Research with the Village Movement
Virtual Summits Archive:
Summer 2024
The 2025 National Census of Villages
A Nationwide Effort to Survey All Operational Villages in 2025
The 2025 National Census of Villages aimed to expand our understanding of the rapidly evolving Village Movement. Our goal was to survey as many operational Villages as possible to learn about the set-up and operations of Villages. Data collection took place from August 2025 to January 2026. Findings from this project provide critical data points to help communicate about and advocate for Villages. Results will also guide future collaborative research on Village development, best practices, outcomes, and impact. Check out Project Reports to learn more about the findings, and read below for more information.
Reflecting on Our Journey Together: 
Where We Have Been & Next Steps
The 2025 National Census of Villages represents a multi-year effort to enhance the data and evaluation capacity of the Village Movement by creating a comprehensive, U.S. representative organizational dataset about Villages.
This project was conducted as a follow-up to the "Engaging Villages as Key Partners for Aging Research" project conducted in 2023-2025. In surveying as many operational Villages as possible, we aimed to answer critical questions about the scope, scale, and structure of Villages, as well as their potential benefits for diverse individuals and communities. The project was led by researchers at the Rutgers Hub for Aging Collaboration (School of Social Work) in partnership with Village to Village Network (VtVN) and members of the VtVN Data and Evaluation Committee. We thank every individual, organization, and network that contributed in big and small ways!
That's a Wrap on the Census! What are Next Steps?
After the Census closed in February 2026, the Rutgers research team started working on cleaning and organizing the data. In late April 2026, the VtVN and Rutgers team began disseminating preliminary "first look" findings in several ways, including a poster presentation at the 2026 American Society on Aging (ASA) Conference and at a virtual event for Village leaders and members on May 13 (access the recording of this webinar here). As these preliminary insights indicate, project insights will serve as the foundation for future research and collaborations that explore Village development, implementation, effectiveness, sustainability, and more.
Further insights will continue to be developed and disseminated by VtVN and Rutgers in the coming months. Be sure to sign up for the project e-newsletter to stay up-to-date on further updates, including future VtVN community conversations, conference presentations, and publications. As an additional next step, VtVN will publish a national registry with key data points about all Villages that agreed to be included. Regional leaders of Villages that are a formal 501(c)3 may request mini-datasets of census responses through data use agreements with Rutgers.
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We look forward to staying connected as we continue to share emerging insights from this project.