The recipe for building an offline community
With all the hype surrounding online communities, you’d almost forget that communities existed pre-internet, too. In fact, many tactics that work online come from what we know about physical communities. In this blog we focus on how to build communities the old fashioned way.
As with online communities, the key question is why this group would want to come together. For communities where people want to be part of their own accord, there should always be a good reason for wanting to meet.
Purpose of the community
The best communities help participants achieve their personal goals. In these communities, the group goal aligns perfectly with the individual goals. The groups we want to belong to symbolize a future version of ourselves. We need them to become who we want to be.
The Crossfit community, for example, allows participants to realize their personal aspirations for a healthier lifestyle. An essential part of the community is that participants encourage each other to achieve their fitness goals. In addition, individually achieved goals are celebrated with each other. People become members of the Rotary because it helps to advance their careers. The agreement among members is to grant each other new business; one of the reasons there is a preference for having as few of the same professional groups in the group as possible.
This is in contrast to professional associations where everyone practices the same profession. The reason for participation here is that members want to improve their competencies by learning with and from each other. A modern example of this is the so-called TikTok Houses. Residents of these houses are all independent content creators. There they share tips and tricks of their relatively new profession with each other, so that the level of everyone individually gets higher.
TIP: Establish the mission of the community together with the participants.
Small-scale meetings
Many offline communities meet in smaller contexts. There is a practical reason for this. Logistically, it is difficult to bring large groups of people together on a regular basis. But there is also a purposeful reason behind it. In small groups, the intimacy in which mutual trust develops is more likely to occur.
The members in these small groups get to know each other well over time. They are an important stick for each other to show up. In Crossfit, groupmates make sure you keep up your good resolutions. In small groups, people have a duty of care for each other. In addition, participants are more likely to show their true nature. Conversations are more personal and in-depth. Strong and authentic relationships are more likely to emerge, and the group becomes strongly interconnected.
A commonly used format for such meetings, are so-called circles. The idea is that everyone sits in a circle, to emphasize the equality of all participants. Sheryl Sandberg, a member of the Board of Directors at Facebook, set up Lean In Circles in 2013. The mission is for women to help each other in their fight for equal rights. There are now fifty thousand different circles worldwide. If you want to know more or working in circles, you should definitely check out The Circle Way.
TIP: Optimize and structure the community for small-groups.
Shared experiences
People who go through an intense experience together build bonds for life. This is one of the reasons sororities invented hazing. The year groups that go through such a hazing together start to feel great togetherness. It is a modern rite de passage.
Now, by no means do I want to advocate hazing, but the principle behind it is to create emotional experiences instead of the standard gatherings. A standard gathering quickly runs the risk of superficiality. Most organizers know roughly how it works, and tend to see it as a fill-in-the-blank exercise. This rarely results in memorable moments. An experience, on the other hand, is by definition unique, and makes participants actively involved rather than passive listeners.
The Burning Man festival is an example of such a life-changing experience. It once started in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, but now has numerous local variations. The idea is quite revolutionary. Participants in the festival, bring their own provisions. A barter economy arises on the spot, where performances are paid for with food or drink, for example. Nothing is wasted and everyone leaves no leftovers afterwards. The festival is also dedicated to radical self-expression. Freely translated, this means that everyone appears in unique attire. Because many of the festivals are organized in a desert, people are very dependent on each other. People who have been there say that you don’t really understand it until you’ve been there. They go through life afterwards as “burners.
Another example is the Daybreaker community. This community also started in America, but is now organized all over the world. The ritualized experience here is to dance together in the morning. It’s not about the alcohol, or pretending to be other than you are. Play and creativity are paramount. Participants have fun with each other and find each other in this. In addition, for many it is a step towards a more conscious lifestyle, paying attention to yourself.
TIP: Design experiences for the community.
Let participants participate
Being at home feels nice for everyone. The reason is that we have put our time and energy into decorating it. We have made the space our own. That’s why most of us also experience a sense of pride when we clean our home.
To everything we put something of ourselves in, we assign greater value. This is known as the Ikea Effect. Every community can make use of this effect by challenging participants to set things up themselves. In neighborhoods you often see residents maintaining a vegetable garden or a small park together. Burning Man shows that this can also be done on a larger scale. Without participants, all that remains is an empty desert. The participants form the organization. They make the artworks that are there, organize the performances that take place and build the infrastructure.
This is also how TEDx was set up. CEO Chris Anderson noticed that people wanted more than just to listen and watch:
People wanted to co-create with TED, not just sit back and listen in the audience. And TED gave them the chance with TEDx, volunteer hosted events of TED like talks that happen in communities around the world.
Opening up the TED format to volunteers has caused a worldwide expansion. There have now been thousands of TEDx events and every language imaginable.
TIP: Start projects that are run or co-created by volunteers.
Empower the members
Because offline communities come together in small groups, scaling is difficult. You can overcome this by giving participants roadmaps and guidelines on how to organize meetings themselves.
Impact Hub is a community of startups and freelancers who want to work towards a better world. There are now about a hundred different physical locations. The growth of Impact Hub has been rapid because you can start your own Impact Hub in any city, as long as you fit in with the philosophy of Impact Hub. The community guides this process and makes resources available. This lowers the threshold enormously for new local initiatives.
The aforementioned TEDx also facilitates volunteers optimally. If you want to start your own TEDx event, there is an abundance of material available (logos, corporate identity manuals, online training, scripts). You can also contact other organizers, or ask your questions in a specially designed forum. Participants who want something can get started right away.
TIP: Establish playbooks and procedures for community tasks.
Create rituals
One advantage of playbooks that contain a procedure for meetings is that they can become rituals. As community builders know, rituals are the building blocks of any community. We shake hands when we meet and we toast when we celebrate. Small rituals that make us feel connected.
The Daybreakers Community has made dancing a ritual. There is a set time: the morning. There are fixed rules: no alcohol. And there is a dress code: colorful sporty. And do we remember Occupy Wallstreet? There, General Assemblies were used to make decisions. All sorts of rituals applied in this consultative structure. Because it was often very busy there, participants could indicate what they thought about something with hand gestures.
TIP: Discover and name the rituals of your own community
