The holiday season is centered around sharing and giving. With this in mind, we reached out to Community Managers using Hivebrite's platform to ask them to share some of their best community building advice!
Association for Project Management (APM) is the only chartered body for the project profession. The APM Hub community provides an online member benefit space for networking and knowledge sharing relating to the project management profession.
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Our online community platform is a place for the Association for Project Management individual members and students to connect Every community is different, but most respond well to very similar discussions, and we have provided a place that allows members to express themselves freely with other project professionals. We encourage all of our members to ask questions, discuss and debate all things that interest them, whether they have just started or have years of experience in project management and related professions. We believe that the art of a community is getting members to express themselves. The more expression, the more activity. If all members use open expressions, it will drive people to revisit the conversation and become better acquainted with other members. Debbie Bird, Online Community Manager, Association for Project Management |
The CERN Alumni Network enables former employees to keep in touch with CERN and each other. The alumni network encourages former Members of Personnel to become ambassadors for CERN’s mission and values and supports its members with their future career development.
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The CERN Alumni Network was launched from scratch in June 2017 and has now reached over 7,300 members. My top tip for developing a thriving community is to build relationships with key members; they will be supportive of your endeavours, spread the word about the network, and help gain influence. Our key alumni have contributed to creating content, participating in events and spreading the word about CERN alumni in their circles of influence. Make sure you thank them handsomely for their much appreciated time and implication – a hand-written card, a small gift are always appreciated! Rachel Bray, Head of CERN Alumni Relations, CERN |
CoLabl works with employers to develop connections with underrepresented talent through diversity and inclusion training, mentoring, and upskilling programs. The agency runs a scholarship community for members of Taco Bell Foundation's Live Más Scholarship program.
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"Keep it simple." Hivebrite offers several incredible features, but focusing on clarity at launch will ease the new user learning curve by minimizing noise. We rolled with a few "must-have" features, and as our members became more acclimated to the product and design, we slowly introduced additional elements. The Roles & Access Rights menu is key to turning off what you don't need. We also formed a closed-group advisory panel of power users that gives us a "gut-check" on new features. If it's not intuitive, I'd rather find out soon than later, which is why this group is a key component of our ongoing user engagement process. Michael Nemeth, Head of Digital Experience, CoLabL |
EIT Food is the world's largest food innovation community. It's building a future-fit, sustainable and healthy food system. EIT Food Alumni is the community that brings together the learners & startups from the EIT Food programmes to connect, share and learn from each other.
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Thanks to various targeted onboarding actions, the EIT FoodHIVE community has grown inactive members and engagement over the past year. Our welcome video, a help page with instructions for new members, welcome emails adapted for each member type helped more than 2.7k members understand how to get the most out of the platform. Especially explaining the value during virtual and face-to-face meetings has contributed to EIT Food's thriving community platform of agrifood innovators, researchers, investors, entrepreneurs, mentors, students and alumni. Don't implement just one onboarding action; go for a combined approach, and harvest the fruits of your labour Linn Vande Populiere, Online Community Manager, European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Food |
EIT Health promotes entrepreneurship and innovation in healthy living and active aging, providing Europeans with new opportunities and resources. Its Alumni Network keeps contact with talented people to share knowledge and new opportunities and lay the foundations for future innovation.
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When looking back at how our community has grown and matured in the last few years, one of the most important milestones for us was undoubtedly the setup of our Alumni Board and network of Local Representatives Having a dedicated and passionate team of ambassadors to help drive the development of new actions and champion the community has had an incredible impact on the growth of our network. It's important not to overlook the effect that a team of recognized members can have on the rest of the community. These familiar faces create a more personal and welcoming atmosphere that really allows your community to thrive! Robin Maxton, EIT Health Alumni Community Coordinator, EIT Health |
EIT InnoEnergy is dedicated to accelerating sustainable energy innovations. The CommUnity network is one of its unique selling points to attract new students to its Master programmes.
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Educate people on your community and its benefits as soon as possible to increase adoption and engagement. We have created a dedicated group for Master applicants within our online community platform. Here, members can get insights into what the community offers and contact other applicants, student ambassadors, and EIT InnoEnergy employees. Thanks to this technique, over 80% of our new students are already members of our community once they start their Master program! Nienke Swankhuisen, CommUnity Coordinator, EIT InnoEnergy |
Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) is the world's largest knowledge-led platform on sustainable land use, dedicated to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate Agreement.
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"Be curious! I would recommend talking to other Community Managers--sharing ideas and resources, and attending community management events. Hivebrite is a really great platform with lots to offer different organizations. They are constantly updating new features to improve the platform. The support team is always available to help, and their resources for community engagement are extremely useful." Anita Moragia, Community Engagement Officer, GLF |
Lindenwood Connect is Lindenwood University's alumni network. It offers lifelong benefits to all alumni.
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"Log into your platform daily and show your members you're listening to them and respond to what they say Recruit brand ambassadors to help drive engagement and new ideas. Just be aware that strong relationships develop over time. Rachael Heuermann, Director, Alumni Relations, Advancement & Communications, Lindenwood |
Multiverse, an education and upskilling business that connects organizations seeking apprentices with candidates. The Multiverse Community enables members to network, access resources to support growth, get involved with events, and more.
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Creating a sense of member bravery has been key in our online platform strategy - we've used this to underpin members' motivations to stay connected and regularly return to the platform to engage with others. At Multiverse, we have hundreds of new apprentices joining our Community each month and have shifted the focus of our Newsfeed to a space where apprentices can get a true sense of what our community is all about. We want members to use this space to ask questions, receive support, and share ideas - seeing members doing this organically encourages other members to do the same. This shift is working, and we're seeing results. We now have a space where bravery can blossom and thrive Zahra Behzadi, Online Community Manager, Multiverse |
neoHome is an invitation-only community dedicated to sustainable futures that helps individuals, not-for-profit and for-profit businesses reset how they think and act in the sustainability space. The global community is composed of trailblazers and experts in all aspects of sustainability from future food, health and nutrition, and climate change to the future of work and circular economy.
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Interrogate every development with the questions, “What is the end result you want from your action?” – be clear about the objective of setting up a particular group, say, or a function – and: “How does this contribute to the whole project moving forward?” You can spend a lot of time saying to yourself, it would be nice to have this and nice to have that, but I would suggest that it’s much better to start with a less-is-more mindset, and unless you have an extensive support team, build out slowly from there Fiona Matthias, Chief Curator, neoHome |
Startup Colorado’s peer-to-peer community unites entrepreneurs, founders, mentors, and business support agents to support the foundation and success of the State’s rural-based entrepreneurs.
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Create regular opportunities to have an organic connection in the virtual setting. We are currently having success with gathering community members in events that are structured but not too structured. The conversation is dictated by who shows up; we vote on topics and time the discussion, so we don't spend too much time on any one topic. We cover 3-5 topics over an hour, and there is a lively exchange in the chat window. Members are connecting virtually and in person after meeting at our events. Vanessa Copple, Community Engagement Manager, Startup Colorado Community |
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