The guide to building meaningful communities

May 2017 – Version 1.0
The guide to building meaningful communities
Community
Canvas
The
Guidebook

Community
Canvas
2
We have spent the last 15 years building and participating in communities
and found tremendous joy in them. And we have come to realize that while
every community is as unique as the humans in it, many of them share a
similar, underlying structure.
Based on our own experience and with the generous help of leading
community builders, we have identified the first version of this structure and
turned it into an openly accessible framework: the Community Canvas.
We hope this will provide a template for people to build more meaningful
communities and bring as much joy to your lives as communities have
brought to ours!
How can we help people create more meaningful communities?
A Sincere Thank You
The Canvas would never have been
possible without the countless hours
of insights provided by so many
community builders across the
world - we are incredibly grateful for
your contributions. We owe this
Canvas to your generosity and the
amazing work you all do! More.
Intro
Fabian
Pfortmüller
Nico
Luchsinger
Sascha
Mombartz
The Authors
More about us here.

Community
Canvas
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Intro
For us, a community is a type of organization that brings people together
and makes them feel like they belong. It ideally gives them an identity that
they proudly share. And it provides a framework to trust each other more,
support each other more, collaborate more and build more meaningful
relationships.
We have developed the Canvas for anyone who brings people together with
the intention of creating meaningful, long-lasting relationships. We hope
this framework will be useful for people running a diverse set of
organizations, from fan clubs, to HR departments, alumni organizations,
startup incubators, fellowship programs, weekly meetups of outdoor
enthusiasts, and much more...
Who is this for?

Community
Canvas
Community
Canvas
O V E R V I E W E X P E R I E N C E S T R U C T U R E
I D E N T I T Y
The Community Canvas
4
The Community Canvas has
3 Sections
Identity, Experience, Structure
which in turn are divided into
17 Themes
O V E R V I E W

Community
Canvas
Community
Canvas
O V E R V I E W E X P E R I E N C E S T R U C T U R E
I D E N T I T Y
The 3 Sections
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1. Identity 2. Experience 3. Structure
Strong communities have a clear and
explicit sense of who they are, why
they exist and what they stand for.
These questions influences all other
parts of the community and that is
why Identity is the first section, but
also visually at the core of the Canvas.
Explore Identity
In the second part of the Canvas we
explore the community from the
perspective of the members: what
does actually happen in it and how
does it translate its Identity into
concrete activities that create value
for the members? Explore Experience
The third part of the Canvas focuses
on the operational elements of
running a community. And while many
communities start enthusiastically,
only few survive in the long-term. This
section asks: what gives the
community stability and helps it run
smoothly? Explore Structure
O V E R V I E W

Community
Canvas
O V E R V I E W I D E N T I T Y E X P E R I E N C E S T R U C T U R E
Themes
Purpose
Member Identity
Values
Success Definition
Brand
At the core of everything is the Identity. It involves questions
of belief and influences all other parts of the community:
who are we and what do we believe in?
Identity
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Section One

Community
Canvas
Purpose
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Why does the community exist?
→ What does the community hope to achieve?
→ How will the world be different by having this
community?
→ How will the world be worse off if this
community doesn’t exist/ceases to exist?
→ How will it affect the lives of members if they
are part of this?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Ideally, everything in a community - its members, its activities, its
processes, its values - point back to and strengthen the same thing:
the organization’s purpose.
Two kinds of purposes: Communities either have an internal
purpose, an external purpose or both. An internal purpose is only
concerned with the community itself and its members - it may be
about helping each other or exchanging knowledge (imagine for
example a community of neighbors living in the same building). An
external purpose wants to have a collective effect on the world
outside of the community - for example by advancing a certain
cause, a product, a lifestyle, a particular interest, a business or a
movement.
Internal purpose: Communities that only have internal purposes
very often do not explicitly define and state them; they derive it
implicitly from forming the community. It is helpful to be more
precise in stating what the objectives are, as it helps align
members’ expectations.
External purpose often with internal purpose: Almost all
communities with an external purpose also automatically have an
internal purpose, but the internal one often stays unnamed. It is
important for a community with an external purpose to reflect how
it creates value for the members. While an external purpose might
be important and essential to the organization’s existence, we have
observed many people joining such communities just as much for
their internal purpose, and the value it creates for them, as their
interest in the external purpose. For example, many leadership
organizations with the mission to improve the world around them
create most value for its members not necessarily through the
pursuit of their external mission (even though that mission is a
crucial part of its reason to exist). For members, the biggest value
often comes from the relationships they get to build with peers
within the organization.
Purpose
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Reflections
Community
Canvas
Influencing purpose: It’s worthwhile to reflect on who can influence
the purpose of the community. Sometimes communities are not
independent, but part of a larger organization’s mission. In that
case, while the community might have their own purpose, they
ultimately are part of a larger mission. For example, when
corporations launch communities, the corporation’s interest might
be different from the community’s own objectives. It is important at
the outset and throughout the experience to ask if the two interests
are aligned and to identify potential conflicts.
Purpose
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Community
Canvas
Member Identity
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→ What are the traits that its members share?
→ How does the community describe its
members?
→ What is the profile of the community’s most
active members?
→ How does the community take special care of
them?
→ How is diversity defined and what is its role?
→ How is diversity enacted in all parts of the
organization?
Who is the community for?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Communities are always “for” someone - a group of previously
disconnected people who share one or several commonalities: a
shared identity.
Examples of commonalities
→ Geographical: people living/working in a specific place.
→ Ideological: people sharing a specific view of the world.
→ Experiential: people having gone through similar
experiences, or having shared experiences.
→ Social: people belonging to the same or similar social
group, e.g. ethnic minorities or working in the same
industry or being part of the same age group.
→ Affinity: people having passions or interests for the same
topics, e.g. being fans of the same music group.
→ Personal: personal traits, e.g. being afflicted by the same
medical condition, or scoring similarly on the Briggs-Meyer
scale.
In smaller communities shared identities are easily guessed. But as
communities grow in size, it is important to be explicit about what
defines the identity of the members.
Not every commonality is equally well-suited to form the basis of a
community’s identity. In order for the community to come together,
the commonality (or set of commonalities) has to be part of every
member’s self-identity - they have to define themselves at least
partially through this commonality. Thus, it would be hard to build a
community of people wearing black-rimmed glasses, because for
most of the people wearing glasses is not an important part of their
identity. Often, a community’s identity is defined by a combination
of commonalities.
Member Identity
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Reflections
Community
Canvas
Super users: Every community has people who are more actively
engaged than the average. These are the most valuable members,
because they are the community’s most active supporters, its early
adopters to new initiatives and its biggest fans to the outside
world. Their energy and enthusiasm feeds all parts of the
community, and their disengagement can be dangerous for the
stability and health of the group. That is why both young and
mature communities profit from understanding their profiles and
motivations, and finding dedicated ways to take special care of
them. This can be through involving them in building the
community, giving them special roles (→ Experiences >
Membership Roles), or communicating with them more closely (for
example with a dedicated Facebook group where they receive news
before the general membership hears about them).
Member Identity
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Diversity: We have found mature communities to be intentional
about the diversity of their members. Most communities gain
significant strength and value from a more diverse pool of
members (as long as they still retain their commonalities and
shared identity). However, diversity often doesn’t happen naturally
or easily. Strong communities design their selection processes with
diversity in mind, but a true dedication to diversity goes further:
making sure that a diverse group of people actually feels
comfortable and welcome in the community, and creating event
formats and rituals that speak to the strengths of all types of
members. Ideally, diversity is an integral part of all aspects of the
organization.

