What are the best ways to find community?

I know there are many posts about creating communities. But there are a lot already out there. How would you go about finding community in your area or elsewhere?

I think that it is not necessarily an easy thing, but there are ways to find those with similar interests.

Depending on your surrounding community, there might be clubs or non profits that host events you might be interested in. My local library has a heck of a roster of different events ranging from kid outings to historical presentations aimed towards adults. Volunteering with the town beautification group might be a way of building community.

If I were looking for a community there are resources out there:

https://www.ic.org/?srsltid=AfmBOooM2JV5-zpoC_SetnPMZvnz9qv_wLeH1BSztoXB9cxUc4897WnW

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intentional_communities

If I wanted something local and could not find an organized community, I would look at the local churches.  Sometimes there are even non-denominational churches.

I normally start by using  search engines to see if my interest exists in my state.        

     On a search engine:

Permaculture   Florida

homesteading Florida

gardening   Florida

Prepping Florida

       ( This would be the first round of searches,   next I would look for synonyms  of each of the search terms:

Permaculture   Definition...

noun
A system of perennial agriculture emphasizing the use of renewable natural resources and the enrichment of local ecosystems.
Any system of sustainable agriculture that renews natural resources and enriches local ecosystems.
The design, installation and maintenance of indefinitely sustainable human communities set in balanced ecologies, both urban and rural.


So key word   "agriculture"    might come out of that,   from there you could add the words farming,   or other words that come to mind   for more searches

"Florida   agriculture"      "   Florida  Farming"



This will give a set of search results that will help identify  even more terms and locations in your state that others may have your target group interest.

After this,  I may use these terms to search  sites like "Meetup.com"      for groups already created focused on your interests target group.


Other options...

Offer in craigslist    a monthly meeting at a public library to talk on the subject you want to talk about....     If there is not interest, create it.      Teach a class on how to use Cob,    do a talk about how to build a rocket stove....       or,     pay to have a speaker come in and talk on the subject and start a mailing list  of those who share these interests....

It sounds like if a community exists, it would be good to have a presence online. Probably a website that could be pointed to from many different sources. Because it sounds like this is how people are looking. So even small groups that don't think they need anything aught to have something, even if its simple.

Seconding ic.org, they have a directory, a classifieds section with communities seeking new members, and a forum.
I prefer the forums here, everyone here gets along way better.  And of course we have people building communities and seeking members here on permies which is great!
but its still a valid and valuable resource.
Also cohousing.org has options re. cohousing communities.

And, might sound odd, but craigslist has a rooms-and-shares section and a lot of those ads are for people seeking to add someone to their household, from full-on coliving communities, to just wanting to split costs and share space, and everything inbetween.

Facebook also has some pretty cool intentional community groups.

Here are some ways that are working for me so far:

- Getting mobile. Being flexible and mobile for chunks of time allows for in-person visits, getting-to-know-you time, deeper relationships, and those long meandering conversations that lead to more leads (including those that don't have online presence).

- Using ic.org to find communities I'm interested in, plan routes, and reach out. Proactively contributing to work and being pleasant to have around.

- Visiting a variety of communities with the gentle goal of learning more about myself and what I want. There are lots of people out there living in lots of creative and intricate ways. Narrowing down what I want and don't want, but being open to changing my mind.

- Attending the Communities Conference in Virginia over Labor Day weekend (https://communitiesconference.org/).

- Making friends who have similar lifestyle desires to mine and getting introductions to their friends who they think I'd really like, and so on... and sharing what we learn as we explore networks of people and ideas.

- Personal work. Cultivating myself to be the kind of person that people I want to be around want to be around.


I've observed that some intentional communities (groups of people living together, often alternatively)  have online presence, and some don't. I think that groups are more likely to have online presence if they are (a) large (b) recruiting and (c) more techno-typical. I've observed lots of groups of people living together with no need or desire for online presence.

I observe that people are talking about two different things with the word "community." There are intentional communities, which may be recruiting--mine is. Any yes, for that the ic.org website is the best (find us at Hickory Ridge, in West Virginia, on that site). And then there are looser groupings of some of the people living in a bigger area, who share some common interest. That's what I'm looking for, why I clicked on the link to this thread--I find community-building here daunting because I live in rural West Virginia, Trump country, and I am a left-wing environmentalist peacenik.  This situation is one of the reasons some might not choose our community--the other most obvious one is that we all have composting outhouses, and some people gotta have a flush toilet. And the better of the two available leaseholds available has a freezer and a washing machine that we all use, so maybe once a week we'd want to stop by to do that (there are only four leaseholds, two currently occupied). If none of this is a problem and you're looking for a community, what we're offering is a hell of a deal: a fully furnished house with a guesthouse, a garage, a garden shed, a large fenced garden, lots of fruit trees, and 16 solar panels, for $10,000 (for the improvements--this is a land trust so you don't own the land but get a lifetime lease).

