What are the top 5?

“What are the top five pieces of advice you’d give to new community leaders?”

“What are the five things you wished you’d known when you started out?”

I’ve been asking these questions of community leaders. I also asked the same question that got some great responses on Discussion boards on this site, and on Ning.

I’m still building the list. And I’d like you to add some. But here are the key themes that emerged. And I’ve also reprinted, near the end of this post, the complete answers of some of the responders that I thought were especially insightful.

1. Be really clear about your community’s purpose.

Wishy-washiness retards recruitment (“why am I joining?”) erodes commitment (“why am I here?”) and handicaps progress (“what are we trying to get done, exactly?”)

2. Be really clear why you, personally, are doing this.

I heard this a lot. Start a group or network about a passion. Are you doing it because you want to improve your own social life (entirely legitimate)? Fight for marriage equality? Because you love pugs? If you’re not passionate, you’ll give up (because it’s hard), or run the group reluctantly which is guaranteed to undermine its success.

3. Have patience

Most networks and groups start small, and often stay that way for while. Don’t give up. Don’t be discouraged. Providing you’re doing the rest of these things, it should take off.

4. Have stamina

…because you need to hang there until it takes off.

5. Make time

Be prepared for it to eat into your personal life, especially at the beginning. Then you can start delegating.

6. Don’t try and please everyone

Don’t focus on the haters. Don’t get upset

7. Have rules

Very, very important. Not everyone behaves as adults, and that becomes clear very quickly.

8. Reject and eject those who break them, without qualms.

They are the community-destroyers. And really, the rest of the community wants the rules and are happy when you enforce them.

9. Welcome new arrivals. Personally if you can.

It’s when they’re most vulnerable to leaving or becoming inactive.

10. Ask them to do something.

Doing stuff for the network makes people committed. Easy stuff at the beginning (commenting, posting a picture), harder stuff as they become more invested.

11. Listen to your members.

You’re serving their needs as well as yours.

12. Get help from advisors and delegate responsibilities

13. Meet in person. Offline is stickier than online.

14. Be clear about who belongs and who doesn’t

Do they buy into the purpose and the values? Do they contribute or are they flakes, passengers or social toxics?

15. Be clear about who you’re targeting and how to satisfy their needs.

16. Pace yourself

17. Acknowledge people who are making a difference

Calling out the heroes, and even those who are making a small difference is a great motivator. And it patterns desired behavior to the rest of the group.

18. Try stuff, and move on if it doesn’t work

19. Resist the attempt to be a control freak

Allow new ideas and new leadership to emerge that strengthens the network.

20. Resist the attempt to let go entirely

Ensure the community stays true to its purpose and values.

21. Have high quality content/events to keep them coming back.

22. Networking is work.

23. Make it fun, even if the purpose is serious.

If for no other reason than you need this to maintain your own energy as well as the energy of others.

Here are a few of the responses in their entirety:

This is from MariaL on the discussion thread I started on the Ning Creators Network (a network of community leaders on the Ning platform) that asked the same ‘Top 5’ question. All the responses in that discussion thread are worth reading…some are more oriented than others towards the Ning platform functionality, but many have universally applicable insights.

MariaL:

1. Don't micro-manage: You'll only limit your network to what you can handle or come up with. Delegate tasks/duties and don't spend every moment online... give your network a chance to grow into something much, much bigger than you ever dreamed!

2. Get other members involved: Make sure moderators are involved in some decision making to keep them motivated and interested - it helps to give them a sense of ownership to a certain extent and alleviates the responsibility.

3. Be involved: Keep posting actively and create conversation in "dry areas" of your network. If the groups are sort of slowing down in popularity, encourage members to join or create their own groups!

4. Be just but firm: If you have a Code of Conduct or some posting guidelines, stick to 'em like it's your job!! It's important to be consistent and for members to feel safe and treated fairly. No favorites allowed!

5. Keep the new stuff comin': Keep a couple features up your sleeves or come up with new events/concepts to keep things fresh and interesting. Be open to ideas from all members and encourage collaboration!!

From Steve Ressler (Govloop) on this site

1. Don't build a community - enable a community that already exists to connect.

2. Have fun and experiment.

3. Don't listen to the haters...plenty of haters and complainers. Give water to the good ones to grow even more.

4. Continuous improvement and nurturing - if you are not busy being born, you are busy dying.

5. Ask for help...ask the community to volunteer and take roles.


From Andrea, also from The Glue Project. She agreed with Steve’s suggestions and wanted to add these:

1. The community needs leadership from many & be compelling to its members

2. Be as clear as possible about purpose and vision

3. As a community facilitator, be as inclusive as possible

4. Identify and build on the values and qualities you would like the community to reflect

5. Keep track of what is going on, answer questions, encourage leadership, creativity and opportunity to share with others

6. Communities grow and change, people come in and out over time, don't get discouraged and try not to stay stuck on the critics...

…then Andrea added even more suggestions to her original comments:

Sharing Credit as much as possible (costs nothing, easy to do, makes people feel good, encourages participation)

Leverage Group Resources whether that be time, talent, skill or money. Creates more buy-in and opportunities for ownership, uses what already exists, important to any serious community effort.

Link Planning to Results, Big and Small. Work with the community to identify these outcomes and count them. Little wins are just as important as the big ones, sometimes more so.

Action Matters. People will leave if they don't see something concrete happen. Moving people to that point thoughtfully, but quickly is essential

Honor Group Members and their expertise. The more they are engaged in something that matters to them, and their experience and know-how is utilized the more the community benefits. Even if not everyone agrees, which they won't.

Everything will not happen all at once, so help the community identify what is most important first to them and start with that focus. Keep asking, "Who else needs to be part of this endeavor?"


I’m sure you have 5 pieces of advice. Share them in the Forum part of this site, or comment on this post. I’ll keep updating this subject, and may include yours.

With thanks to the many others I’ve gleaned these from, including Julia Ferguson Andriessen (Dutch in Orange County Meetup), Joseph Porcelli (Neighbors For Neighbors), Andy The Chicken Whisperer (The Atlanta Backyard Poultry Meetup), Francis Sealey (21st Century Network), Natasha Chapman (Sustainable Jacksonville Meetup), Tony Bacigalupo (Coworking Community NYC Meetup), Edith (The San Francisco Entrepreneur Meetup Group)