Community
Canvas
→ How do we want our members to treat each
other?
→ How do our values help fulfill the community’s
ultimate purpose?
→ What is the “vibe” of our community?
→ What is the aspirational way of life our
community promotes?
→ How do we capture and communicate our
values, both internally and externally?
Values
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What is important to us as a community?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
A community is a unique opportunity for a group of humans to
treat each other in a special way, maybe in a better way than they
would without the existence of the community structure. But in
order for that to happen, the community has to first agree on what
it believes in.
A shared set of values is incredibly powerful. It represents an
aspirational way of life for the community and provides a north star
for all actions and interactions in the community. Ultimately,
knowing that they believe in similar values will help members
create deeper and longer lasting bonds.
Defining values: We believe that there is a huge upside to making
the values explicit. However, defining values can be tricky: usually
they can’t just be mandated from above and often they don’t
naturally emerge from the community itself. Successful
communities find a balance between modelling the values from the
top and co-developing it with the larger membership base. Even
though this process of formulating values is not straightforward
and can be painful - especially if co-developed with a larger group
of people - ultimately the community will gain strength by
collectively discussing what it stands for and it will plant the seeds
for the development of a shared identity.
Values
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Reflections
Community
Canvas
Embedding values: Ideally, values are not just nice sounding
statements, but consciously embedded and highly visible
throughout the organization. To do so, successful communities
have found ways to break the values down into practical and
applicable pieces.
For example, we have seen communities ask prospective members
to explicitly commit to their values (through a shared experience or
ritual). Just like businesses ask new users to sign off on their terms
and conditions, communities can ask new members to sign off on
their values.
Making values tangible: Some organizations decide to display their
values in the form of a manifesto. Others turn them into
“principles”, which are not as intangible as values, but also not as
obligatory as rules. They represent an aspirational commitment
made by everyone in the community to live by a certain way of life.
Examples for this code of conduct can be found in the 10 Principles
of Burning Man, the 12 Principles of Alcoholics Anonymous, or the
7 Unitarian Universalist Principles. Other organizations embed their
values in guidelines for gatherings, like for example the Circle of
Trust Touchstones by the Center for Courage and Renewal.
Values
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Community
Canvas
→ What does the ideal community look like?
→ What kind of membership in the community is
considered a success?
→ What kind of value does the community create
for its members?
→ How does the community measure success?
Success Definition
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How does the community define success?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Success Definition
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A lot of what a community does and stands for is intangible. But in
the end, it will only succeed if it has a clear and unified goal it keeps
consistently aiming for over time. That is why it is crucial for
communities to spell out what an ideal membership experience
looks like, what value it wants to create for its members and to turn
that into a measurable definition of success.
Defining success is often not straightforward. For communities
with a clear external purpose, success might be tied to a
measurable form of “impact”, but communities with internal
purposes often have very soft success criteria.
Measuring trust: Trust among the members is one of the most
important success criteria in communities with internal purpose,
but it is also among the hardest to measure. A possible approach is
to define a proxy - an action or interaction that happens regularly in
the community as a result of increased trust - and measure that.
One could, for example, measure how often
community members are invited to fellow member’s weddings, or
how many community members stay at each other’s places when
they travel - both potential proxies for closeness. In reality, however,
it’s very hard to collect data points.
Measuring activity: Another important success criterion is
sustained activity levels over time. Most communities see high
engagement at the beginning of a membership which then dwindle.
Successful communities find ways to keep their members engaged
over longer periods of time and make that retention explicitly part
of their strategy.
Defining KPI: Even though measuring success is tricky, we believe
it is valuable to define success indicators from the very beginning
and start tracking them. These will likely evolve and become more
sophisticated as the community progresses. And there is a positive
re-affirmative cycle that can happen as a result of it: if members
know what the success criteria are and see them being tracked,
they know that the organization takes them seriously and in return
they take the organization more seriously.