Meetup is an online place where one can find community. Not sure how well it is used in rural areas. Look for and or post at the library bulletin board. Nextdoor is a way to find/create community; again, not sure how great it is for more rural areas. As has been mentioned churches (bulletin boards) can be a place to find groups for engagement.  In my quite rural area bunko and pinochle are played by small groups (4, 8, 12) on a regular basis and these groups are a good start at meeting people.  Find like minded folk by helping out with your local fair committee/board, and or the 4H and Future Farmers, volunteering at the library.

We've found part of our local community through volunteering, both through one-off events and long-term stuff.

In our area, we figured out that in our neighbourhood of 70k, it's always the same 100ish people who volunteer for the food bank, the riverbank cleanup days, the canvassing for ecologically-minded political parties, the community gardens, the tree planting brigade, the parent-teacher organization... Once you register from one mailing list, you'll get invited to a bunch of other events, and it doesn't take long until you start recognizing people from one event to the other. And it can grow into something more social and intimate in the long run, including people you might actually want to share a living with at some point.

Not everyone at those events will share all your values (and it might be harder to find your crowd if you're a right-leaning permaculturist and liberals give you hives), but you're generally starting with some common ground (even if it's as simple as "plastic junk and cigarette butts do not belong in our river") and there's an implicit licence to connect and talk.

You'll also get to know public officials who can influence stuff at the local level. And the nice thing about getting involved politically at the very local level is that it can blend "party lines": regardless of where we stand politically on big national issues, we all want sewers that work well and cities that are safe for our kids. Waste water management is a great political uniter!

I am finding out that having money and transportation seems to be REQUIRED, and then being successful and peppy and outgoing apparently also helps a ton, but I would have no way to verify any of these claims because I am bereft of both the finances and the personality, to where it's all just wild speculation on my part. Thoughts? lol

Since a community is only as strong as the people in it and the level of effort that goes into it, a good way to find community is to identify what skillsets you have and look for areas in your local vicinity that could benefit from it. If one is a permaculturist, one could think about looking for communities that don't have people with permaculture skills along with communities full of people with permaculture skills. Volunteer work is a classic  way to find community, but for profit work can also bring community.

One of my favorite ways to find community is to sign up for educational courses. As usual, education usually leads to opportunity. And really the most important tip I can think of for finding community is simply being open to opportunity. Identifying opportunity when it knocks can also be a skill.

I found my community in San Diego through a networking group called Gathering of the Tribes. They have many threads for different local regions on Telegram including outside of the USA. @gatheringtribes
or https://local-earth.org/gathering-tribes/

Yes to the educational endeavors, although often this does require transportation @J Lucas.  But if you are the one doing the educating,  then they come to you.   It can be sparse and take a while to find those who are looking for you.  
Also, I walked away from 'church' quite some time ago.   So when we turned our hearts back to God, it took quite a bit of intentional looking and prayer to find a place where we fit.   One may never find a place where one is truly at home,  but maybe we can come close.  

Matt McSpadden wrote:I know there are many posts about creating communities. But there are a lot already out there. How you would go about finding community in your area or elsewhere?

Look through forums like this.

HOWEVER, BY FAR THE BEEEEESSST PLACE TO LOOK IS intentional communities .com or something like that.

Here’s the link:
https://www.ic.org/?srsltid=AfmBOoprYGLRtdWm6Tmon8gEJbBHH5AOgStvAngC085aDeEYy5YxtVNl

Map of communities around the world, mainly in US, and which are open to joining, what they are about, pictures, contact info, gender split, whether anyone trans is living their (dealbreaker for 50% of off gridding communities, since you tend to have right wing off gridding and lefty commune people, obviously overgeneralizing but you get the idea), and a bunch of other cool info. Super easy to use, however, since I personally am trying to establish a community mainly based around people I know and not trying to join one I don’t have much use for this resource. But this is perfect for you.