How Chapters Can Benefit from Your Online Community

Gathering takes place in many forms. Your online community serves as that gathering place for your members when they need it – whether it’s in the middle of the night or in the wee hours of the morning. Local chapters are also needed gathering places for your members as it allows them to network and learn with others in their field, in their area, and have face time with dedicated volunteers of your organization who will help them grow professionally.The challenge that chapters seem to face is getting people to chapter meetings. This does not include long-time chapter members who have already made the commitment to engage. Members may join a chapter as part of their association membership and never attend a meeting. They may continue to pay their dues “just in case”, but never quite engage. However, those same members can be found having conversations and sharing ideas within the online community. Why do we see this happen? It could be a matter of convenience. To engage in the online community, members can take an hour on their lunch break to plug in and see what others are talking about. It could be a matter of preference. Or it could just be that members are not fully aware of the value that their local chapter provides.How can online community help bridge that gap and take online engagement, local? Work with your chapter development team to provide a little education.You may have heard concern that your online community is in direct competition with your chapters. When, in fact, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Chapter leaders have the same opportunity for networking inside your online community as other members do. The advantage they have is being able to introduce other members who are local to the area to the value of their chapter all by saying hello.If your community enables search by location, this is a great opportunity for chapter leaders to see who is in the area and introduce themselves. They can connect with the other members in the area with a simple introduction that goes something like this:“Hi, Anna! My name is John James and, from your profile, it looks like some we’ve got similar roles in our organizations. I’d love to exchange ideas on how to overcome the challenges that go along with this role, as I’m a bit new to it, myself. Let me know how if you’d like to talk more.”Notice there’s no mention of the fact that John is a chapter leader. There doesn’t need to be. John can list that tidbit about himself in his bio on his profile, but it doesn’t need to be the starter of a conversation. It’s important that John build a relationship with Anna first. That’s an important piece that will help him establish trust with Anna and he can introduce the chapter in a later conversation that could look like this:“Hi Anna! Great talk yesterday about how you were able to communicate the value of that project in a short amount of time to get buy-in from someone who had no context. I was struggling with this recently and some of the pointers you gave will really help me. Thanks for that! By the way, we’re talking about communication challenges at my chapter’s next meeting. I’d love for you to come and be a part of that conversation. Let me know if you’re interested. We’d be happy to have you!”This is a great transition from online engagement to local chapter engagement that started with a conversation between two people. There was no sell. There was no pitch. John started with a genuine interest in getting help with a challenge he was facing, and it opened the door for him to introduce Anna to the local chapter.You can also show your chapter development team how to help leaders understand how to use your community’s resources. When your community members are engaged, they share knowledge and exchange ideas on a regular basis. This could come in the form of an article, discussion, or case study on the lessons learned from a recent experience. Chapters should be using these resources to continue the conversation offline.Say your community held a webinar exclusively for members that spoke to how a recent standard that your association published supports the evolution of the profession you serve. The expectation may be that the chapters are delivering that same message at the local level. What better way to help them start (and continue) that conversation within their chapters than by having them rebroadcast that same webinar at their next chapter meeting. For your chapter leaders, this will take the guess work out of having to develop that content and hope that the message comes through consistently across the board.Chapters may also be struggling to determine how to help their members solve challenges they may be trying to work through. If your community builds templates or creates case studies that speak to the challenges members at the local level are experiencing, allow chapter leaders to repurpose that community content to generate discussion and provide guidance to their members. They can direct members to download the template or case study directly from the community, host a Saturday morning breakfast meeting at a local diner, and have a conversation around the content using examples from those in attendance to workshop their challenges and come up with solutions. In turn, chapter members walk away with a stronger sense of having a trusted network in their local chapter that they can turn to when facing a challenge in their daily work.Community managers need to make sure that they are working with the different stakeholders within their organization to continue to provide value to those that they serve. Yes, you have a responsibility to your community members, but that’s not the only responsibility that you have. Helping to build a strong sense of community outside of the walls of your online community not only strengthens the relationship your members have with the association, but it supports the fact that your community is a central point of gathering and reinforces the value that it holds.How does your online community support connecting people locally through chapters? What struggles are you facing in this area?