The All-America City Award recognizes communities that leverage civic engagement, collaboration, inclusiveness and innovation to successfully address local issues.
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Each year, the National Civic League honors ten outstanding communities with the All-America City Award, celebrating excellence in local innovation, civic engagement, and cross-sector collaboration. This prestigious award highlights the remarkable potential within communities to address critical issues and drive meaningful change when residents, businesses, and nonprofit and government leaders work in concert.
AAC 2026 Theme: America at 250- Strengthening Civic Health and Building Trust
As the nation marks 250 years since its founding, we reflect on the ongoing journey to fulfill the promise of a government by, for, and of the people. The 2026 All-America City Award will recognize communities that are bringing these founding ideals to life by ensuring that the power to shape the future resides with the people. The award will spotlight communities across the country that are creatively engaging residents in collective efforts to create thriving and welcoming places where trust and belonging are abundant.
Across the country, Americans of all backgrounds and political perspectives are expressing growing frustration with a system that feels unresponsive, untrustworthy, and ineffective. Civic trust is declining, polarization is deepening, and many people feel disconnected from the decisions that shape their lives. Fortunately, democracy has never been static—it is a living system that can be renewed and reshaped through collective effort.
The 2026 award will honor communities that are reinventing how they come together to make decisions and solve problems. These communities engage residents, businesses, and public institutions in civic dialogue, collaboration, and community-building efforts that not only strengthen civic life and rebuild trust but also address pressing challenges and lay the foundation for a better future. By advancing innovative, community-driven approaches to governance, they are helping shape a more responsive, resilient democracy for the next 250 years.
Projects that fit this year’s theme might include:
- Collaborative efforts to address local challenges such as education, economic development, humane housing, public safety, health and well-being.
- Community-building programs like block party months and neighborhood mini-grants.
- Storytelling, visual media, and arts-based projects that creatively surface community hopes and visions for the future.
- Participatory budgeting initiatives that empower residents to directly decide how public funds are allocated.
- Citizens’ assemblies that bring together diverse groups of residents to deliberate and make recommendations on policy issues.
- Innovative public meeting formats, including mobile town halls and hybrid forums that broaden participation and foster respectful dialogue across differences.
- Civic leadership development programs for youth, immigrants, and historically underrepresented groups that build pathways to sustained participation in public life.
- The use of civic technology and digital platforms to connect residents with local government and each other.
- Deliberative forums that use facilitated conversations—face-to-face, digital, or hybrid—to build consensus and address contentious issues.
- Public education campaigns that increase understanding of how local decisions are made and how residents can influence them.
- Initiatives that build belonging and civic trust through shared service projects or cultural exchanges.
- The creation and use of civic spaces to advance belonging and create welcoming communities.
- Initiatives that build civic trust through trust audits, the use of trusted messenger networks, and support for local news or neighborhood information hubs.
Important Dates
July 2025-May 2026: Promising Practices Webinar Series
January 5, 2026: Letters of Intent Due (optional)
February 26, 2026: Applications Due (download via form on the right side of this page)
March 2026: Finalists Announced
March-June 2026: Competition Preparation
June 26-28, 2026: AAC Competition & Event in Denver, CO
June 28, 2026: Winners announced at the event’s closing ceremony
Process and Eligibility
The application process is a chance to mobilize local groups, showcase the people and programs that make your community equitable and thriving, and present these efforts on a national stage. The award process unfolds in two stages:
- Written Application: Communities submit this streamlined application outlining their efforts related to the year’s theme and describing their civic capital.
- In-Person Presentation: After an external review of all applications, 20 communities are selected as finalists and invited to a three-day peer-learning event and competition. During the event, finalist teams connect and share insights with peers, learn from national thought-leaders, and present the story of their work to a jury of nationally recognized civic leaders. After careful deliberation, the jury selects ten winning communities, which are announced during the event’s closing ceremony.
As always, eligible communities for the award include tribes, towns, cities, counties, and regions. Any entity within a community can lead the application process. In the past, municipalities, school districts, community foundations, community-based organizations, and other groups have successfully spearheaded applications.
Communities wishing to apply for the 2026 All-America City Award should visit the apply page to learn more.
