There are thirty-two affiliated chapters of the CDA, extending geographically from San Francisco to Rome, Italy. New York, incorporated in 1890 as the original chapter of the society, is known as the Parent Chapter. The earliest affiliated chapter was formed in Baltimore in 1892; the most recent, in central Missouri in 2007.

Each chapter of the CDA selects one or more projects to support. These can range anywhere from the preservation of a historic house to the creation of an educational program at a day care center.

The CDA presents an annual President’s Award for Excellence to a chapter whose current project is outstanding. In 2007, the award was shared by two chapters abroad: Chapter X in Rome, and Chapter XI in London.

Chapter X is producing a booklet about Americans buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome that will be sold in the cemetery’s book shop. Founded in 1734, the cemetery is the site of many important graves, including those of the poets Keats and Shelly, American diplomats, and notable Americans who lived in Italy. Although known as the Protestant Cemetery, it contains the graves of people of different faiths.

Chapter XI is replacing a sign next to the marble memorial to friends of George Washington, George and Sarah Fairfax, in the garden of the American Museum in Britain near Bath, England, that tells the story of friends torn apart by the American Revolution. The faded sign reads in part:

In 1773 the Fairfaxes left their Plantation at Belvor near Mt Vernon and journeyed to England. Caught by the War of Independence, they settled in Bath. Although they never saw George Washington again, they corresponded frequently….After her husband died in 1787, Sarah erected this monument to his memory. Her own name was added after her death in 1811, but before this she received a last loving letter from Washington in which he referred once again to "the happy moments, the happiest in my life, which I have enjoyed in your company.”