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Often the different success indicators don’t exist in a vacuum, but
in relationship with each other. For example, if the success criteria
are 1. people paying membership fees and 2. people showing up to
events, is it still considered a success if people pay fees, but never
show up (as experienced for example in certain religious
communities)?
Examples of success criteria for communities with
internal purpose
→ Member activity & retention
● Attendance at events
● Online activity
● Newsletter opening rates
● Website traffic
● Volunteer engagements by member
→ Member growth (by location, overall)
→ Member experience
● Trust felt
● Number of members hosted at own place
● Responsiveness: how quickly do members
respond to other members?
● Generosity of support: how much do members
support one another?
● Celebration of birthdays and other meaningful
moments
● Shared intimacy: display of laughter/tears in
public, shared vulnerability
→ Fundraising
● Yearly/monthly fees raised from members
● Fees raised from alumni
Success Definition
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Community
Canvas
→ How does it use language, visuals and objects
to strengthen its identity?
→ What is the community’s esthetic?
→ How does the community’s brand reflect its
values?
→ How does the community communicate its
identity to the world?
Brand
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How does the community express itself?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
This is an area with a tremendous potential impact many
communities overlook. A carefully chosen brand is more than just
packaging, but represents how the community expresses its
purpose, values and overall identity. While the community is a very
abstract thing, its brand and experiences are the visible
manifestations.
A strong community brand can further unite the members, as it is
something that the members collectively own and proudly share
amongst each other.
Language: Carefully chosen words matter a great deal.
Organizations naturally tend towards professionally sounding
corporate language. Successful communities don’t sound like
corporations, they consciously communicate like the humans they
consist of and they mirror their style, tone and approach. They
consciously reflect their values through the kind of language and
words they use. A great example is Daybreaker - an early morning
dance movement for millennials in different cities - and their use
of language, particularly the word “mischief”, emoticons and their
conscious choice of visual imagery that both represents their
mission and their young urban audience.
Defining language in a community
→ What words are important and act as anchor? Does the
community consistently use them in its communication?
→ What tone of language reflects the values? How can the
tone of conversation bind the members further together?
→ How does the communication reflect a real human
member?
→ Who is the communication coming from? Is it a real
person or a dehumanized “info@community.org” address?
Is the person’s name in the communication? The person’s
signature?
→ With what words does the community describe itself?
What words does it use to describe its members? Do
these match the community’s values?
Brand
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Reflections
Community
Canvas
Design identity: Some communities think of design as an
unnecessary luxury, but we find strong communities to have a clear
sense of their esthetic and their own design identity. While today,
many interactions with a community’s brand are online,
traditionally, communities would reflect their brand through
artifacts, physical objects, that further strengthen their sense of
purpose, their values and their overall brand. Examples include
uniforms, badges, rings, clothing items, hats, necklaces, stickers,
notebooks and other merchandise.
Storytelling: An important element of a community’s brand is how it
shares its own activities. How does it capture the events,
gatherings and people in the community? Does it use photography,
video, podcasts, text or other media to capture it? What style of
storytelling reflects the organization's values? Its brand identity
influences the content the community creates
(→ Experiences > Content) and the channels it uses (→ Structure >
Channels & Platforms).
Brand
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Community
Canvas
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The second part of the Canvas explores the community
from the perspective of the members: what happens in the
community and how does it create value for the members?
Experience
Section Two
Themes
Member Selection
Member Transition
Shared Experiences
Rituals & Traditions
Content
Rules
Roles

Community
Canvas
O V E R V I E W I D E N T I T Y E X P E R I E N C E S T R U C T U R E 23
→ Is this an open or a closed community?
→ For open communities: what marks the
difference between a member and a
non-member?
→ What is the onboarding process for new
members?
→ How are the people identified who should be
part of the community?
→ How actively does the community want to grow
and add people?
Entry Point - Member Selection
How do people join the community?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Open vs closed: Anyone can join open communities, while closed
communities employ some sort of selection process. If a
community is completely open, an important question becomes
what the difference is between a non-member and a member, and
how a member even knows that they are a member. An open
selection process can make a membership experience more
inclusive, but at the same time more fuzzy, as the overall frame is
less defined. It therefore can be beneficial - in both open and closed
communities - to have members join explicitly and possibly in
connection with a shared rite of passage.
Closed communities sometimes have an air of “elitism” due to their
selective nature. A transparent selection process can partly offset
that.
Selection process: There are a different ways of structuring it.
→ Invitation/nomination: People are invited to join the
community, either centrally or decentrally.
→ Application: Potential members have to apply to become
members, and are evaluated by a committee. The
committee might be internal or external to the
organization, people from dedicated staff, or organized in
a decentral way.
→ Referral: People have to be referred by current members
(or a subset of them) in order to apply.
→ Geographic restrictions or time restrictions:
Applications/new members are only accepted from
specific places and/or during specific time windows.
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Reflections
Community
Canvas
Onboarding: We have observed successful communities to be
intentional about how they not just select, but then carefully
onboard new members. A strong onboarding process includes the
following elements:
→ Making the new person feel welcome and safe in this new
environment.
→ Actively familiarizing them with the community’s core
beliefs, purpose, rules and guidelines.
→ Clarifying what commitment is expected from them.
→ Showing them how to make most out of the community.
→ Directing them towards a clear first few steps that will set
them out on the right path.
→ Helping them make first connections within the group.
We find that onboarding works best if it is as personal as possible:
A call or even face-to-face meeting with the new member(s) are
preferable to a standardized email.
Growth: A surprising number of communities don’t have a
conscious plan for growth and continued renewal of the
membership base. If the community thinks growth is important,
what measures does it take to achieve it?
Identifying potential members
→ Inbound identification: Potential members self-identify and
then actively seek out the community and membership in
it.
→ Outbound identification: The community, or its governing
organs, identify potential members. This can happen
centrally (e.g. through research) or decentrally (by letting
existing members, or parts of them, extend invitations or
make referrals).
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Community
Canvas
→ Is there ever an end to the experience or does
membership continue on indefinitely?
→ Is there a separate structure or experience for
people who have left the community (e.g. an
alumni community)?
→ How does the community handle inactive
members?
Exit Point - Member Transition
How do members leave the community?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Most communities think about how the experience starts, but many
do not have a plan how the experience ends. Limiting the
membership experience might feel like a disadvantage, but we have
seen many communities use it to their advantage: it makes the
actual experience more intense and increases activity levels and
retention during that core phase, it provides a clearer narrative for
the experience with a start and an end point, as well as defined
moments in between.
Defining the end: There are different ways of setting boundaries for
a community experience: based on time, based on achievements or
milestones, based on adherence with guidelines and rules, based
on other criteria (e.g. if they pass a certain age, or are not based in
the same location anymore, or if a majority of members feel a
membership should be terminated).
Alumni: People leaving successful communities often have a
strong sense of shared identity that can last for many years beyond
their actual membership. This can be further enhanced and
empowered by channeling members into a alumni community. The
alumni community can operate on a spectrum from being
completely independent from the original community to being a
core pillar of it.
Inactive members: Most communities have a core group of very
active members, a group of somewhat active members and then
some totally inactive members. Ideally, a community has rules in
place that clarify what defines a member as “inactive” and
processes for how to either re-engage them or transition them out.
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Exit Point - Member Transition

