About Collaborative Living NJ

Our Mission

We empower the creation of collaborative ways of living in New Jersey by connecting people and supporting intentional communities.

Our Vision

Though our activity we hope to see a future in which there are multiple thriving communities in New Jersey who are networked and collaborating with one another — communities that will be resilient in the face of future challenges.

Towards that, we aim to:

• Educate the general public as well as elected officials about intentional community and collaborative lifestyles
• Convene people who are interested in forming community through social events
• Organize educational experiences such as trips and guest presentations
• Engage in continued group learning through book clubs and resource sharing

History of CLNJ

Collaborative Living NJ was initially founded as Ecovillage New Jersey, a project of the non-profit Possible Planet. Founders Steve Welzer, Victoria Zelin, and Jonathan Cloud were passionate advocates for the creation of sustainable communities that would integrate a supportive social environment with a low-impact way of life. Inspired by the model of Ecovillage at Ithaca, they began by organizing learning trips for interested NJ residents to learn about the ecovillage model.

The group continued to be active for about 15 years and had considered several promising opportunities for a possible community, which had not yet come to fruition. By 2019 the group was organizing to form the NJ Cohousing Development Cooperative (NJCDC). Unfortunately the 2020 pandemic stymied the group’s progress.

The group was revived and reorganized with a core team of members in 2023. During this period the group resumed hosting regular online meetings and potlucks, organized several community visits, and held two book club series. As new community living projects began to take form in NJ, the name Ecovillage NJ no longer captured the diversity of possible community structures — and so we became Collaborative Living NJ, embodying the spirit of place-based cooperation, mutual aid, and community building.