165 - How to Design and Facilitate Thriving Communities with Anamaria Dorgo

Creating, maintaining, and growing a community is not for the faint-hearted. It’s an ongoing process of trial and error that requires a huge amount of commitment.

But, if you can get it right, you will see the value and joy it can bring.

As the curator of NeverDoneBefore - a relatively new community - I’ve started to geek out on all things community-based. This episode is the culmination of this obsessive interest, as I speak with Anamaria Dorgo - Head of Community for Butter and founder of L&D Shakers - about what it takes to curate a true community.

Find out about:

• Why your definition of community will determine its success
• How great community practice and behaviour emerge from great modelling
• How to choose the right platform for your community
• Why engagement is the holy grail - and how to avoid chasing it into extinction
• What happens when you focus on members’ motivations for joining, not your vision of the community
• Why a community that’s started purely for financial reasons will never succeed

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

Thanks to our sponsor Deckhive. Click here to find out more about the new platform for using card decks in online facilitation. Use the code workshopswork to get the first month for free.

Exclusive offer from Facilitator Cards for workshops.work listeners you can get 15% off your entire purchase at shop.facilitator.cards by using code workshopswork.

Questions and Answers

Part one 
[01:55] When did you start calling yourself a facilitator - if you do?
[06:04] What's the difference between a trainer who delivers training and a trainer who facilitates?
[11:51] Can one be a 'manager' for a community? 
[13:29] What was the secret sauce that made your community take off? 
[15:23] Can you give an example of when your actions didn't align with your words? 
[21:30] How to balance creating a community with leaving space for things to emerge. 
[27:10] Is there a difference between a community manager and a community facilitator
[28:05] Creating community engagement.
[31:14] What was your experience of creating that initial engagement between members
[35:17] Do you have a specific onboarding process or team? 
[39:38] What are the differences you've noticed between your voluntary community of L&D Shakers vs. the commercial community of Butter? 
[44:36] How do you handle the fact that every member of the Butter community is a potential client?

Links

Connect to Anamaria:

On LinkedIn

On Twitter

Any thoughts? Share them with us!

Support the show

✨✨✨

If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/