Get Together: How to build a community with your people

Focus on two criteria: 1. Who brings the energy—who are the people who already engage, contribute, or attend? Don’t try to conjure motivation out of thin air. Start with keen participants. 2. Assuming that the community flourishes, who will you stick with? Cultivating a community is a long-term

If you want to spark your own community, you’ll need to first pinpoint your people. Find your kindling—those early allies who care about what you care about enough to manifest your idea for a community into an actual gathering of human beings.

What is something your people crave that would be better performed or experienced as a group?

Growing a community isn’t about management. It’s about developing leaders. With their help, your community will affect more people and sustain itself longer than you could have managed on your own.

Tie the activity back to why your community teamed up in the first place. What goal or outcome becomes possible only when this specific group of people gets together?

Shareable assets allow Downtown Girls Basketball players to avoid starting from scratch every time they tell a story about the community or explain to a potential new member how to get involved. You can’t force people to spread the word. Instead, ask: How can I make it easier for them to do so on their own terms?

Although communities feel magical, they won’t come together by magic. In this early stage, there’s no substitute for a courageous leader (like you!) who takes the first step.

The inescapable truth is that you’ll have to exceed expectations with your core activity if you want people to show up and keep showing up.

A sign of a vibrant community is that new members join because they want to.

“A community is a living organism. It’s either declining or improving; there’s no steady-state in a community.”