Communities to join:

• #CommBuild on Twitter – Each Tuesday at 1-2pm EST, someone from the #CommBuild community facilitates a conversation on Twitter using the hashtag “#CommBuild”.  The community and event was started by Claire Sale and is promoted via NTEN as a community of practice group.  You can find their upcoming topics on the NTEN group page.  They have also put together a facilitator sign-up sheet (a nice examples of engaging community leaders) and they have created a handbook for facilitators (something all community builders should do).  This community is specific to nonprofits/social good efforts.

• #Cmgrchat on Twitter – Wednesdays at 2-3pm EST. More info on the Community Manager website.  This community is NOT specific to nonprofits/social good efforts.  I haven’t really followed these chats.

• Community Manager group on Facebook – I haven’t really participated in this.

• e-campaigning forum is an interesting listserv if you’re interested in the innovative use of social media for social good campaigns (based in UK)

• e-mint is another listserv for online community builders/managers but they do not focus on nonprofit/social good efforts

Websites/Blogs:

FeverBee is my favorite website right now w/ tips for online community builders.  Here are some of my favorite posts:
Community Mgmt: Planning the WeekCommunity Objective, Strategy, Strategy, Tactics, And ActionsIntroducing The Map – A Proven Process For Developing Successful Online CommunitiesGroundwire’s section on Engagement Strategy – Take a look around this section for thoughts on developing a theory of change, an engagement pyramid framework
TechSoup’s section on Building Your CommunityAmy Sample Ward’s blogBeth Kanter’s blogNancy White’s blog

Guides/Articles/Documents/Books:

• Net Gains: A Handbook for Network Builders Seeking Social Change – The handbook provides practical advice based on the experiences of network builders, case studies of networks small and large, local and international, and emerging scientific knowledge about “connectivity.” It is intended to join, complement, and spur other efforts to capture and make widely available what is being learned in the business, government, and civic sectors about why and how to use networks, rather than solitary organizations, to generate large-scale impact.  by Peter Plastrik and Madeleine Taylor
  Book: Online Community Management for DummiesBook: Managing Online ForumsBook: Digital Habitats: stewarding technology for communities (Wenger, White, Smith 2009)
  Post: 15 signs of a great community managerPost: Not all community managers are created equalPost: The simple secret to building communityPost: Building a great volunteer community teamPost: Managing community volunteers
• Post: The essential list of community builder’s resources
• Post: How to handle online criticism (and conflict) within the community

• Example of rules for dealing with conflict: Systers FAQ on What are appropriate ways to respond to emails on the list ?

• Flow chart made my US Air Force in responding to negative web posts

• Federal Gov’t Risk Management chart

• Post: Beth Kanter explores the social media / social networking posting workflow – helps you to determine HOW to respond to a post depending on whether it’s appropriate, inaccurate, low risk, high risk.
• Guide: The Community Builder’s Approach to Theory of Change
• Guide: The online community development process
• Specifically on measuring impact:
• 3 Online Traffic Indicators every nonprofit should measure
• Beth Kanter’s post on Social Media: Ask What’s the Impact, Not the Return!
• #commbuild chat on measuring impact – summary on storify
• Socious webinar on data-driven community management
• ThinkShout’s Engagement Score approach for Drupal sites
• UserPoints – Drupal module
• Engagement scoring: focuses on measuring the quality of these interactions by weighting the value of different types of interactions. For example, sharing an article from your website to a social network might be worth 5 engagement points, whereas commenting on a blog post might be worth 10 engagement points.
• Specifically on challenges related to privacy and online communities:
• Kristin’s post on the engineroom on How do we balance the responsibility to protect with a mission to connect?
• Beth Kanter’s post on The Networked Professional: Principles of Effective Online Networking

Upcoming Events:

• Nonprofit Technology Conference

Presentations:

• Kristin’s presentation at the Minnesota Council on Nonprofits conference on what it takes to build a community including the timeline and the steps (this presentation needs work)

Cool tactics:

• TechSoup shares positive feedback with the team/staff by using Storify each week to pull together the social media kudos.  Here’s an example.

Case studies:

Using a member appreciation month to spark community engagement – case study of NTEN

The Unfinished Business of the People’s Climate March – 350.org was hired to build a platform for organizing called the “hub” – this is a case study of how it didn’t work so great:

“What happened to the hubs platform makes clear that there is a need for tools and platforms to support and build movements that exist outside of traditional organizations, free from funding whims and windfalls or lack thereof. But it also underscores the fact that these tools will need administrators and facilitators. If there is one thing everyone I spoke to for this story could agree on, it is that you can’t just build it and expect them to come.”