Donate to CNU

The Congress for the New Urbanism is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Your tax-deductible donation will strengthen our efforts to spread the principles of New Urbanism and realize the promise of the Charter. Click the button above to make a donation online now via credit card. You may use this form to donate to CNU or one of our chapter groups.

Please also consider joining CNU if you would like to stay up-to-date on the latest advances in New Urbanism and be more engaged in helping us achieve our mission.

Donate by Mail

If you prefer to mail your donation, please send a check payable to Congress for the New Urbanism with "donation" in the memo line to:

CNU
140 S. Dearborn St., Suite 310
Chicago, IL 60603

Stock Donations

CNU can also accept stock gifts. Please contact Lee Crandell (lcrandell@cnu.org) with the stock name and the number of shares you plan to give and to receive directions on making the stock transfer.

2008 Accomplishments

Education, Training, and Outreach
We continued expanding our reach through quality events and programs. CNU XVI in Austin attracted 1,500 attendees for four days of education, networking, and working sessions. Sustainable Communities 2008 and our annual Transportation Summit explored cutting-edge design and policy, reaching a combined audience of almost 350. We started a scholarship fund in memory of CNU member Rich McLaughlin to educate public officials on how to become leaders in the revitalization of their communities. Our Charter Awards program recognized 15 outstanding models of urbanism, setting a higher standard for sustainability and placemaking. We also passed the benchmark of 3,500 members and expanded to eight chapters nationwide.

Urban Thoroughfares: Advancing New Industry Standards
Building on five years of work with the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), we revised our urban thoroughfare design guide into an official ITE Recommended Practice that will give engineers, planners, local decision makers, and citizens a widely respected alternative to suburban-style street design. Comments by hundreds of CNU members successfully led to the much-needed elimination of a chapter that gave a pass to "Vehicle Mobility Priority Areas."

Certifying New Urbanism
We embarked on a partnership with the University of Miami School of Architecture that will literally set a new standard for New Urbanism in the years to come. The university now offers an online New Urbanism seminar that will serve as the basis for a new certification process to recognize knowledgeable practitioners of New Urbanism. This program is currently in its test phase.

Raising Awareness of the Opportunity to Remove Freeways
CNU created a list of the top cities where the opportunity is greatest for replacing highways with neighborhood-friendly boulevards or avenues. The Freeways without Futures list elevated awareness of the highway-to-boulevard model nationwide and drew over 19,000 visitors to CNU.org. We also expanded our advocacy to replace highways with boulevards through meetings with key stakeholders in New Haven, Hartford, Charleston, Louisville, New Orleans, Buffalo, and Seattle.

LEED-ND: Recognizing that Urbanism Is Green
This rating system, developed by CNU, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the U.S. Green Building Council, will recognize the leaders of compact, pedestrian-friendly development and likely find its way into city codes and professional practice. After pilot projects tested the system, we pushed to protect its integrity by allowing urban waterfront development, including more infill sites, strengthening walkability requirements, promoting small school sites, and adding design graphics to illustrate key concepts.

Emergency Response and Street Design
CNU brought together new urbanists and fire marshals to identify shared values that would result in fewer fire and traffic fatalities while allowing for valuable urban places. We began drafting an appendix to the International Fire Code that will enable more walkable, narrow streets in neighborhoods with strong street connectivity, as an alternative to the wide streets mandated by the current code.

Transportation Reauthorization Bill
CNU joined the T4America coalition, which is organizing around the next reauthorization of the federal transportation bill. In addition, CNU met with the chair of the House Transportation Committee, U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar (MN), and chair of the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey (WI), to discuss the advantages of urbanism and how reform within the transportation bill could help lead to a greener, more competitive U.S. economy.

Promoting Walkable Urbanism to the Public
Working with data developed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and the Brookings Institution, CNU generated eye-opening comparisons of annual driving in walkable urban neighborhoods and automobile-dependent sprawling exurbs. CNU President and CEO John Norquist was featured on-the-air twice by CNN to explain how the decision to buy or rent in a walkable, transit-connected neighborhood could save people hundreds of dollars per month in transportation costs. CNU's outreach inspired Forbes.com to generate a list of America's Most Fuel-Efficient Neighborhoods—all of them walkable and urban.

Education on Urbanism's Climate Advantage
Our new six-minute web video, A Convenient Remedy to the Inconvenient Truth, explains a related point: how residents of walkable neighborhoods generate considerably less transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions—often half as much—as residents of sprawling areas. The video is now used by members as a public education tool and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times online and the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Switchboard blog.

Financial Summary

Download our 2007 Financial Chart (PDF)