Community
Canvas
→ How do the individual experiences connect to
the community’s overall goals?
→ Why are certain experiences more important
than others?
→ How are shared experiences organized: is
everything organized top down for the
members? Or do members organize
experiences for each other?
→ Do the shared experiences speak to a diverse
group of members?
Shared Experiences
What experiences do members share in the community?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
From the perspective of a member, the shared experiences are
what makes up the core of the community. These experiences lead
to more interactions which lead to more trust among the members.
There are endless possibilities how humans can come together,
both in real life and virtually, from a monthly dinner hosted at one
member’s apartment, an annual summit, a weekly group video call,
a weekend retreat at a big house outside the city, a bi-monthly
support group meetup, a Wednesday morning 6am group workout,
a joined trip to a new city, a pitch event in front of an audience, a
weekly group meditation or a 6 week incubation program.
Consistency is everything: More than specific formats, we have
found that rhythm and a reliable sense of repeatability play a huge
part in making shared experiences more effective. Consistency
gives members a sense of safety and signals to them that the
community and the relationships are something to invest in for the
longer term.
Top-down vs bottom-up: Shared experiences can either organized
top-down, by the people running the community, bottom-up by
members of the community or by both. This distinction is on the
one hand about scale and logistics. But on the other hand it is an
important part of signaling to what extent running the community is
a shared responsibility. If everything is provided from the top,
members will get used to the fact that everything is served to them
and expect that going forward. Designing shared experiences
purposefully with members in charge can have larger implications
across the whole organization and its overall mindset of shared
responsibilities.
Simplicity wins: In general, younger communities tend to create
rather sophisticated and complicated formats, while more mature
communities tend towards simple and repeatable formats. In the
long-term simplicity leads to consistency and repeatability.
Shared Experiences
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Reflections
Community
Canvas
Diversity: Smartly designed experiences keep in mind the diversity
of the group and speak to all members. Many communities tend to
design more heavily for extroverted members, while introverted
members or minority members often feel less welcome and
included.
Further questions for developing shared experiences
→ How do the different formats represent and strengthen the
community’s values?
→ In what rhythm do these formats happen?
→ Is there a chronological order between the different
formats? Does one start with experience x and then move
to experience y?
→ Are all members invited to all experiences or just to some?
→ Are all voluntary or some/all mandatory?
→ Whom do the different formats serve? Between hyper
local to totally global, what is the reach of each format?
→ How do the formats empower or hinder the diversity of
members and diversity of thought?
Shared Experiences
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Community
Canvas
→ Which rituals deepen the bonds among
members?
→ Which rituals embody the community’s values?
→ Which rituals mark specific milestones in the
membership experience?
→ Which rituals happen online?
→ Which rituals happen in person?
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Which rituals enhance the community experience?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Rituals and traditions are recurring actions designed to strengthen
a sense of belonging and, well, community. In contrast to shared
experiences, rituals have primarily a symbolic value, and can be
very personal. Often, their goal is to add deeper meaning and
significance to “administrative” actions in a community, such as
adding new members for example.
Choosing rituals and traditions: As the saying goes, there is only a
choice between tradition and bad tradition. Traditions will come up
naturally, so a community ideally sets them consciously.
Thoughtful communities design these rituals with the community’s
purpose and values in mind, initiate them from the top, and keep
insisting on them, until the members naturally enact them
themselves.
Rituals and traditions within a community fall roughly into three
categories
→ Rituals that exist to continuously strengthen the bonds
among members
→ Rituals that exist to embody the community’s collective
values
→ Rituals that mark milestones in the membership
experience
Rituals to strengthen bonds among members: There are many
small yet powerful ways how we, as a group, can signal that we
care for each other, that our relationships matter and that new
people are welcome. For example, some communities have a
tradition to announce the birthdays of its members. This gives
members a reason to reach out and celebrate each other. Some
communities always make sure that everyone says hello to each
other at an event, no matter who is there. This makes any
newcomers automatically feel welcome and shows a dedication to
taking care of everyone. We observed one ritual in a community of
cyclists who meet every Saturday early morning to go on a ride
together. They have a tradition that they will wait for anyone who
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Reflections
Community
Canvas
has posted a brief “good morning” on their Whatsapp group that
morning. This tiny action shows both the dedication of the
individual to the group activity, but also that the group will take care
of the individuals in it.
Rituals to embody the community’s values: Values can be a very
abstract thing. Rituals are one way of making them tangible. For
example, we have observed communities with the value of
“presence” to live a tradition that encourages people at their events
to turn off their phones and put them in a box at the entrance. Or
another community encourages its members not to bring business
cards and not to talk about work, as it values “informality and
“genuine relationships, not transactions”. Some communities
choose to keep certain rituals a secret, as a way to increase the
value of the ritual and strengthen the bonds of members.
Stages of membership: Rituals are also powerful tools to
ceremoniously mark different phases of a membership experience.
They become a rite of passage as the member passes from one
stage to the next.
Examples
→ Rituals marking the beginning of the community
experience. Examples: welcoming new members online
and asking them to introduce themselves,
commencement event, initiations, hazing, welcome
dinners, 1:1 welcome Skype call with the community
organizer.
→ Rituals marking growth or progress in the community.
Examples: communion when people turn 16, weddings,
birthdays, rites of passage.
→ Rituals marking the end of the community experience.
Examples: graduation, final demo day.
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Community
Canvas
→ How can the community tell the stories of its
members?
→ What content will create deeper bonds among
members?
→ How do members contribute valuable content
to the community?
Content
34
What content creates value for the community?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Every community inevitably produces and consumes large amounts
of “content”: knowledge, insights, stories. Many communities use
content as an important tool to shape their members’ experience
and bring members closer together.
Value of content: Content and its distribution within the community
(→ Structure > Channels & Platforms) can create different kind of
value for the members:
→ Exposure to peers: featured members receive exposure
among a trusted group of peers with their ideas, projects,
lives.
→ Inspiration by peers: members appreciate the community
more, because they are inspired by other people who are
part of the same community.
→ Inspiration by activity level: members appreciate the
community more, because they see how much is
happening within the organization.
→ Intimacy: members feel closer to each other, due to
learning personal, behind-the-scenes stories about each
other.
→ Learning: members learn from the experiences, stories or
best practice of other members or other geographical
hubs within the community.
→ Collaboration potential: members identify an opportunity
to collaborate thanks to a story about another member.
→ Pride: members feel a stronger sense of pride to be part of
the community thanks to the kind of stories that are told
about the community itself.
→ Cross pollination: members are more likely to connect
with a member from a very different geographical area,
industry or background.
→ Non-hub engagement: members feel part of the
community, even though they are geographically not in
one of the hubs of the community with a critical mass of
people.
Content
35

