Impact
A conversation is small. Its reach is not.
Salonette builds knowledge, relationships, and civic confidence inside the room—then those effects travel through social networks and become capacity a community can use when something important happens.
What changes
From informed to involved.
Understand the decisions
Learn how local institutions work, who makes decisions, and what tradeoffs a community faces.
Build relationships
Hear perspectives that do not fit into a social-media post and develop real connections with neighbors and local leaders.
Find a way to participate
Recognize when—and how—to vote, contact an official, volunteer, or take another constructive step.
Montclair member survey · November 2025
Members do more than attend.
100%
Talked to a friend or neighbor about a local issue.
94%
Cast an informed vote in a local election.
76%
Reached out to a public official.
35%
Volunteered or ran for local office or a board.
Source: Salonette Member Survey, November 2025. These self-reported responses describe surveyed members’ participation; they do not establish that Salonette alone caused it.
Salonette in action
When the moment calls for it, a network can move.
The goal is not permanent mobilization. It is a community that knows enough—and knows one another well enough—to recognize when action is needed.
Members across Montclair Salonettes came together around a school-funding referendum. They built a temporary education and get-out-the-vote campaign, then disbanded after the need passed.
What someone learns in a living room also travels to dinner tables, workplaces, bus stops, sidelines, and group chats—reaching people who may never attend a formal civic event.
From the room
“I didn’t appreciate how much of my life is affected by local decisions—or how much power I have to influence them.”
Jen L. · Salonette member
What we are learning
Measure more than attendance.
Salonette’s emerging evaluation approach looks at knowledge, conversation, social connection, contact with public officials, informed voting, volunteering, and other forms of participation.
Help build civic capacity that lasts.
Support the tools, local research, and human relationships that make the network possible.