The Benefits of Allowing Members to Host Community Events
The Optimization Series: Part 1
**The Optimization Series covers initiatives and tactics that will help to optimize the time and bandwidth of a community professional during times of budget cuts or reduced headcount.**
If you’re a community professional who’s being asked to do more with less (don’t you just hate that saying), then you’ll want to consider opening up an opportunity that will enhance your community calendar AND give your members a chance to be showcased.
Allow your members (or certain ones) to start hosting virtual and in-person events. You, as the community professional, don’t need to always be the one planning and executing events on behalf of the brand. That’s a benefit that can be bestowed upon specific community members to keep momentum going. It benefits the community member who can show off their expertise, AND it benefits the community to show a variety of different events being hosted by different people. Perhaps most important of all, it gives the community professional/team time back to focus on other initiatives.
I wish I could say that starting this is simple, but as with most community-related things, it is not. You’ll want to make sure certain things are in place so that the events continue to offer value while maintaining certain standards.
A number of communities are doing some version of this today. Some are starting with a basic events program. Others have made this part of their official user group program. Take a look at the examples below and see how different communities are allowing members to host events.
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Community-Related Event Programs
Community Folks takes the simplest approach amongst all examples mentioned in this article (ok ok I may have exaggerated up above when I said it couldn’t be simple) when it comes to approving event ideas from their members. If you are looking for the most minimal guidelines for starting your own event program, start with one like theirs:
Community Cold Coffee allows members to host online events and offline meetups. They call these people their “superheroes!”
CMX has one of the best user group programs I’ve ever seen, and I’m not saying that just because I’m one of those users/hosts for the LA Chapter. It helps to have a valuable tool like Bevy to execute on a program this large. I use CMX Connect frequently as an example of a successful and effective collaboration between their community and events.
TechSoupConnect
Per their website, “TechSoup is a nonprofit that equips changemakers with transformative technology solutions and skills that they need to improve lives globally and locally.” TechSoupConnect are events hosted by individual community members.
The overview link they provided is GOLD and a great template for any community program! Here it is again.
Camunda Community
Many thanks to Camunda’s Community Manager, Maria Alcantara Arceo, who shared some incredibly valuable insight into their program, as well ANOTHER GOLDEN LINK she provided at the end!
What was the catalyst for creating your user group program? “To give community members a place where they could come together to learn, exchange best practices, and talk about the industry's developments, including Camunda. A place that was local and adapted to their region and culture.”
What's been the biggest win with the program? “I think seeing the interest from the community to become Chapter Leaders is always a win, especially when they are motivated by attending one of the events and realize how much that could benefit their own community. Another big win is seeing talks that have been part of a meet-up become talks in CamundaCon or Camunda Summit. These are yearly world-wide events where they receive more exposure and attention.”
What’s been the biggest challenge with the program? “Helping Chapter Leaders host the second event. It sounds strange, but the first event is always easy to help them set up. If they host a second event within a reasonable time, then you know that they are on the right track. If it takes more time, I know that a little bit more nudging will be needed. And re-activating inactive groups. During COVID some groups went inactive and it's been a challenge getting them up and running again.”
Do you allow ANY member to host events? “We allow any member to apply to become a Chapter Leader. We then have an interview with them to make sure that expectations are aligned, and there are no surprises. The main reason for applications not progressing is lack of time from their side. They realize they won't have the bandwidth for it and decide to give a step back until they have enough time on their hands.”
Do members have to submit event ideas for approval? “No, they don't. They sometimes reach out when they are interested in hearing about a specific topic, and they are looking for an expert from our Developer Advocate team or from outside their own network.”
Do you have guidelines/standards for events? “Yes, we recently rolled out the Chapter Leaders playbook.”
Zendesk Community
Special thanks to Drew Frey, Senior Manager of User Community Programs for providing this info on how Zendesk distinguishes between customer-led events (User Groups) and company-led events (Zendesk Events.) Once again, we’ve been gifted with a VALUABLE LINK at then end, thanks to Drew!