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Examples
→ A foundation with fellows distributed allover the world
shares news from its own members and their progress in
a monthly email. Even though members don’t have many
chances to connect in person, this email strengthens their
sense of shared identity and creates reasons for members
to reach out to each other, even if they don’t know each
other yet.
→ When hosting our 2012 Global Summit with Sandbox, we
co-created a book (The Sandbox Playbook) with everyone
attending about what people had learned at that summit
and published with Bloomberg Businessweek. This
became a proud symbol of collective achievement and a
manifestation of the diverse minds within the
organization.
→ Daybreaker, a monthly event series happening in different
cities across the world creates a video about one event
where a community member asked his girlfriend to marry
him during the event. This video makes you realize that
this is not just an event you’re attending, but this is a
community that cares about each other on a more
profound level.
Content
36

Community
Canvas
→ What does the community expect from each
member?
→ What can the member expect from the
community?
→ What is considered “out of bounds”
misbehavior?
→ What are the rules for online interactions?
→ What are the guidelines for in-person
gatherings?
→ How does the community deal with inactive
members?
Membership Rules
37
What are the community’s rules?
→ What happens if someone doesn’t follow the
rules?
→ Which entity has the authority to create, change
and enforce rules?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Communities are mini-societies and a clear set of rules makes the
interactions easier and the overall organization more stable. While
governance (covered in section 3: Structure) focuses on decision
making for the overall organization, this section looks at the rules
that guide the membership experience.
Setting expectations: Successful communities explicitly define
what the expectations are towards each member. If every member
knows what is expected, they can contribute accordingly (or
choose not to). The member will also take the organization more
seriously if they know that everyone has signed up to the same
expectations, thereby making it more likely that they will be met.
The community’s success definition (→ Identity > Success
Definition) offers a great starting point for defining these
parameters.
Conflicts: Enforcing these rules isn’t always easy. Many
communities tend to be conflict-shy, as they hope to optimize
overall trust and social cohesion. Even more so it’s important to
define in advance if the rules get enforced and if yes, by what entity
(→ Structure > Governance).
Setting member expectations - three areas are especially important
to define:
→ Commitment
● Is there a definition of what it means to be an
“active” member?
● What duties does a member have?
● Is there a minimal engagement for a member to
stay part of the community? What is it?
→ Etiquette
● How do members agree to interact with and treat
each other?
● Does the etiquette relate to the community’s
values, and if yes, how so?
→ Accountability
● What happens if someone breaks the rules?
● Who keeps the group accountable?
● What makes people take the rules seriously?
Membership Rules
38

