What Is a LakeSmart Community?
A LakeSmart Community is a group of neighbors, property owners, and lake lovers who work together to keep their lake clean, healthy, and enjoyable—now and for generations to come. These communities can form anywhere within a lake’s watershed, bringing people together around one shared mission: live lake-friendly, and protect what we all love.
These groups are typically established around existing organizations, such as road, lake, watershed, beach, or homeowners’ associations, and define a specific geographic area that becomes their LakeSmart Community.
How to Become a LakeSmart Community
Step 1: Apply
To get started, an eligible group submits a simple application to NH LAKES and chooses a volunteer LakeSmart Ambassador. This ambassador becomes the community’s main point of contact—encouraging participation, coordinating with NH LAKES, and helping neighbors schedule their LakeSmart visits.
As part of the application, the group also confirms or sets its official community boundary. Many groups decide that their community boundaries encompass the entire watershed—or drainage area—of their lake or pond, while others choose to focus on properties near the shorefront. An organization may already have defined boundaries, often outlined in founding documents or bylaws. If not, NH LAKES will provide recommendations and assistance, using tools such as New Hampshire Parcel Data and StreamStats.
Step 2: Get Your Community Involved
Once approved, the LakeSmart Ambassador spreads the word throughout their community. They encourage property owners to learn more about how they can live in a lake-friendly way. Ambassadors can do this through community events, giving a group presentation, distributing educational handouts, and coordinating with property owners to schedule a free, confidential online or in-person property tour. As property owners excel at living in a lake-friendly way, they can earn the individual LakeSmart Award. With enough LakeSmart property owners, the community can achieve the LakeSmart Community Award.
Step 3: Host a Community Property Tour Day
Next comes the hands-on part—property tours! The ambassador and NH LAKES (or a trained partner group) coordinate to select a day when a trained LakeSmart Guide will tour all properties scheduled for that day. A property owner is not expected to achieve the LakeSmart Award immediately after their first property tour—many will have opportunities to become more lake-friendly, which is a good thing! All participants receive feedback tailored to their lake-friendly living opportunities.
Earning the LakeSmart Community Award
To achieve the LakeSmart Community Award, at least 15% of property owners must earn their individual LakeSmart Award. Many communities set even higher goals and take on inspiring group projects such as:
- Reaching 50%, 75%, or even 100% participation
- Organizing community-oriented improvement events like group septic pump-outs or plant nursery bulk orders.
- Installing lake-friendly features in shared spaces, such as a vegetated swale, a rain garden, or stream bank restoration at an association beach.
- Support local businesses that make lake-friendly practices a part of the way they do business.
Why Become a LakeSmart Community?
When your community joins LakeSmart, you:
- Protect property values with a clean and healthy lake.
- Preserve the enjoyment of the lake for future generations.
- Keep water clean and safe for recreation and wildlife.
- Unite neighbors around shared responsibility for your lake.
- Prevent erosion, septic failures, and shoreline erosion.
- Reduce harmful algae blooms, such as potentially toxic cyanobacteria blooms, and
- Support local businesses that provide lake-friendly living services and rely on lake tourism.
Join these communities that have earned the LakeSmart Community Award
The Kezar Lake Association was the first to earn the LakeSmart Community Award, helping establish the LakeSmart Community Program. To say the Kezar Lake community has embraced the LakeSmart Program is an understatement. They know that anything they do to stop runoff water and prevent nutrients from entering the lake will keep it healthy. In fact, the Kezar Lake community has reached over 50 percent participation in the program.
Lake Kanasatka’s community, after nearly four years of hard work around the lake and in partnership with others, has revitalized Lake Kanasatka and earned the second-ever LakeSmart Community Award. It’s amazing what the community has accomplished in such a relatively short time, helping trail-blaze the LakeSmart Community Program.
The Lake Wicwas Association hit the ground running in 2025 and earned their LakeSmart Community Award during their first year as an established Community, thanks to the infectious passion of homeowners all around the lake. With a community of families and neighbors eager to collaborate, Lake Wicwas serves as a blueprint for how working with the people around you helps spread sound information and lake-friendly practices rapidly throughout a lake.
Together, we can protect New Hampshire’s lakes—one community, one shoreline, and one lake-loving neighbor at a time.