The Office of Neighborhoods offers a wide variety of programs to support resident-led, resident-controlled neighborhood organizations in the City of Knoxville.
Community Wildlife Habitats
The City of Knoxville is Certified as a Community Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation. Several of our neighborhoods are also certified as Community Wildlife Habitats.
The City of Knoxville participates in the City Nature Challenge. Started in 2016 as a competition between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the City Nature Challenge (CNC) has grown into an international event, motivating people around the world to find and document wildlife in their own cities. Run by the Community Science teams at the California Acadamy of Science and Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM, the CNC is an annual four-day global bioblitz at the end of April, where cities are in a collaboration-meets-friendly-competition to see what can be accomplished when we all work towards a common goal. This year, the challenge will be held on Friday, April 25-Monday, April 28. Ijams Nature Center and 7 Islands Birding Park are participating by hosting hikes where you can observe wildlife, but you can also do this on your own anywhere in East Tennessee. Go outside, enjoy nature, take some pictures of plants and animals as you go, upload them to iNaturalist, and our region will get credit for it!
Emergency Preparedness Program
Our Emergency Preparedness Program raises awareness, provides speakers from various emergency agencies, and helps neighborhoods develop disaster preparedness plans at the block and neighborhood levels.
Guest Speakers Guide
This Guest Speakers Guide lists programs and speakers available for neighborhood meetings in Knoxville. Neighborhood groups needing a speaker or program should contact the agency or organization directly and make your own arrangements.
Healthy Knoxville Program
This program, fashioned after the Bill Haslam's Healthier Tennessee program, was in a pilot during 2021 and has become an official program of Office of Neighborhood Empowerment. It focuses on helping groups to organize around exercise, eating healthy, smoking cessation and/or looking at mental health and wellbeing.
Leadership Training Class
"Building Strong Neighborhood Organizations (BSNO)" is a leadership training series which works to give neighborhood members tools to strengthen their groups.
Neighborhood Entrance Signs
Neighborhood Signs are important for neighborhood identity. If your group wants to install a sign, learn how to receive a city permit.
Neighborhood Small Grants Program
The Neighborhood Small Grants Program provides competitive grants to neighborhood organizations in the city. The goal of the program is to improve the quality of life in the neighborhood while building the capacity of the neighborhood organization to better serve the community.
Neighborhood Traffic Safety Program
(currently closed and being redesigned)
Slow Down in K-Town
Slow Down in K-Town is a neighborhood-focused education program that can be led and implemented by each individual neighborhood to help reduce speeding in your neighborhood.
Tennessee Smart Yards
A residential yard that is in balance with the local environment for the benefit of both people and our ecosystem. The 2022 NoogaKnox Challenge encouraged Knoxville and Chattanooga communities to improve their yards for the benefit of our region’s stormwater quality and the health of our watersheds and ecosystems.