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Inactive members: Many communities have inactive members. It’s
a good idea to have rules and processes in place to either
re-engage them or transition them out. To do so requires the
community to define what “active” means - and members need to
be aware what level of activity is expected from them.
Examples of expectations to members
→ Commitment to show up at least 3 out of 4 times.
→ No sales to members.
→ Confidentiality about what is being said within community.
→ Confidentiality that the community exists (secret society).
→ Showing up prepared to monthly meetings.
→ No phones, laptops, distractions during conversations.
→ Members can’t give advice, only share their own
experience.
Self promotion: Many communities - especially ones with an
internal purpose - want their members to actively share what they
are working on or what they need help with. This exposure creates
value for the member sharing their project. However, there is a
danger that the community becomes a platform for self promotion.
Mature communities find a balance and set clear rules for when
and how members can share their initiatives and ask for help. One
example that stood out to us comes from a community, where
members are asked not to promote their own things, but instead
have to find another member to post it for them.
Embedded rules: Ideally, the expected member behavior isn’t just a
written rule, but built into rituals and experiences. For example, if
the guideline is to create a technology-free space at events to give
full attention and respect to fellow members, a ritual can encourage
members to put their phones in a box when they first arrive at an
event. This is a simple and repeatable application of the rule. And it
not only makes living up to the community’s values
Membership Rules
39

Reflections
Community
Canvas
easier, the ritual also allows members to transition from the outside
world to the inside community with its own set of values.
Agreeing to rules: We have seen successful communities develop
a tradition of members not just being informed of the rules, but
having to explicitly agree to them (similar to a user agreeing to the
terms and conditions of a service). Some communities choose to
do this once, at the beginning of the membership experience. Some
do this regularly, for example once a year, asking the member to
confirm they are still committed to them. This acknowledgement of
rules can be packaged in traditions and rituals, such as the signing
of a “social contract” or by asking members to swear on them.
Membership Rules
40

Community
Canvas
→ Why do the different roles exist?
→ What are the expectations for each role?
→ What are the rules for how handovers and
transfer of responsibilities happen?
Membership Roles
41
What roles can members play in the community?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
As members navigate their way through the community experience,
often their roles change.
Some examples of roles
→ Freshly accepted member, to be inaugurated
→ Member receiving mentorship
→ Member providing mentorship
→ Leader of a local chapter
→ Leader of a certain topic or area of expertise
→ Community manager
→ Online community manager
→ Committee member
→ Senior member, about to graduate
→ Alumni
Setting expectations: Similar to the membership rules, it is
beneficial to be explicit about expectations, duties, rights and
benefits that come with each role. In particular it is important to set
clear expectations on how long a certain commitment lasts. We
have found successful communities to write actual detailed job
descriptions with clearly spelled out responsibilities, benefits as
well as time commitments.
Knowledge transfer: Communities often struggle with preserving
collective knowledge over time attached to certain roles. A clearly
defined handover process and a dedication to write down best
practice can help with that.
Membership Roles
42

Community
Canvas
43
The third part of the Canvas focus on organizational questions:
What gives the community stability in the long-term?
Structure
Themes
Organization
Governance
Financing
Channels & Platforms
Data Management
Section Three

Community
Canvas
→ How is leadership organized?
→ Who does what?
→ How is leadership incentivized for their work?
→ Who hires and manages staff?
→ What functions are considered critical for
survival?
→ What is the legal entity of the community and
what requirements come with it?
44
Organization
Who runs the community?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Every community faces the same questions as most other types of
organizations. But because the focus in communities is often so
intensively on the members and creating an amazing experience for
them, structural and managerial questions often remain
unaddressed.
Beyond the traditional management questions that apply to every
organization, there are a few organizational areas that deserve
special attention for the long-term stability of a community:
Knowledge transfer: because many communities are volunteer run,
leadership changes more frequently than in other organizations.
The transfer of knowledge from one generation of leadership to the
next is often poor or non existent, which creates instability and
leads new leadership to reinvent the wheel every time. Mature
communities address that by fostering a culture of documenting
knowledge and sharing best practice across the whole
organization.
Incentives for leadership: Many communities are volunteer run and
that’s part of the beauty of the model. But while running a
community is enriching, it is also a lot of work and can be
exhausting. That’s why assuming that leadership will work without
any rewards, incentives or reimbursements is not a sustainable
plan in the long-term. At some point, people burn out and need to
be replaced, or simply don’t have the financial liberty to volunteer
their time for free. It is in the community’s best interest to
empathize with their leadership and reward them for the work they
are doing. This doesn’t necessarily have to be monetary: there is a
wide range of options that go from symbolic expression of
gratitude to more pragmatic rewards such as supporting them with
a coach or mentor, giving their own stories more exposure or
collectively supporting their work outside of the community.
Board vs. management: Similar to what is common in most
corporations, communities profit from splitting day to day
operational and long-term, strategic responsibilities by creating
different entities for it.
45
Organization

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Defining minimal critical activities: Many communities experience
ups and downs. When a generation of highly motivated new
members come in and provide fresh leadership, the community
thrives, more financial resources are found and the portfolio of
activities the community offers is expanded. However, once that
cycle of excitement cools down, the community suddenly finds
itself with less resources to keep up all of those services and is
forced to scale back. This happens to many communities and is
part of the natural evolution. Mature communities are aware of that
and have defined what their critical core activities are that they
need to sustain for the community to survive in the long-term. And
once resources get tighter, they focus on ensuring those activities.
Some examples for core issues include: the selection process, the
support of the volunteers who run the community, the digital
gathering platform, a few simple but very consistent shared
experiences.
Examples for traditional community management roles:
→ Selection process
→ Onboarding of new members
→ Administration of member data and membership fees
→ Internal communication
→ External communication
→ Support of ambassadors / chapter leaders / volunteers
→ Concierge functions for the members: helping members
meet new members
→ Organization of key shared experiences, like an annual
summit
Legal entity: While communities can easily exist without any form
of entity in the short-term, more formal ones are usually built on top
of a legal entity, for example a non-profit. If this is the case, it is
worthwhile to consider who owns and/or controls the entity, and if
there are obligations to stakeholders of the entity who are not
members of the community.
46
Organization

