What we learned about community building from a season of potluck dinners
Once a month, we opened our doors for an all-comers dinner. Here’s what we learned.
In a spirit of tinkering & experimentation, we’ve been running a series of potluck dinners over the past few months, inspired by this Fabien Pfortmüller article, the Campfire Network’s dinner project, and simply a desire to make more connections in the city I live in.
I was astonished how well it worked… albeit not always in the ways I expected.
Here’s what we (my family plus all the other attendees) did:
- Once a month, midweek, 7pm onwards, we’d open our house for a potluck dinner (event description here). January to July, we held six events in total.
- In that time, we hosted a total of 30 attendees; most people came multiple times, and the event doubled in size over the course of the ‘season’.
- Logistics were hacked together with Doodle, WhatsApp and Docs.
- On each occasion, I tried to change a variable to see what would happen. For instance, one dinner included a poetry recital, at others we used discussion cards, or deliberately moved people around between courses. On one of the dates, I was double-booked, and only turned up only as dessert was being served. It was unintentional, but a great way to see what space opened up for others when the host was taken out of the equation.
The main things I learned
As the season went on, it was clear that something magic was starting to happen. Attendees felt more connected, and at home. Conversations got deeper. Relationships evolved from hub-and-spoke to peer-to-peer. Some people took ownership and started to co-create.
That said, there were a lot of ‘lessons’ I learned along the way
- It matters how people are invited, welcomed and guided through the initial experience. Entering a room full of strangers was daunting, and I underestimated the nerves that some had before accepting the invite, or attending. Sometimes people weren’t sure what to bring, so they contributed a massive dish, or a tiny one. I also underestimated how much structure and support attendees would want, and how important it is to shape that initial experience (e.g. by guiding newcomers to a friendly person to talk to from the beginning). In particular, the lack of structure let down the introverts (especially those who only attended one dinner).
- Messiness — or flexibility — is important. Although we said we’d start at 7 and finish at 10, in practice timings were much fuzzier. Lesson: be clear about the non-negotiables — “we’ll start eating at 8pm, even if everyone’s not here” — convey those clearly, and be relaxed about the rest. Similarly, I deliberately tried to make the group of attendees diverse, and that helped — but also necessitated more structure and clearer expectation-setting.
- I’m so grateful for the attendees who stepped up as collaborators. Practically: as host, you can end up juggling so many roles, so asking others to take on a task (welcoming new arrivals, pouring drinks, taking the lead on tidying up, hosting a discussion) makes a huge difference. Symbolically: active core members change it from a top-down to a collaborate exercise and are key to communicating the values of the group via their example.
- Repetition, cadence and ritual matter. Over the course of six sessions, these began to appear playfully and organically: people telling the backstory of their dish, having the newcomers set out the seating arrangement, parading the desserts around the room
- Certain qualities were key to setting the tone: generosity, curiosity, playfulness, unpretentiousness, kindness, respect, authenticity. Our guests were all of these things already, but we tried to amplify and value these qualities, and in turn they came to characterise the events themselves.
So in what sense did this experiment create community? After six months, I can see glimmers. It was more than a dinner with random people, as demonstrated by the depth and vulnerability of discussion. But to go beyond that, I believe it would need:
- More clarity of purpose
- More structure
- More repetition
- An ongoing ratio of seasoned attendees (80%) with first-timers (20%)
Season 2 begins in September, so we’ll find out!
Endnote: Art of Gathering
Towards the end of the run, I happened to read Priya Parker’s excellent Art of Gathering, which felt particularly relevant to this experiment. I double-underlined a few points from her book:
- Having a clearly-articulated purpose to the gathering. Ours was woolly and vague: not surprising when we were in tinkering mode but something I plan to change in the autumn season.
- Hosting with ‘generous authority’. Defining what an acceptable contribution is, moving attendees around, managing the phases of the evening.
- Creating an alternative reality for guests, where alternative, pop-up rules apply. I love this: it speaks to the sense of magic and commitment that these events had at their best.
Want to learn more about designing communities?
- Why should we even be trying to design communities?
- This story corresponds to the ‘Potluck dinner’ pattern in our pattern library
- Five design principles that defined the 19-year run of Nobody’s Wood
- The inspiring story of the Sportsbox 3000
- I’m taking a broad journey through community design stories and topics including communes, co-working spaces, urban design, cults, network theory, creators, ‘brand communities’, smart cities, festivals, social health, blue zones, creativity and more. Follow me on Medium if you’d like to get updates, and please check out the project website. Thanks!
