“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 the The Glue Project Community part of the 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 The Glue Project community 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 Discussion on the community part of The Glue Project, 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)

This should be interesting. Thessy (pronounced Tessie) is creating a start-from-scratch community based not just on proximity, but shared values. Somewhere between a commune and a New York City co-op, Thessy is planning a ‘co-housing’ community where membership is predicated on alignment with a set of value enshrined in a Manifesto. A key element of this is engagement with your neighbors beyond a nod on the way to the trash chute (this is radical for New York City).

Utopian Communities

This is not without precedent. There were several start-from-scratch communities in nineteenth century America built around progressive ideals. Known as the Utopian Movement, they were social experiments, many with the mission to counter the social disintegration that their members believed accompanied industrialization

Arguably neighborhoods like Brooklyn’s infamous Park Slope, packed with champagne socialists and Militant Mothers (a friend of mine was hissed at in a playground for bottle-feeding her baby) are also places where people share proximity and pretty explicit progressive values.

But this is going to be much more. It’s going to be an “intentional community”: a term used to describe the Utopian Movement and their modern equivalents, with a bit of commune thrown in. Each apartment will be self-contained but their will be shared spaces such as kitchens.

The degree of interaction will be much higher than the dreadful Park Slope where arguing over a sausage’s degree of organic-ness in the Park Slope Food Coop constitutes community!

Purpose/Vision

Interaction is mandated in Thessy’s Manifesto. Residents will share their skills by giving lectures about their passions and interests in shared spaces. There will be voting, bartering with an alternative community currency, and “engaging with the community in the common spaces for cooking & meals, music, painting, play, gardening and yoga”.

And residents will be selected not just on the basis of their robust tax return, but their robust values:

“Eco, sustainable, green, multi-cultural, ‘ yes we can’ attitude, living with kids & elderly, learning/teaching/sharing as a core value, participatory, efficient use of resources, mind & body fitness, gay/bi/trans/hetero, political activism, secular, individual freedom, consensus process to arrive at decisions, techno-hippy, intelligent, fun, warm, loving, edgy, unique.

Not: scared, timid, rigid, righteous, pretentious”

(By the way, I don’t know why New Yorkers tolerate the humiliating ordeal of sharing their personal financial details with their neighbors to be granted permission to buy an expensive apartment and then see those same neighbors every day knowing that they know how much you do or don’t earn. Bizarre).

Thessy is starting off with the two most important glue ingredients:

Number One. She’s laying the bedrock of a tight and stable community by writing a Manifesto that is explicit about the values to be shared. Values are the foundation of a robust community because they’re things we use to define ourselves as individuals, and by extension, the community. It’s a profound identification that’s hard to dismantle.

Number Two: She’s predisposing the community to have elevated levels of interaction by making it a condition of membership. The increased frequency of people rubbing together, around shared interests, needs and support, and especially values leads to the formation of sticky things like partnerships and friendships.

In other words, she’s starting with the two key ingredients of Social Glue: Purpose/Vision and Rubbing People Together.

So we have an interesting opportunity to see the birthing and growth of something approaching a Utopian community in a city not known for its love of intimacy and ideals. All Thessy has now is the Manifesto. It’s a pretty good one, and being explicit about the mission, shared values and expectations of members’ behavior, is a recipe for a pretty tight community.

Actually she has more. She is pulling together fifteen people to help refine the Manifesto, and recruit like-minded members “based on values, interests and fit”. And she has the confidence borne of seeing it work before. She part of her life in a squat-like community in Dusseldorf characterized not by dingy mattresses and meth, but fiscal responsibility, liberal values, an artistic environment and skill-sharing.

A social experiment

Stand by for more on how Thessy takes this from Manifesto to bricks and mortar; from idealism to reality with all the attendant obstacles and triumphs that this ambitious attempt at glue-creation will encounter.

I’m especially interested in a key principle she is employing. She hopes that the values she articulates in the Manifesto will attract those who align with them, and repel those who don’t. She does not plan to enforce these values. She’s prepared to see how the community evolves from this solid, values-based start. From what I have observed of community, lack of enforcement of values can lead to abuse and/or dilution of those values, which can alienate members for whom they are important.

This is clearly an interesting social experiment and I can’t wait to see what transpires.

Not a religious one. The kind of vision that will keep two entrepreneurs in a small town on the banks of the Hudson River.

Two nights ago, my friend and his partner were pissed off. They’d moved from the city to relocate their design business in a beautiful town in upstate New York. It’s the kind of beautiful town that could be really be beautiful, and functional, and even moderately wealthy instead of teetering between resurgence and decline. Like most towns on the river, its fortunes sunk when the highway opened, river traffic stopped, tourism to the Catskills dried up and industry left. But like some of these towns, they’re enjoying a renaissance as their neglected beauty is being discovered and dusted off.

That means people like my friend are investing their money and time trying to make Main St. work again. Restaurants, stores and artisan workshops are cropping up to complement the inevitable Wal-Mart Mall on the edge of town, with opportunities for discretionary income to be spent and Main Street to be repopulated.