Community
Canvas
→ What are the community’s decision-making
bodies?
→ How is decision-making power distributed or
concentrated within the community?
→ What gives the decision-makers their authority?
→ How are conflicts handled within the
community?
47
Governance
How are decisions made in the community?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
When communities start out, their decision-making is often very ad
hoc. As communities mature, their decision-making becomes more
structured.
Concentrated versus distributed decision-making: A central
question for many communities is how much decision making
power should be located in one central entity (founders, board,
full-time staff) versus the overall membership base. Centralized,
top-down decision making tends to be more efficient, consistent,
faster and clearer. Decentralized, bottom-up decision making tends
to scale better, get more buy-in from members and increase overall
excitement and trust of the members into the overall organization -
but it also tends to be messy and slow. Mature communities find a
good balance between the two, clearly defining what kind of
questions are addressed centrally, what decisions best made
decentrally and how the two are combined.
Examples for mixed decision-making:
→ Local chapter leaders have the power to run the
community independently within the formats provided by
the central global organizers.
→ Once a year the members are surveyed on strategic
questions, the leadership then makes the final decisions
based on the inputs from the members.
→ The chapter leaders survey their local members and then
all meet globally together with the community’s leadership
to decide and vote on strategic questions.
Different approaches for defining decision makers:
→ Birthright: being the founder of the community.
→ Earned: through seniority or merit.
→ Democratic: decision makers were chosen as
representatives of the group.
→ Hired management.
48
Governance

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Conflict resolution: Conflicts among members of the same
community are not uncommon. However, many communities are
conflict-shy and they try to avoid them at any cost. Mature
communities usually have put processes in place before an actual
conflict arises, so that a clearly defined procedure can be followed
in that uncomfortable situation.
These questions are important to define a conflict resolution
strategy:
→ If a conflict arises among members, who will deal with it
and how?
→ If a conflict arises between a member and the hired staff,
who will deal with it and how?
→ If a conflict arises among the decision makers, who will
deal with it and how?
49
Governance

Community
Canvas
→ How is the community financed?
→ How does it generate revenue?
→ Non-profit vs. for-profit: Does the community
have a profit motive?
→ Does the community rely on revenue from its
members (internal), or other sources (external)?
50
Financing
What is the community’s plan to be financially sustainable?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Most communities in the world operate without any structured
funding and are powered through the unpaid work of its volunteer
members. For the communities that operate with a budget, finding
a sustainable business model isn’t straightforward.
Examples for revenue streams:
→ Internal revenue streams: Membership fees, buy-ins,
donations, internal crowd-funding.
→ External revenue streams: Revenue generated through
community assets (consulting, sharing intelligence and
data from the community), through marketing-based
partnerships (sponsorships, advertisement), charity-based
partnerships (grants, fellowships) or other revenue,
unrelated to the community.
Internal revenue: We have observed modern communities to be
cautious about raising internal revenues from members and opting
for external revenue. This seems counterintuitive, as traditionally,
most communities have been financed almost exclusively through
internal membership contributions and it is the most obvious
channel to pursue. Internal revenue can have the advantage of
being more stable over time than external revenue and it has an
added positive effect that it makes members more aware - and
maybe more critical - of the value they receive from the community.
Raising membership fees is a direct measure of success and a
manifestation of how much the experience is worth to its member.
If members are not willing to pay membership fees, it’s a clear
indicator that the organization is not creating the right kind of value.
51
Financing

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Equality and diversity: The revenue model is often connected to
questions of equality and shows how serious it is about its
commitment to diversity: Does the organization want to exclude
people that can’t afford membership fees? Are there ways the
community supports people that can’t afford membership fees (for
examples through patrons or fellowships)?
An increasing number of communities are exploring a “pay as much
as you want” approach to membership fees to address issues of
inequality and get a direct feedback mechanism on value created
for the community.
Long-term funding strategies: For communities with long-term
timelines (with the aim to exist for more than 100 years), other
models are worthwhile exploring such as creating an endowment
and tapping alumni for financial support. US universities have
successfully pioneered some long-term revenue models in this
regard. Some communities are experimenting with their own
venture funds.
For-profit vs nonprofit: the most natural financial structure for a
community is a nonprofit entity, however with the rise of social
entrepreneurship we see an increasing number of community
builders exploring the avenues of a for-profit and at the same time
we see for-profit corporations start communities of their own. Our
experience and observations have shown, that the for-profit
structure can be dangerous if expectations are not managed very
carefully and everyone’s expectations are aligned. In the end, the
members’ trust is the most valuable asset the community has, and
a for-profit motive can endanger that in the long-term. This can be a
reason for for-profit organizations to consider making their
community a protected nonprofit within their larger organization, to
long-term ensure and protect the trust of the members.
52
Financing

