Community vs. Audience
Why some donor communities struggle to scale
The difference between an audience and a community is which direction the chairs are pointing.1
Most organizations that convene donor “communities” seek to drive funding to the conveners’ own priorities. That means these organizations are building an audience rather than a community.2
As a result, most donors are left without a strong peer community. That’s a problem, because community is an important part of keeping people engaged for the long term.
One way to tell whether an organization is building a community or an audience is to see which of these two images best reflects its conference programs:3
My experience is that most conferences are 100% programmed as the lefthand model, with community-building left to happenstance in hallways and mealtimes.
The underlying incentive problem
Building community requires helping people to do what they want, not what you want. Therefore, organizations aiming to raise for their own priorities find it hard to invest in building authentic community, because it doesn’t advance their ultimate goal. In his great article “Why You Can’t Get Paid To Build Community,” David Jay describes the challenge:
The work of community becomes not about giving people agency to collectively achieve your shared goals, but about getting them to do what you want. The result is a community filled with bad conversations where deep connection and trust are rare. … [and] often becomes more about containing the creative possibility of community rather than enhancing it.
Fixing the incentive problem
It sounds obvious, but for an organization to focus on building community, I believe that it needs to set goals that focus on community-building. For a political funder community, this could look something like:
Interactions between community members4
New donors engaged (whatever they give to)
Individuals supported in relational fundraising (whatever they raise for)
Total funds raised should be a distant second to the goals above.5
Goals like these free an organization to be of genuine service to its members in achieving their own goals, and to treat its community as an end, not a means.
Closing question: Who have you found to be great at building communities, whether for political donors or any other group?
Audience or Community, by Chris Brogan. June 3, 2009.
This isn’t a bad thing! Existing donor-facing organizations have worthy priorities that need funding. I respect these organizations and wish for their success. But there is a still-unmet need for other, more community-focused work.
How to build community around your publication. January 7, 2020.
This is much easier said than done, and David Jay’s article referenced in this essay describes the challenge of measuring community quality. But even by imperfect measurements, I believe community building needs to be an organizational goal rather than a side effect.
Too much focus on total funds raised makes it hard to avoid chasing after the hugest and most-pursued donors, leaving merely large or mid-sized donors under-served.