11 Pillars of Community Philosophy

I've been building and researching communities for two decades.

Here are the 11 pillars of my community philosophy:

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

1. Communities are defined by who doesn’t belong

Exclude the people who make your members feel unable to have the important conversations they need to have.

Exclude with intention, exclude with empathy, but exclude you must.

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

2. You can’t convince people to do anything.

Your members are all at one of three stages:

1. The Convinced: eager to take action
2. he Undecided: needs a gentle nudge to take action
3. The Unconvinced: aren’t ready to take action

Always start with the convinced.

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

3. You need leader-community fit.

Everyone has the ability to build great communities but no one person will be great at building every community.

When the community is a group that you personally crave, you don’t need a community framework. Just follow your intuition.

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

4. People join communities for benefits, not belonging.

People primarily join communities to learn something new, to achieve a goal, to grow our status, to be entertained, to have fun, etc.

We only find and value belonging after we’ve been a member and formed relationships.

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

5. The word community is too broad to be meaningful.

To have a meaningful conversation about how to build a community, you must first clarify why you’re building one, and determine what specific kind of community will achieve your goal.

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

6. Communities don’t solve loneliness, relationships do.

If members aren’t forming deep relationships, your community is not solving loneliness.

Help members form a deep relationship with at least one person. You do that by engineering serendipity.

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

7. People need a balanced diet of community.

Not every community needs to be deep and meaningful. Not every community needs to solve loneliness.

Don’t be a community purist.

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

8. Great communities are weird communities.

The inside jokes, the strange rituals, the unrecognizable symbols... these are the things that make a community feel like magic.

When you see something weird taking form in your community, run with it.

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

9. People want to be welcomed, not onboarded.

Onboarding is for ships and airplanes. It’s orderly. It’s transactional. It’s optimized.

Welcoming is for communities. It’s personal. It’s messy. It makes them feel included.

Welcome members, one-on-one, for as long as possible.

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

10. All communities are born from past communities.

Take a look at any community and you’ll find a line, barely visible, connecting it all the way back to the start of humanity.

All communities are also in a constant state of change, constructing and deconstructing.

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

11. I know nothing about community.

The more I learn about community the more I learn how little I know.

Community is an enigma. Community is immeasurable. Community IS love.

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023

The 11 Pillars of My Community Philosophy

Read the full post in my newsletter today:

https://davidspinks.substack.[com]/p/the-11-pillars-of-my-community-philosophy pic.twitter.com/IFQQsmQyIg

— David Spinks (@DavidSpinks) June 13, 2023