What is a Village?

• Villages are local, volunteer-led, grassroots organizations that aim to support community members who choose to age-in-place. They foster social connections through activities and events and coordinate volunteer help at home using neighbor helping neighbor model. These programs keep seniors healthy and safe in their homes for as long as possible while combating social isolation.

• There are close to 200 villages in the nation and around fifty in the DC metro region.

• Each village is unique and reflects the character, interests and needs of the community that creates it. The village leadership decides what it would offer and how it would operate.

• Some villages choose an intergenerational model that serves all members of the community. Some villages have paid staff in addition to volunteers and charge a membership fee, other villages are all volunteer and have no fee.

What is the Village Hub & Spoke Model?

“The Village Hub and Spoke model brings together multiple communities or neighborhood enclaves to share costs and back office support in order to serve a wider area. This model allows multiple smaller Villages (“spokes”) to be created in an area with a central Village (“hub”) that handles the IT, database management, accounting, and other support roles (“back office”) for the “spoke” Villages.” (Sustaining the Village Movement, Lessons from Pioneers about Village Business Models and Sustainability, 2015)

What is the Montgomery County Consortium?

The Montgomery County Villages Consortium, Inc., a coalition of aging-in-place Villages will provide an organized structure to create economies of scale, improve financial stability and share resources while also fostering the creation of and support for new Villages, especially in underserved communities. A major goal is to ensure sustainability of Villages after the original founders and first generation of volunteers and participants are no longer involved. This arrangement is a type of “Hub and Spokes Model.”