Citizens’ shared sense of their community’s heart and soul is built through interaction: stories they tell, places they frequent, people they all know. Yet in today’s hurried world, time and opportunity for interaction with neighbors is curtailed. As people become increasingly isolated in their own affairs, the sense of community dwindles; stories are forgotten; the character of the place begins to fade.

In 2009, OpenPlans created The Community Almanac with support from the Orton Family Foundation, as a place on the web where residents can share text, photos, videos about the place they live. Unlike all-purpose, “placeless” interest groups found on photo sharing sites or blogs, Community Almanacs are intended to be all about one place: that particular community and the self-told stories, values and vision of the people who make it their home.