Is your community ready?
Certain Together is a start-up project that helps volunteers create resilient local neighborhoods.
When power and internet outages, major weather events, earthquakes, and other disruptions hit, we need each other. Research shows that connection with neighbors is the most important factor that helps us survive a disaster.
This requires building in-real-life relationships and capacity during good times so our communities are ready. But let's face it: getting started, connecting with other volunteers locally, and making things happen can be challenging!
Certain Together makes it fun and doable.
>Volunteers connect, build powerful projects, and make new friends.
>Courses, interactive maps, proven practices, and peer advice are always there for guidance.
Our courses and resources support volunteers starting and running local Village Hubs in their neighborhood. (Learn what a Hub is here.)
Certain Together was founded by David Smathers Moore. David is a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteer in San Jose, California, where he served as the founding Chair of the Council District 6 CERT organization. He is a certified Wilderness First Responder and experienced outdoorsman.
David's Op-Ed in the San Jose Spotlight, Time to Rethink Readiness, calls for an approach to disaster preparedness that is centered on social engagement and local grassroots capacity.
David brings over 30 years of experience building collaborative organizations designed for long-term social and economic sustainability. In 2004, he founded TeamWorks, a cleaning business in Sunnyvale. It grew it into a team of 20 full-time staff. Through a patient leadership development process, David gradually exited the business. It is today a self-managed worker cooperative that provides health insurance, paid time off, and profit sharing to its workforce -- benefits that are virtually unheard of in the cleaning industry.
David subsequently served as a consultant to nonprofits and co-ops. In 2024, he began to work full-time on the development of Certain Together. He lived in Costa Rica for a year as a teenager and speaks fluent Spanish.