What can you do as a community lead to improve inclusion?

Meetup held on 10th July 2020

On 10th July, we kicked off a Community of Community Managers. And what better topic to start off with, in this political climate, than inclusion.

Recent political events are opening society’s eyes to structural inequalities. These inequalities and power dynamics affect communities, networks, clubs, societies and associations too. We got together 20 community professionals to share their top tips on maintaining an inclusive environment.

Here’s what we came up with:

Wider strategic actions:

• Give a platform to diverse range of people who are experts in their field.
• Feature speakers that reflect different groups in your community, and their views.
• Create guidance to encourage people to take positive action. E.g. Ringfenced tickets.
• Look at structures & strategy you put in place. Give yourself time to look at outreach.
• Success metrics — how do you know that you are doing well?
• Diversity at more senior levels sadly quite low — include operational staff within the community. Also, talk to people on the grassroots and frontlines get their perspective.
• If a senior group is needed, encourage diverse colleagues to provide input into these groups as a spokesperson.
• Hold different types/styles of events at different locations.
• Use language that is inclusive throughout your community and communications.
• Have an inclusivity lead for your community.
• Use technology to broaden your reach, and in turn your diversity (which gets around localised diversity issues or underrepresentation).

Smaller actions:

• Have open & honest conversations about diversity & inclusion, and what you need to do to improve as a community.
• Coach & support peripheral members of the community. To bring them to the fore.
• Delegate small tasks to invite people to be more active.
• Collate ideas on community activity from community members.
• Offer people the chance to participate on their own terms.
• Reach out to existing communities or groups which support diverse groups e.g. Women in Tech, to publicise the community and to raise awareness and welcome them in.
• Create a code of conduct for community meetings.
• Create a checklist of inclusion considerations.
• Ask people explicitly about accessibility preferences. Don’t assume they will volunteer information.
• Ask people about what makes people feel excluded — easier for people to identify problems than solutions.
• Release topics & agenda beforehand, allow people to share thoughts.
• Consider timings — regular timings are not always inclusive.

Considerations:

• People don’t always tell you what they want in surveys.
• Don’t expect people to come up with strategies to make themselves feel included.
• Be aware of the “time tax” before you ask someone for help. A lot of people are being asked for their expertise as a favour, or for free. This is another form of exploitation.

Sign up for our mailing list, to find out about our event first: https://mailchi.mp/2be28c61a31d/community-architects