The Community Roundtable

Empowering global community leaders with research-backed resources, training, and tools.

  • About Us
    • Our Values
    • Our Team
    • Our Clients
      • Client Success Stories
    • Community Leadership Awards
      • Community Leadership Awards 2024
      • Community Leadership Awards 2023
      • Community Leadership Awards 2022
      • Community Leadership Awards 2021
  • Services
    • Benchmarking and Audits
      • Community Performance Benchmark
      • Community Readiness Audits
      • Community ROI Calculator
      • The Community Score
    • Models and Frameworks
      • Community Maturity Model™
      • Community Engagement Framework™
      • Community Skills Framework™
      • Community Technology Framework™
      • The Social Executive
  • Research
    • The State of Community Management
      • SOCM 2024
      • SOCM 2023
      • SOCM 2022
      • SOCM 2021
      • SOCM 2020
    • Community Careers and Compensation
    • The Community Manager Handbook
      • 2022 Edition
      • 2015 Edition
    • The Social Executive
    • Special Reports
    • Case Studies
  • Events
    • Connect
      • Connect 2024
      • Connect 2023
      • Connect 2022
    • Community Technology Summit
    • Professional Development
    • Resource Bundles
    • Upcoming Events
    • Community Manager Appreciation Day
      • Community Manager Appreciation Day 2025
      • Community Manager Appreciation Day 2024
  • I’m looking for…
    • Community Engagement Resources
    • Executive Support Resources
    • Community Reporting Resources
    • Platform and Technology Resources
    • Community Strategy Resources
    • Community Programming Resources
    • Community Career Resources
    • Something Else
      • Vendor Resource Center
      • Community FAQs
      • Community Management Podcasts
        • Community Conversations
        • Lessons From The NEW Community Manager Handbook
      • Community 101
        • Community Management Glossary
        • Community Management FAQs
      • Case Studies
      • Community Webinars
  • Community
    • The Network
      • Member Login
      • Join The Network
      • Roundtable Call Library
    • The Library
      • Subscriber Login
      • Subscribe to The Library
  • Blog

Coffee fuels satisfaction, speed of responses in community management

April 1, 2016 By Ted McEnroe

(BOSTON – April 1, 2016) The first release of data from the State of Community Management 2016 survey finds that community managers who donate to charity have a higher level of community maturity than their more caffeinated peers. However, the findings show they are slightly less satisfied with their community culture than their peers. The data comes from the State of Community Management 2016 survey, which rewarded participants with either Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts gift cards or a donation to No Kid Hungry/Share Our Strength for their time commitment.

Screen Shot 2016-03-29 at 1.29.50 PM

Those who donated a $5 thank you to charity were more likely than their peers to be dissatisfied with their community, according to the SOCM 2016 report.

The data show that about 33% of people who declined a $5 gift certificate to Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts in favor of a donation to Save Our Strength were unsatisfied with their community culture, while about 30 percent of Starbucks fans and just one-in-eight Dunkin’ Donuts fans shared that dissatisfaction.

“It appears that Dunkin’ Donuts-fueled community managers are a motivated group,” said Rachel Happe, co-founder of The Community Roundtable. “This finding suggests that giving to charity, while noble, might leave under-caffeinated community professionals a little cranky, and that Starbucks fans might be better served with a little more happy juice and a little less caramel swirl in their morning brew.”

coffeeEven without caffeine, those community professionals who chose charity over coffee had a slightly higher overall community maturity – and more advanced communities on The Community Roundtable’s Community Maturity Model were more likely to give to charity, too. “Let’s face it, successful community managers sleep better,” said Happe.

Dunkin’ Donuts’ New England roots showed strongly in community engagement statistics, which showed Dunkin’ Donuts-fueled communities had far lower community engagement than Starbucks-fueled or charity-inspired communities. “‘I’m great, now go the f#$% away!’ was a pretty clear message from the data,” said Happe, who added she wasn’t surprised that the Starbucks-fueled communities were the most chatty. “Wait around for 5 minutes trying to get a seat in one of those places, and it’s clear there’s a commitment to connecting and collaborating over basically anything else.”

Caffeine does play a powerful role when it comes to community response times, though – community professionals whose communities had an average time to response of less than an hour were far more likely than the average to choose a coffee gift over a charitable donation. Asked about this trend, the community managers we reached out to spoke too fast to comment on the record.

By industry, a majority of survey respondents in all but one industry area decided to give to charity rather than go for the coffee. The exception? Nonprofits. Just 30% of respondents from nonprofits passed up the free coffee. “It makes sense,” said Happe. “Most businesses spend their work hours trying to get what they can for the bottom line – so they want to give something back. The nonprofit folks figure they ought to get what’s theirs for a change. And in this case, theirs is a grande half-caff vanilla soy latte with an extra shot.”

The data cited above from the State of Community Management 2016 survey is real – but will likely not be a part of the State of Community Management 2016 report, which is due to be released in late spring. To learn more about our actual research, visit https://www.communityroundtable.com/research.

About Ted McEnroe

comments powered by Disqus
Community best practices

Resources for the people who build online communities.

ABOUT US
Our Values
Our Team
Our Clients
Careers

RESOURCES
Vendor Resource Center
Podcasts 
Community 101
Case Studies
Webinars

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Benchmarking and Audits
Models and Frameworks
Research
Professional Development

QUICK LINKS
Blog
Newsletter
About The Network
About The Library
About The Academy

LOGIN
The Network
The Library
The Academy

Contact
Support
Partnership
Inquiries
Subscribe to
Our Newsletter