Return on Involvement — The ROI of Communities
I saw a picture one morning on a friend’s wall, with no description to go with it, and it just blew my mind!!
In the business world, we think of ROI as Return on Investment.
“A profitability measure that evaluates the performance of a business by dividing net profit by net worth. Return on investment, or ROI, is the most common profitability ratio. ” more here
In our world, the world of communities, ROI (Return on Investment or usually what we have to show our bosses to prove our success) is usually measured by the amount of engagement, the level of participation and the growth of the community. But how can that all happen if we don’t invest a little in the “what’s in it for me” of the community members?
Becoming a part of a community has a very significant driving force behind it. We want to belong, grow and feel like we are a part of something that’s bigger than ourselves — a common shared goal that connects us, somewhere we can learn from each other and support each other.
We have to remember this and make sure that we have this at the top of our minds from the moment we even create the mission of the community we build. Here’s a question that we should ALWAYS ask ourselves:
What does my community member get out of being involved in the community? In other words what is their Return on Involvement?
When it comes to our community members do we ask ourselves — What makes them act? What motivates them? What can we as leaders do to maximize what they get from their involvement? How can we create an experience that will enrich them, teach them, support them, empower them and make them grow during their involvement in the community?
With such questions guiding us, we can make our communities thrive. Why? Because when the return on involvement is worth the return on investment we get the sense of belonging/satisfaction that fosters commitment, continuity and growth.
When it comes to measurement, you have to define first the goals and vision of your community. Once your purpose is clear then you can set goals for what you want your members to get out of the being involved in the community.
For example, let’s take a volunteer community that is strongly based on people volunteering their time, skills and talents. As a community leader, I have to ensure they get a return on involvement if I want to encourage continuity, achieve belonging and create a culture within the community where all stakeholders get something out of it.
Here are some examples of the questions you can ask yourself when building your ROI strategy:
Q: Do my members get more knowledge out of being involved in my community?
A: As a part of the community, my members can acquire new skills whether it be by participating in training courses, enrichment days, leadership sessions etc. These sessions, by the way, can be provided by other members of the community to create a sort of knowledge sharing ecosystem.
In this way, their return on being involved in the community is — “I get to acquire new skills and knowledge but I also get to share mine”.
Q: Do they get more empowered?
A: To empower someone means to give them the means to achieve something. It’s important to me that my core team feels empowered — that they feel supported and given the tools to succeed in their role.
In this way, their return on being involved in the community is — Active members are empowered to be leaders as well and supported along the way by their team and peers.
Q: Do they find connections and friendships?
A: People join communities to belong, to connect with people of similar interest and to feel like they are a part of something greater. Creating friendships and connections means that the member has expanded their circle, connected to other people and is on his way to finding the purpose to what they were looking for in a community.
So how can you measure all of that?
You can create a feedback survey that you conduct bi-yearly. In the survey, we ask the questions and ask the member to answer on a scale of 1 to 5. We can get some good statistics that way to gauge the success (or failure) of each of the criteria/goals we set ourselves — goals to achieve a return on involvement for our members.
I invite you to think about what was.. and the way ahead and how we can achieve return on involvement for ourselves and our communities.
PS.. It turns out that the picture is of a slide from a Blockchain conference and has nothing much to do with communities hehehe..
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,
Kat