List #5: 30 Ways to Create and Cultivate Community

30 Lists of 30 to Celebrate my 30th Birthday

12 min readAug 5, 2021

The What & Why Behind This Project:

This year I turn 30. And my gosh, I have been thinking about it a lot. I don’t know if it’s the pandemic, or the fact that this milestone is loaded with many societal expectations, but my mind has inundated me with reflections and memories from the past, with questions arising about my life choices and lesson learnt, about my expectations of being a human and about my desires for the future. And this combined with pandemic reflections has meant there has been a lot on my mind….🤔

I started writing a series of questions and lists of all the elements I wanted to capture and articulate. There were a lot, unsurprisingly; 30 years is a long time really! So I gave up on the 1 list idea that I normally write (30 reflections/lessons turning 30) and decided to write 30 lists.

30 Lists of 30, for my 30th Birthday.

Who are these lists for, you might wonder? I started writing reflections many years ago to get to know myself better. And when I shared these raw and real accounts with friends I discovered that what I wrote about my individual journey, touched upon something universally human. Beyond the masks and labels we wear is a messy, beautifully complex life, with highs and lows. And more similar to others than we might think.

So I share them in the hope that you too might feel something — intrigue, joy, resonance or maybe even difference — as you reflect on what it means to be a human. I recognise that my experiences are my own, that some come from a place of privilege and that they may not all be relatable or interesting to you. I know I can’t please everyone, so take what you can…(and let me know what lands!).

So, Back to Lists…

The Why Behind List #5:

Community building — the act of bringing people together — is, in my opinion, one of the most meaningful contributions you can make to society. Communities accelerate the process of finding the people you seek, but never knew you were seeking. And those relationships are foundational to finding friends, creating life and work opportunities, health and joy. I’ve recently realised I have been a community builder almost all of my life, but I never really gave myself the label because I just did it for fun, perhaps even to meet my own social needs. I love 1–1 conversations, but when meeting someone I always having this nagging thought about who else they might connect with and how to make this happen in a somewhat organic, nourishing yet intentional way. In the last few years I have built multiple communities (Trigger Conversations, Sandbox Global and London, The Artist’s Way) and have no plans to stop anytime soon.

