We talk a lot about what is required to build and sustain communities as organizations and, along with it how to ensure communities produce value. One thing that I haven’t heard as much about is the commitment we require from our community members. However, it is impossible to have a productive community without member commitment. Whether the contract is implicit or explicit, a community only produces value when its members add value. While network structures work in such a way that members typically get more value out then they put in, a good percentage of members have to add value for that dynamic to work.
And yet, we are afraid of being explicit with our community members because we are afraid of how many might leave when they find out what membership entails. We’re afraid that maybe there will be no one left if we present the commitment in black and white. That is, indeed, a risk. In new communities asking for that commitment when the community is not yet producing a lot of value ultimately requires new members to take a leap of faith and commit to a vision – not the current reality. It’s hard to do – as relatively new community builders here at The Community Roundtable we know that all to well. However being explicit about the commitment you are asking for – whether that is in money, time, or information… or some combination of those – can be refreshingly clarifying in the following ways:
- It is brutally clear whether there is potential support for your community vision. If you cannot find people willing to step up to an explicit commitment, it’s time to re-assess the vision or approach. This is the community version of the recommendation to fail fast instead of fail slowly.
- You attract and include only those individuals who value what you are building enough to make a commitment and they are more likely to stick with you and engage until reality gets closer to your vision.
- You waste a lot less time and money because it is much harder to deceive yourself about your own success.
Different communities are built to produce different results and thus require different levels of commitment but regardless, I believe it is a refreshing dose of reality to have an explicit contract when new members join. Being explicit may reduce the number of community members initially but a higher percentage of those members will be aligned with the vision you have and are much more likely to create the energy around that vision that will ultimately attract a wider audience that is ready to commit themselves. We are typically so focused on making it easy to join but thinking about how to make it just a bit harder to join may, in the end, make more sense.
What kind of commitment do you ask of your members?