In other words, making the barely-beating heart of the town function again. You know, revive the traditional form of community that people crave so much. Make Main Street real instead a fantasy experience in Disneyworld.

But the town leadership has vacillated, obfuscated and dithered. They can’t decide whether to be the depressingly familiar, hollow, Wal-Mart-centric collection of suburbs or a historic town making a comeback. One that’s joining the movement for localism and new authentic industry that’s reinventing the Hudson Valley. One that has a diversity of businesses, population, entertainment…and tax revenue.

So my friends and many others are deciding to leave. Without knowing that their and their neighbors’ investment (not just of money, but in friendships and enthusiasm) is going to pay back because it’s being channeled to a common vision with resources to support it, why stay? Why not go to a town that’s clear about what it is and where it’s going, with a citizenry that helps each other get there and with incentives to make the tough life of running a small business worthwhile?

A vision would make all the difference in taking a community that’s stagnating into one that’s generating energy and producing happiness. Forget a cave in Lourdes. The people need a vision for Main Street.

At the heart of every successful organization is a clear purpose. It’s the thing that the founder starts with. It’s what successful organizations use for big and small decisions alike, often for decades afterwards.

Religion or corporation, online support network or cupcake enthusiast group, all communities do better when they…their leaders, their members, their potential recruits and the world at large…are very clear about:

• What the organization is here to do
• The beliefs and values it executes against
• And therefore, what is expected of its membership.

Without one, the community is rudderless. It may potter along, but it won’t be truly great.

I like this quote from a famous business book. Even in the world of commerce a Purpose, Ideology, Mission/Vision, call it what you will, is considered vital to an organization’s success:

“Like the fundamental ideal of a great nation, church, school, or any other enduring institution, core ideology in a visionary company is a set of basic precepts that plant a fixed stake in the ground: ‘This is who we are; this is what we stand for; this is what we’re all about.’ …core ideology is so fundamental to the institution that it changes seldom, if ever.” (Jim Collins & Jerry Porras, Built To Last)

So who consumes a Purpose? Why do they need or want it? And therefore, what goes into one? And when you have one, what do you do with it? And…what does one look like?

They can take many forms; some of them are very familiar. It may be a book: the Bible, the Koran or The Little Red Book. Or a speech: MLK’s “I have a Dream”. Or a Declaration of Independence. Or Constitution.

All of these have a vision of the how the world should be. They’re crystal clear about the values of the community, and are explicit about expected behavior. They’re used as a lodestone for making decisions that affect the fortunes of the community. They’re a statement of why you should join, commit and take action.

Most importantly, they define the community to itself and to others, whether it’s a nation, a religion, a movement or a political party.

Of course most Purposes or Ideologies are not famous, not as poetic or define things like countries. They can often be found on About pages or coffee mugs. They’re often statements about the group’s goals, what they stand for and who should join. But if they’re good, and they’re used, then they’ll do the exact same things that the intimidating famous ones do.

Let’s talk first about the consumers of a Purpose, and why they need or want one. That’ll help define what goes into one, and what you do with it.

By the way, I’m using the term ‘Purpose’ as a catch-all for Ideology, Belief System, Mission and so on. Each of these may have slight differences, but really they serve similar enough needs and are used in similar enough ways.

The Consumers of a Purpose.
There are at least four:

1. The Membership.
Arguably these are the most important consumers of an ideology.

If it’s well conceived, the benefit is Commitment. And with commitment comes the associated benefits of conviction, energy, involvement, motivation to recruit others, and willingness to take action.

2. The Leadership.
The key benefit for the leadership is clarity. Making fast and effective decisions obviously improves the efficiency of the organization, especially large and complex ones.

There’s a drag on decision-making when it has to be prefaced by yet another debate about the organization’s role and values. When they’re universally known and embraced, then decisions about strategy, next steps, who belongs and who doesn’t happen fast and with buy-in.

3. Potential Members
Potential recruits need to know why they’re joining and what’s expected of them if they do. They need to be able to say things like “those values are mine. I’ll feel at home there”, and “I love what this community is out to create. I want to join”.

If a prospect knows what they are getting into and is clear whether they identify with the community, or not, then they’ll join and stay. And you’ll spend less time dealing with the members who really shouldn’t be there, the ones who can make the community and themselves less happy and effective

4. The world at large.
If the community is begins to have an impact, it means it’s rubbing up against the world at large. Beyond recruits, those outside of the community need to understand what you’re about. They could be potential partners or sponsors. They might the media. Or government agencies.

The benefits are dependent on who’s engaging with your group, but they can include clarity about compatibility, whether commercially, politically or in terms of goals if it’s an organization with whom you’re entering into an alliance. Or ease of communication if it’s media who need sound-bite definitions.

Can you think of other consumers of your organization’s Purpose? How does your organization use one? Comment or go to the community site and post on the blog.