Community
Canvas
→ What are the core digital needs of the members
and which platforms can fulfill them?
→ What is the existing digital behavior of the
members and how can the community integrate
into that?
→ Where does the community meet regularly -
physically or digitally?
→ How does the community communicate
internally? With the outside world?
→ What are the requirements of the community
towards their physical spaces?
53
What channels does the community use to communicate and gather?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Community first, platform second: we regularly see community
organizers start their endeavours by as a first act selecting a
platform and then building a community around that. Our
experience has shown the opposite: the community’s needs and
existing behaviors need to be understood first, then in a second
step the right platforms and channels can be found for it.
Understanding existing behavior and needs:
→ What needs do members of the community have that
digital tools could address?
→ What tools do members naturally use outside of the
community already?
→ What kind of platform will create the most value for them?
→ What tool will ensure the highest level of activity levels?
Activity levels trump smart features: often there is a trade-off
many communities face when it comes to their platforms. The
community can either develop their own technology with
tailor-made features that perfectly fit the member’s needs, or they
integrate into larger, existing platforms that the community already
uses, but with much more basic technological features. The
existing platforms, however, often see much higher activity and
retention levels than the more sophisticated tailor-made ones, and
we have observed many communities abandon their costly
developed own platforms to join simpler existing ones. In the end, it
is more important for the community to provide channels and
platforms that are heavily used, even if their functionalities are
poor. Platforms with existing user behavior, such as Facebook,
Whatsapp, Slack or LinkedIn, tend to create more active and lively
groups.
54

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Consistency before technology: we have found that while a clear
understanding of the channels and platforms is important, what
matters even more is rhythm and consistency, similarly to Shared
Experiences (→ Experience > Shared Experiences). It matters less
how the community communicates and what is communicated, as
long as communication happens regularly in a reliable manner.
Convergence of online and offline: Most communities start in one
medium (for example offline), but then over time tend to add the
counterpart. Offline groups that meet regularly will want to
exchange online as well. Online-only groups will want to meet
offline once they reach critical mass.
55

Community
Canvas
→ How does the community keep its member
contacts up-to-date?
→ How can members search for other members
within the community?
→ What insights are critical for the community to
regularly derive from its members?
→ How does the community capture insights and
knowledge generated in the community?
56
Data Management
How does the community manage the data of its members?

Reflections
Community
Canvas
Data management seems at first like a minor point, but as
communities mature, this point becomes crucial. The kind of data a
community decides to collect will shape the future form of the
community. Many communities struggle to find a consistent
system and repeatedly re-do their data management efforts again
and again.
Search: One of the key needs of many community members is to
find ways to look up other community members based on
background, experience, location, interests, etc. This creates a lot
of value for members, but isn’t easily executed. Most communities
doing this still use very basic tools, such as a shared Google Sheet.
Capturing insights: Many communities are treasure troves of
insights. When members share best practices, ask each other for
their favorite books on topic x or discuss philosophical topics, they
create information that would be valuable for other members, of
this and later generations. However, most communities don’t have
the capacity nor tools to capture those collective insights.
57
Data Management

Community
Canvas
Make it your own
58
Download Worksheets
Summary
This visual overview contains all 17 themes and the most
important question for each theme. This PDF is optimized
for printing the whole Canvas on one page.
Download
Comprehensive Doc
This Google Doc lists each of the 17 themes with all of
the relevant questions. This doc is for people looking to
select the relevant themes and create their own
community strategy.
Open

Community
Canvas
Where to go from here
59
Get involved
Join our Community
We created a Facebook group
for people building
communities. Join us if you’re
looking for peer advice,
support and best practice
ideas.
Community Builder Group
Sign up for updates
Leave your email if you’d like
us to message you when we
have a new version available,
when we publish case studies
for the themes or other
community building tools.
Sign Up
More about the Canvas
If you’re curious to learn more
about the Canvas and why we
created it, check out our
website.
community-canvas.org
All Community Canvas documents are released
under Creative Commons license BY-NC-SA
4.0. More about that here.

Community
Canvas
The development of this Canvas would never have been possible without
the countless hours of insights and feedback provided by so many
community builders across the world - we are incredibly grateful for your
contributions and we continue to learn so much from you. We owe this
Canvas to your generosity and the amazing work you all do!
We hope that by making the Canvas freely accessible to any community
builder - aspiring or existing - we get to share your knowledge and kindness
with the world.
Lastly, we look at the Canvas as work in progress and we are truly thankful
for any feedback or advice you might have on how we can improve future
versions. Please reach out to us, our contacts are on the next page. And
thank you!
60
A Sincere Thank You
A community effort
Special thanks to Christine Lai,
Casper ter Kuile, Angie Thurston,
David Spinks, Alex Simon, Daniel
Ospina, Mathias Jakobsen, Scott
Shigeoka, Anton Chernikov, Ryan Fix,
Michel Bachmann, Nettra Pan,
James McBennett, Konstantina
Zoehrer, Omri Bauer, and all
participants of the Community
Canvas workshops!

Community
Canvas
Fabian Pfortmüller is an entrepreneur and community builder based in NYC and Mumbai. He
runs COMMUNITY, an advisory firm that helps organizations build meaningful communities.
Together with Nico and others he co-founded the community Sandbox, a global community
for entrepreneurial people in their twenties. Most recently Fabian co-founded the lifestyle
brand Holstee, known for its Manifesto and monthly subscription.
Nico Luchsinger is a Zurich-based entrepreneur and journalist. He co-founded Sandbox with
Fabian, and led the organization until 2013. Currently, he heads up strategy and programming
at Asia Society Switzerland, a think-tank focused on exploring Asia’s role in the world.
Sascha Mombartz is a designer and founder of the Office for Visual Affairs – a branding and
user experience design studio in New York. Previously he worked at the New York Times and
at Google's Creative Lab, before co-founding startups in retail, tech and finally his own studio
to work with early stage companies.
We’d love to know what you think about the Canvas and how we can help
your community. Please also reach out to us if you have any suggestions on
how we can improve future versions of the Canvas! Email us at
team@community-canvas.org or get in touch with us individually below.
About The Authors
Get in touch
61
Let us know what you think!
pforti@gmail.com
@pforti
pforti.com
nico.luchsinger@gmail.com
@halbluchs
medium.com/@halbluchs
s@officeforvisualaffairs.com
@supermombartz
officeforvisualaffairs.com

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