List #5–30 Ways to Create and Cultivate Community

Whenever you meet someone, follow the philosophy of making friends first — let go of the transactional mindset of what you could get from them, or what kind of relationship label this might be (e.g. business deal, date). The beauty of connecting is forming the connection first, getting to discover another human and their wonderful quirks, building trust and then finding micro-ways to add value to each other. Which can be as simple as listening empathetically, asking great questions or having playful co-creative moments together.
Start small — creating community starts with connecting one person to another. That is it. You don’t need to apply for a community manager role to be a community builder, you simply need to look to your own relationships or network and think of creative ways to bring together together.
Pay attention to beginnings and first impressions, which are super important. For instance, how you show up to and greet people at the door of an event will define how safe and comfortable people feel to express themselves and participate at an event, especially if they are new to a community because they don’t know the contextual behavioural norms. It is up to you to model the behaviour you want to reward, and make the experience memorable and meaningful so they feel something. When running events for Trigger, even if I wasn’t hosting the event, I would greet everyone personally at the door, put a name to a face, ask them something about themselves or make a playful or curious comment. This helps them feel seen, feel familiarity with at least one person (me), and get off autopilot transactional scripted behaviour (e.g. ‘How are you?’ ‘Fine’, which can be a conversation killer).
Help people get over the psychological barriers to connection early on. When you meet new people, there can be a lot of barriers that hold us back — fear of approaching new people, interrupting group conversations, uncertainty about what is safe to share or ask about, freedom to get away from an interaction that isn’t enjoyable. You can design structures that help remove the barriers. More informally, you can do introduce them to someone straight away and provide a few hooks of information that prompts curiosity and dialogue. At Trigger Conversations events, I developed labels with symbols as a way to randomly match partners so they didn’t have to/ couldn’t choose their next partner (which creates inclusivity and reduces the feeling of being rejected). I also defined concrete timings for each conversation course, and creating question prompts to give participants permission to ask each other deep questions.
You have to role model the behaviour or culture you want to cultivate. People will do as you do, not what you say — that is how we learn behavioural norms. If you want authenticity and vulnerability, self-disclose early on and people will reciprocate.
Treat all conversations and people as equals, even when there is a power hierarchy (e.g. someone senior). You can always add value to someone else’s life, even if the context you have created is for them to provide you with value.
Become a central node in a network by inviting people to gatherings and make introductions. You may never see or know about the relationships that occur from that initial gathering, but they will, and they won’t forget it.
But create opportunities for many-to-many interactions not one-to-many. Communities flourish the most when they aren’t reliant on one central person to be connected.
Slowly, slowly and often. The low hanging fruits, the small moments of connection — a brief statement next to the coffee machine, a smile in the lift, buying your daily coffee — are often under-utilized and yet can be hugely impactful. By going first and really acknowledging and seeing someone else you can make someone’s day. They will remember you, get curious and because the psychological barrier of meeting someone new is removed, be 1000% times more likely to approach you again when you bump into each other again.
Hold goals very loosely in conversation. Stop trying to go somewhere. It’s a co-creative dance in the present. See and allow tangents to emerges.
Your community culture runs through all the interaction touchpoints. The way you interact 1–1, with groups, via whatsapp, email and the phone etc. needs to be consistent. If you’re playful and human, bring that into every touchpoint.
Make people FEEL something. People enjoy attending gatherings and experiences that make them feel emotions. Everytime you bring people together, ask yourself what you want them to feel and create moments that might spark something.
Build 1–1 relationships before inviting people into groups. Even if it’s just 30 minutes on a (real-time) call, these moments are essential when building a long-term relationships. These are the moments when you get to know someone with your undivided attention — where you can find out who they are, what they’re interested in and what their desires, curiosities or challenges are. Knowing this means you can do a much better job at helping them, or inviting them to the right groups that actually align with them. Additionally, this is where the trust is built and without this trust people will be more likely to flake later on, and less likely to help you too.
People will be 80% more likely to show up to an event if you have built a 1–1 relationship and spoken 1–1 in some capacity (this includes whatsapp — even better if its a voice note) recently.
Direct messages & personalisation matter. When you send group messages, there is little accountability to respond. It takes time but you need to get used to contacting everyone individually when you invite them to something, or make a request. And don’t just send the same scripted message — it is super easy to identify whether something is personal or not. I’ve definitely paid the price of not personalising messages before and had quite direct feedback (or people ignoring me) because of this. Take the time to even add a few personal lines — it will mean a lot.
Give without expectation of receiving. When you give to someone, it must not be quid pro quo — don’t count. Let go of the need for them to return the gift, that is transactional. What generally happens is that people will give to someone else later on and create a virtuous circle which might come back to you later on.
