What’s in My Backyard? Local Global Communities
Community is a concept that most people associate to their geographic location. People normally equate community with their “local community” or neighborhood. You have apps like Nextdoor and Patch that promote neighbors communicating with one another. How can your association maintain that sort of intimacy with members from across the globe?
My organization has 150,000 members in 177 countries. The challenge we have seen over the past few years is how to engage members across the globe. If you are part of a larger chapter that spans many miles, it’s harder to communicate and connect. Local online communities empower your organization to engage members from across the country and the globe. We’ve seen many challenges and tragedies over the past year, but the silver lining has been a surge of virtual communities and events that allow your members to connect from no matter where they are in the world. A member doesn’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on airfare and hotels to connect with like minded professionals from across the globe.
Subgroups
When we launched our online community platform, the focus was subgroups for committees. But groups were also created for local sections and branches. I’m a strong believer that the geographic groups are the best use case for our local leaders. They can share events, resources, and facilitate conversations between members. If you can connect members in countries around the globe by empowering local leaders to facilitate these conversations – you might have the secret engagement sauce. I’m going to get “into the weeds” and talk about specific community functionality that can empower local groups to succeed.
Event registration - Our world is full of virtual events. How do you get members to register and sign up for virtual events? If your leaders can sync the data you collect with your database and form a better picture of event registration as it relates to your organization's database. They have a much fuller picture of engagement data.
Email subscriptions - Local groups like to use platforms outside of your tech stack because they can track and contact members after they have unsubscribed to your organization. I have lots of conversations with our leadership about how important it is to allow members to opt in and opt out of communication. Using the community platform allows members to choose communication subscriptions that are society wide.
Membership directories - As a member, the number one reason to join a local group is to connect with those close to you. That’s what subgroups provide for members. They can search the directory based on location and glance at the members of the group and message them. These sorts of connections are what local communities thrive on! How can you as a community builder take this opportunity and make it the most valuable experience for your members?
In closing, how can you empower your global leaders to reach and engage their membership? I believe subgroups of online communities answer this question. Subgroups give your local admins the tools and resources to be productive and efficient to reach their members to help them engage in the larger organization.