Ashoka's Community Greens, an initiative of Ashoka, restores community to neighborhoods across the country, enhances the environment, and empowers citizens by integrating citizen-managed shared green spaces into places where people live and work.

Ashoka is the largest association of social entrepreneurs in the world — men and women with system-changing solutions for the world's most urgent social problems.  Ashoka was founded on the premise that the most effective way to promote positive social change is to invest in social entrepreneurs with innovative solutions that are sustainable and replicable, both nationally and globally.

Ashoka's Community Greens helps residents, government leaders, and citizen sector organizations come together to develop incentives and policies that catalyze the development of these new urban commons. With assistance from Community Greens, citizens merge their backyards, transform alleys from blighted spaces to community places, and give life to vacant lots in a manner that is sustainable and systems-changing.

Community Greens are shared green spaces tucked away on the inside of residential blocks. They are collectively owned and managed by the neighbors whose homes and backyards, decks, patios, porches, and balconies enclose the green. More...

Community Greens can be developed in a few different ways: residents of existing blocks can merge portions of their backyards to create a shared green space; community greens can be incorporated into new developments; or dysfunctional alleys can be transformed into verdant green pathways. Learn More...