Not everyone has the same favourite channel of communication (email, calls, whatsapp — voice notes or text, FB, in person) — learn to adapt. It takes extra time but everyone has different preferences for where and on what app they communicate.
When breaking experience or event norms, or trying something experimental, communicate it upfront to gain buy-in. You need to change people’s expectations to get people to get on board. The words ‘explore’ or ‘experiment’ work really well here. Also, name the ‘why’ behind the change (e.g. at my events when I want to redirect the conversation, I name the fact we often talk about the same subjects and miss out on the opportunity to learn or explore something novel).
Create the constraint of urgency, available spaces or limited time. Everyone is super busy and community is often not prioritised.
Communicate multiple times in multiple ways. Everyone is busy and forgets. Simply whatsapp or facebook invite not enough and often doesn’t make it top of mind. The best way to make people aware is to talk about aloud. Then add the layers of digital communication on top.
Use (and learn) people’s names. Such a small thing that makes a huge difference — people feel seen, recognised as an individual and a friend. I like to learn their name at the door, perhaps ask them about it or find some game to help you remember it and then use it later on in an event when referring to people’s ideas, or when saying hi again. If there are lots of people, use labels. And get people to write their own name in a choice of colours (remove the black pen!)— people love this and will often share why they chose that colour.
Give people a role they that can own and shape. Community building is about equality — encouraging others to become active and not passive participants. One of the easiest ways to do this is to get people involved in co-creating gatherings — bringing, preparing and serving food/ drinks, playing the host when people arrive ( I once experimented at a party where the last person to arrive was the new host — it was really fun and gave newcomers permission to take charge, go first and approach others). When you have a role you gain a level of authority that gives you agency to move in and out of conversations, among other things. Even if you’re not the true host you can assign yourself tasks which then gives you this authority!
Additionally, build anticipation and reduce flaking by creating a specific whatsapp (e.g.) group for gatherings and invite people to share what they might bring or do at the gathering. Adding photos from the events to the group creates belonging and a sense of nostalgia afterwards. Plus it means people can find each other’s details and connect with ease.
Design for both intimate connection and belonging. Communities are generally groups of people, but group conversations over four, unless facilitated, are often dominated by over-enthusiastic extroverts! Learn to facilitate group conversations and even better, create structures or a setting that forces people to break into 2–3s.
Consistency builds trust. Create a routine for events or opportunities for people to connect — a weekly or monthly gathering for instance. It helps people plan and feel like they are part of something bigger.
Don’t be generic, design something unique. So many community gatherings are boring, because the organiser just assumes or hopes that creating a space will be enough. The reality is that people will often assume their default safe behaviour and revert to small talk or hide their true selves because they aren’t sure if it’s appropriate. To make gatherings meaningful, invite people to do something different — where it be a game, sharing circle, workshop, activity in pairs, prompt + discussion or creating art! This gives people a chance to shine, to reveal many sides of themselves or to create a shared experience — all opportunities to create curiosity for each other and build trust.
Don’t invite everyone to the community. The beauty of communities is that they bring together like-minded humans — often sharing similar values or interests. Not everyone will vibe at every gathering, and the people you want there won’t come again if they don’t feel they belong amongst most people.
But do bring in fresh-blood! New people creates diversity, fresh perspectives and energy. Always be recruiting or at least inviting newcomers to explore for themselves.
Accept there will be conflict. Humans bring differing life experiences and opinions and especially if you create a space for people to be authentic, then they won’t always agree. Creating a tight container — agreeing upfront what the rules of engagement are, or naming the fact there will be difference views— can help set expectations and also make it easier to remove people who are being unkind or disrespectful.
Remember it is worth it. Community building is sometimes exhausting physically and emotionally — people will complain and not recognise your effort but you will feel great seeing the fruits of your labour over time when new friendships, collaborations, romantic relationships and more appear.

☕ If you enjoyed reading this list and want to support my writing I would love a coffee!

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Your support will help me fund my PhD starting in October 2021 at the School of Design Engineering, Imperial College, London. The subject: Human Connection & Conversation Design. This research lab > interactionfoundry.com

Want To Read More Lists?

I’m publishing one list every day in August (and will add the hyperlinks below).

Want To Read More Lists?

I’m publishing one list every day in August (and will add the hyperlinks below).

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Still Curious?!

💬 Watch my TEDx talk: Talking to Strangers: Having a Meaningful Conversation

📖 Read about some of my work recently published in Entrepreneur.com How to Become a Master at Talking to Strangers

✍️ Stay connected through Conversations With Georgie: The Home of My Thoughts as a Life-Long Learner. Curious. Deep. Exploratory. Real and Raw.

📧 Contact Me: Georgie@Triggerconversations.co.uk

List #5: 30 Ways to Create and Cultivate Community

30 Lists of 30 to Celebrate my 30th Birthday

The What & Why Behind This Project:

So, Back to Lists…

List #5–30 Ways to Create and Cultivate Community

Written by Georgie Nightingall