What was the catalyst for creating your user group program? “Out of all of the fantastic events that Zendesk offers, there aren’t any that are 100% customer driven. Our User Groups are built for customers, by customers. We think that this will really fit in well with the rest of our company-led event mix and will provide a space for our customers to connect, learn, and share with one another.”
What's been the biggest "win" with the program? “The incredible enthusiasm and engagement we’ve seen! Before launching the program, we added an interest form to our site asking customers what they wanted out of the upcoming User Group program. We had hundreds of responses and it’s been fun incorporating their feedback into our plans. We’ve also seen many User Group Leaders apply too. We’ll be starting out with more chapters than I could ever have hoped for and this will offer us a great platform to build from.”
What’s been the biggest challenge with the program? “There are so many moving pieces to getting a program like this off the ground. It’s honestly overwhelming and you have to be ok with knowing that despite your best efforts, there is no way you’ve thought of everything. I look at this as a never-ending work in progress. There will be new policies we’ll need to put in place, a more efficient onboarding experience, or new ways to make the lives of our User Group Leaders easier. I think the biggest challenge is having to be ok with the fact that you’re probably going to miss something because there’s no way you can build every niche case into the program. However, that’s also the exciting and fun part about a program like this!”
Do you allow ANY member to host events? Does your team need to give event idea approvals? “We encourage anyone of our customers to apply to become a Group Leader! Once a leader is properly vetted and has gone through our onboarding and training sessions, they’re free to talk about whatever they feel will be most beneficial and valuable to their chapter members. We have feedback loops in place to help our Group Leaders source this information to make it as easy as possible for them.”
Do you have guidelines/standards for events? “We have a pretty robust User Group Playbook that covers everything a Group Leader will need to be successful. This playbook is more of a living document and includes technical documentation, do’s and don’ts, event marketing tips, event management best practices, and more. It’s meant to be somewhat flexible as the needs of the User Group program will evolve over time. We also made a point to clearly state what our Group Leaders are responsible for on our Group Leader page. That way only those that are truly interested will apply.”
Procore Community
Sending gratitude to Aaron Weiss, Procore’s Community Lead, for sharing these critical details and insight into his events strategy!
What is your in-person events program and its purpose? “Procore's mission is to improve the lives of everyone in construction. Procore Community Meetings has a total of 22 chapters (all led by customers!) that provide in-person or virtual meetups in cities in the US and Canada. We also host 3 "Professional Focus" groups that meet virtually exclusively. We've hosted 29 events this year to date and currently have 6 more in the coming two months. I'm so proud of this program, but I've only joined in the last month. All of the work to build our success in 2022 has been led by the incredible Allison van Dorsten.”
Are there guidelines for your in-person events? “Yes and no! We try to empower our customers as much as possible to take ownership of their own groups. However on our intro calls we definitely provide guidance on how to use the Bevy platform, recommend that they open events with networking and intros, and offer to send local Procore team members if they'd like a demo of our products.”
Can anyone host an event in your community? “Yes and no! We require that all of our Community Leaders apply and then go through a screening/intro call with our team before they get started. So anyone can host, as long as they're qualified.”
Do they have to host an event regularly? “We ask that our Leaders host events on at least a quarterly cadence. We find that to be a great rhythm to keep things moving.”
Are you making any changes to this program anytime soon? “Our goal is to get a more regimented approach to running these meetings. It is unfortunate, but folks sometimes start to drop off after hosting one or two events. Before we focus on expanding to new groups, we want to make sure all of the ones we've launched already are doing great.”
More Examples
Here’s a list of communities that also allow their members to host events (though I don’t have any further details than that). Check ‘em out:
Need help creating your own Events Guidelines or Program?
I ❤️ this aspect of Community. Let’s work together! Contact me.