have — it's about who you know, what you can do together, and how you show up for each other when it matters.
We're not just preparing for a hypothetical doomsday or conspiracy theory. We're reducing panic with plans for how to help each other when a tree falls on power lines or someone’s spouse goes to the hospital or when there’s too much damn snow.
This isn't just my story. It could be yours. Whether you're taking your first steps into preparedness or you're a seasoned prepper looking to leave the bunker and build deeper community connections, you have the power to start this transformation in your own neighborhood.
Are you ready to build a more resilient future? Your community is waiting. Let's get started.
