Future Community is a blog and newsletter dedicated to sharing experiences, ideas and stories that define how we build and manage community. We looking for innovation, inspiration, case studies, lessons from history and efforts to redefine the future.
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Articles
- Why people stay
Can we build email, donor and supporter lists with value and trust instead of churning through names? Let’s recognize the value people seek in organizations and invest in giving them value and keeping them around. - Give people stuff they can use
In late-2021, Intuit completed its acquisition of the once wee newsletter provider Mailchimp. Intuit paid $12 billion in cash and stock. Substack announced this week that newsletters hosted by the platform had over 20 million active subscribers and 2 million paid subscriptions. Some folks think there is money to be made in email. Given the financial structures needed to host, […] - How scale kills campaigns
We’ve long been told that we need scale for impact. What if our quest for growth and reach sacrifices impact? Here are four ways to seek social impact and growth without scale. - On Imagination
The world’s biggest problems can often be traced back to a complete lack of imagination. We fail imagine a better future. We see broken systems as unchangeable. We fight over the meaning of history (in books, politics, immigration, economies, gender and so much more) because we don’t have the capacity to imagine the systems for living together in abundance. Organizations, […] - Complete Control: The Clash on corporate social media and email.
The Clash were known as a band who loved their audience. They also demanded control over their music. They learned that corporations control communication between band and audience. This was the 1970s, long before social media. But their experience offers insights into how organizations control (or don’t) their communicat - Boom goes the Twitter: 5 lessons about content and community as Twitter implodes.
Many of the nonprofit-oriented email lists and Slack groups I am on have had multiple threads titled (more or less): what are you doing about Twitter? So far, the smart money isn’t betting against Twitter: “don’t leave…wait and see…maybe set up over on Mastodon or something…download your Twitter history…surely it will exist in some form so keep your group/personal account […] - Why We Need a New Organizational Operating Language
The case for community-centered languages that help groups succeed in chaos and complexity. Organizations exist in a complex landscape. It’s hard to make sense of economic, political and climate chaos. How do you make plans for hiring and fundraising when you face existential questions about the ability, even the need, to meet your mission? The nonprofits/NGOs with whom I typically […] - How community drives narrative change
Narrative change happens in communities. Here are key questions you need to answer about community when doing narrative work. - Community Language
A look at how language builds community, can leave people behind and and ways to open up community language. - Grief and the future of community
Should organizations, campaigns and movements that build community or run membership programs do more to acknowledge grief and engage in ways their members experience it? - Community and mutual aid
You’re not building community if you’re not building infrastructures for self-healing and sustainable mutual aid. Potential and problems for a mutual aid focus in community. - Membership architectures to create power
We talk with Ben Pollard, the founder of London-based Local Welcome about building community, crafting leadership, learning and resilience.