This is an insight that derives from best-in-class Movements: communities that are on the move to make change. But it’s applicable to all successful communities.

Ask your members to do things.

There are two key reasons to do this. Obviously you’re more likely to get things done that achieve the community’s objectives…the reason why many of your members joined.

But you also increase their commitment level. Once a member has taken an action (like recruiting someone or hosting an event, or sending out an email blast) they will feel more emotionally invested in the future of that group.

You won’t, nor should you want to, appeal to everyone.

If the members of a community don’t share values, or a vision of the world, or needs, then it’s questionable whether it’s a community at all. If there are none of these things present, what exactly is the glue that’s holding them together?

If they don’t share an identity, or a common purpose, or enjoy the same things, I would argue it’s a loose arrangement based simply on convenience or habit and it has few strong ties.

Really effective groups draw a line in the sand and stand for something. They’ve made decisions about what they do and don’t believe and what they do and don’t want to get done.

The result is committed members: they’ve joined and are active because they’re aligned with a well-defined purpose and values.

Is this an extreme or narrow view?

Actually, I’ve seen it proven many times, and in a whole range of community-types. It’s clearer to see in those that are very explicit about their purpose (such as activist or political groups) or clear about their values (such as religious organizations).

But I’ve also seen how important it is for regular ‘everyday’ organizations such as companies or brands. Or those where membership is predicated on proximity, such as villages or towns.

All of them should define how they are different from other groups or places…and then live that difference.

(this is a summary of the sixth ingredient, following #1-5 summaries, previously posted)

It may seem trite to have a list of ingredients. We’re talking about high-functioning communities here, not a sponge cake.

But over and over, the same motivations, techniques and principles emerged as I talked to members and leaders of successful communities. You really can identify the key ingredients that are essential to making strong social glue.

What follows is no more than a list. I’ll be covering each ingredient in much more detail and they’ll be illustrated with examples from real communities.

And this list is not exhaustive. If you think there are other key ingredients, then please go to the community section of the site and start a forum or group to discuss them, or write about them on the community blog. Or comment on this blog.

The more cooks in the kitchen, the better!

So far, I’m up to twenty ingredients. Here’s a summary of the first, and arguably, most important five.

1.  What’s your Purpose?
You can call it a Purpose, a Worldview, Ideology, Belief System, a Creed, Values, Vision, Mission, whatever. If a group doesn’t have one, potential recruits won’t know what they’ll get if they join. You and your members won’t have a clear mission that defines the group’s behavior. There wont’ be a values or belief system that the community shares, identifies with and becomes wedded to. And you’ll be fuzzy about whom you recruit and reject…and eject (all equally important in maintaining the integrity of the community).

2.  Make Love.
As important as a Purpose or Ideology is to a successful community, Love is more so. Purpose and Love are the two critical ingredients (like eggs and sugar in a cake).

But Love trumps Ideas.

People join and stay in communities primarily for the people, not the belief system or worldview (no-matter what they might say). It’s not the word of god, or the political manifesto, or the mission or values that’s the primary reason for joining and staying. It’s the other members.

This was an insight I gained from talking to members of cults and cult-like communities. And it was confirmed when I went to Meetup and we researched the key reasons for becoming committed to a group.

We found that it was after attending four of five events that people felt as if they truly belonged. At that point the connection they felt with the other members transcended (but not replaced) the original purpose for joining the community. It was the other people that became the reason to stay. So, welcome new members and introduce them to others. Create lots of opportunities for interaction…

3.  Rub people together.
Community is a contact sport. The more people rub together, the stickier they become.

If people interact frequently with others who share the same interests, causes and values, enduring relationships will occur. This is true for both virtual and real communities, but is more effective in face-to-face groups where two things are at play: a) the investment people have made to show up is often translated to investment in the future of the community, b) all the unconscious forms of communication that research is proving to be so important…body language, facial expression, voice intonation, laughter…get a chance to work in a way that is not possible, or is seriously compromised when online.

4.  Create a Safe Space.
This is not about protection from attack or harm (although it can be). It’s about creating what people often call a ‘safe space’ to be themselves. This is a huge, and I would argue, the most important emotional benefit received from belonging.

It happens when people feel that they are amongst ‘like-others’. They can relax and be themselves without fear of censure that they might get in environments where they can’t choose the others around them (such as their workspace or school). The ability to self-actualize is a huge motivation to join and stay in a community. Given this is most likely to happen when surrounded by ‘like-others’, having a safe space is highly dependent on having the ‘right’ members.

5.  Get the Right Members
There are right and wrong members. Frankly, not everyone should be welcome.

For people to feel at home and be themselves, to interact happily and to get what they need from the other members, to feel like they truly belong, to recruit successfully, the community must have the right members.

What makes a member right or wrong? The right ones are those that agree with and support the Purpose and values of the group. They’re the ones who contribute and show up. The wrong ones are the flakes, the passengers, the ones who are in the wrong place because they don’t really buy into the mission of the community. They’re the detractors (constructive criticism is good, undermining is not).