Organizations wishing to support the 2026 All-America City Award Event can download our sponsorship flyer or email [email protected] to discuss involvement opportunities.
The 2025 theme was Strengthening Environmental Sustainability through Inclusive Community Engagement
The 2025 All-America City Award recognized communities that demonstrated a commitment to environmental sustainability through meaningful community engagement initiatives. After an extensive written application process, 20 finalists came to Denver, CO from June 27-29 to share the story of their community to a jury of civic engagement experts by way of a ten-minute live presentation. After careful deliberation, a jury of civic engagement experts selected ten winning communities.
About the 2025 Event
The 76th annual All-America City Award Event was held in Denver, CO from June 27-29, 2025. Communities named as finalists assembled teams of residents, nonprofits, businesses, government leaders, young people, etc. to present their efforts around the year’s theme. During the event, these teams connected and shared insights with peers, learned from national thought-leaders, and presented the story of their work to a jury of nationally recognized civic leaders. Speeches, ceremonies, and finalist presentations were photographed live-streamed to our YouTube page.
The National Civic League’s All-America City Award has celebrated the best in American civic innovation since 1949. The Award, bestowed yearly on 10 communities (more than 500 in all), recognizes the work of communities in using inclusive civic engagement to address critical issues and create stronger connections among residents, businesses and nonprofit and government leaders. Cities, counties, tribes and community organizations of all types are invited to apply for the annual designation.
The All-America City Award shines a spotlight on the incredible work taking place in communities across the country. By celebrating the best in local innovation, civic engagement and cross-sector collaboration, the All-America City Award remind us of the potential within every community to tackle tough issues and create real change.
Benefits of winning
Economic Stimulus
All-America City finalists and winners find it easier to attract and retain businesses that generate jobs and a stronger tax base. They also attract and retain residents who want a healthy community. Finalists and winners also have seen an increase in tourism and grants.
Pride and Collaboration
The award has reinvigorated communities with a new sense of pride, accomplishment and teamwork. People often say they learned more about the great work taking place in their community because of the application process than they ever imagined.
National Recognition
Winning the All-America City Award raises the profile of local efforts and puts communities on a national stage. Winners join an elite network of communities that can proudly call themselves an All-America City. And once a community wins, it’s always an All-America City. We hear regularly about communities that still celebrate and take pride in winning even after 40 years or more.
The All-America City Award offers the opportunity for both recognition and reflection. When communities apply for recognition, they bring together a diverse cross-sector team to review their strengths, discuss their progress, examine their challenges and tell the story of their community. Communities gain a better understanding of civic excellence during the yearlong process of seeking to become an All-America City.
Every city that participates, whether as an applicant, finalist or winner, walks away with a stronger sense of their community assets, their challenges and ways to move forward together. To support this learning, communities are encouraged to attend our monthly Promising Practices Webinar series to learn from previous winners and other communities about their innovative projects and about the application process. Communities applying for the All-America City Award then are encouraged to access our resources to best understand how to continue their civic engagement efforts and share their successes in a meaningful way.
The All-America City Award brings together communities from across the country and provides an opportunity for innovative leaders and passionate residents to connect with and learn from their peers. The Award shines a light on communities that are working to tackle tough issues and lifts these places up for national recognition.
Winning ‘helped us land a BIG project in the midst of major economic recession. IBM located their first data center in 10-15 years in downtown Dubuque and created 1,300 new jobs with an annual payroll of $58 million! This is a testament to what the All-America City Award stands for in terms of a community’s can-do spirit’ Cynthia Steinhauser, former Assistant City Manager Dubuque, IA.
The Award validates our community’s quality of life and is used proudly in all of our economic development and corporate recruitment efforts. Shane Homan, Tupelo Chamber of Commerce
Anyone who’s witnessed the annual All-America City competition has seen the evidence of what communities can do to come together, solve their problems and set a strategy for their future. Curtis Johnson, Executive Editor of Citiscope
About the Event
Teams of residents, including young people, nonprofit, business and government leader from communities across the country meet to represent their communities and share ideas. Throughout the event, these teams connect and share insights with peers, learn from national thought leaders and present the story of their work to a jury of nationally recognized civic leaders. This transformational experience equips, inspires and supports leaders and communities to achieve more than they ever believed possible.
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