[5] The community's core values are cooperation, egalitarianism, nonviolence, sustainability, and income sharing.

[7] People interested in joining Twin Oaks must attend a scheduled three-week visitor period.

[3] Basic necessities—housing, clothing, food, health care—are all provided to members in return for their 38 weekly hours of work.

[18] Some labor is directed toward generating income, and the rest consists of domestic work like gardening/food production, cooking, bike repair, building maintenance, cleaning, and child care.

Most Twin Oakers perform a wide variety of tasks each week instead of spending all of their time in one labor area.

Though live television viewing is prohibited, Twin Oaks' members have access to the Internet as well as to public computers.

People in the community often gather for other recreational activities such as dancing, meditating, discussing literature, staging musicals, and playing board games.

The community hosts pagan handfastings, Equinox parties, and Thanksgiving dinners, and it celebrates June 16, the anniversary of its founding.

The community itself acknowledges that it has yet to create the perfect society; it even provides a guidebook entitled "Not Utopia Yet" to visitors.

[19] The BBC Four television series Utopia: In Search of the Dream, broadcast on August 15, 2017, devoted an 11-minute segment to Twin Oaks.

In news segments, Twin Oakers often attribute the longevity of the community to its engagement in capitalism through its tofu and hammocks businesses.

[5] A 21st century book, Surviving the Dream, by Craig Kurtz (a member from 2007 to 2020), analyzes Twin Oaks' political structure.

[2][4][22] Twin Oaks members consume 70% less gasoline, 80% less electricity, and 76% less natural gas per capita than do their neighbors.