It was probably easier to find community in the past, when people relied on their neighbors a lot more. Similarly, most of us had an easier time creating social communities when we were very young. Our friends tended to be those with whom we went to school, or lived a few houses down from us. Some platforms focus more on knowledge sharing, while others are more geared toward social engagement and shared experiences.
As a creator and a brand in your own right, you’re the one who’s going to suffer if something goes wrong. So, the online community platform you choose needs to have absolutely top-notch customer support and be able to help your members when they need it. When picking an online community platform, especially as a creator or digital entrepreneur, monetization is key. Platforms that don’t give you enough options are essentially locking off different revenue streams, and you want as many avenues as possible https://tracylarson.livepositively.com/ open to you. Thinkific is built for creators who want to sell courses, memberships, and communities.
- When searching for niche online communities, use specific keywords related to your interests or needs.
- No person is an island, and to have a “community” means that you’re part of a web that offers support and friendship to varying degrees.
- Be respectful, contribute valuable content, and engage in meaningful conversations.
- Hivebrite’s standout features are its AI networking and multi-tiered mentoring tools, practical for professional and alumni networks.
Podia combines digital product sales, websites, and community management in one affordable tool. It’s great for creators just starting out or running small communities. Circle gives you a clean, branded community with real-time chat, courses, events, and embeds so it feels native to your site. This expands upon the tip about starting a meetup-type group of your own if you can’t find one that suits your own mix of values and interests.
Vanilla offers companies a chance to build customer support and engagement, access to a knowledge base, and useful integrations. It includes knowledge bases, Q&As, gamification, and useful business automations. The downside to Hivebrite is that it’s missing a livestreaming feature, a drawback for virtual events. Disciple’s focus on branded apps also means that its web apps have been underdeveloped with more basic UX—a common complaint in reviews. Get your own branded apps and the expert support you need to launch and grow.
Red Flags In Intentional Communities (and How To Spot A Healthy One)
Sign up to join our network of nonprofits, social-impact corporations, and community groups using Idealist to find volunteers. Since merging in early 2025, our combined organization is connecting more individuals with social-impact opportunities than ever before. Discover 100,000+ unique ways to volunteer, with opportunities for virtual and onsite opportunities to support 56 different cause areas. With expertise, humanity, and intuition, Cynthia asked targeted and guided questions that helped lead me to define and refine what I am seeking in a community. She is personable, easy to relate to and steadfast in her knowledge of intentional communities.
After my journey to 200+ communities around the world, I built my home and am living my dream at an ecovillage in Vermont in the US. Addressing health-related social needs is important to our overall health. LearnWorlds has a good mobile app and you can livestream a course too. Kajabi’s community AI tools are also limited to creating marketing copy, course outlines, and scripts–essentially AI text creation. In a FriendMatch world, friends gather for brunches, book clubs, or just to hang out. Couples host cheerful dinner parties and runners all have running partners.
Higher Logic Vanilla Cons
And brands and creators are building some amazing online community spaces, both free and monetized. Whatever the reason you find yourself needing more support, seeking out people to lean on is a worthy endeavor. Support groups—specifically, online support groups to help accommodate the social distancing precautions of the pandemic—might be just what you need right now. Here’s everything you need to know about virtual support groups and how to find one.
When you’re in the process of writing down all the values and interests you’d like to weave into your social web, be sure to make another list about everything you bring to the table. When you’re determining what’s important to you, please also be honest about your motivations for looking for a new community. I’ll use one of the examples I mentioned early on, namely a new parent who’s looking for a social circle they can relate to. The key here is to determine what kind of community you’re looking for.
FriendMatch connects you with people looking for real, platonic friendships — not dating. Create your profile, explore members worldwide, and start meeting new friends who share your interests. Whether you’re looking to make professional contacts, find a trivia team, or join a film club, Meetup makes it easy to meet people. Support groups are gatherings of people (virtually or IRL) who share common ground in some way and can offer each other emotional support, according to the Mayo Clinic. Or they might share a marginalized identity, such as a sexuality, gender, or race, that influences the challenges they face when moving through the world.
In The Rooms has 69 live online AA meetings weekly, so there’s bound to be… A resource that helps connect users with therapists, Zencare also has a list of virtual groups for support and connection amid the pandemic. Some are external support groups and some are moderated by vetted Zencare therapists, such as Coping Skills for Everyday Life or Managing Return to Work Anxiety. Support groups are priced based on weekly or monthly rates, but insurance and sliding scales are available for some. To find one, use their Find a Therapist search, toggle to the “support group” option, then search by keyword. It might require some experimenting—you can search “online” or “virtual,” or by your location, then manually seek out the online options therein.
Most online communities are safe, but it’s important to review their privacy policies, guidelines, and moderation practices. Avoid sharing personal information unless you’re sure the community has strong privacy protections in place. If you do choose to explore other communities, approach the process with a fresh perspective and an open mind.
If you have some time to spare, then this is a great way to get involved in a community that aligns with your values and interests. Think of this like a platonic version of the OKCupid dating app. You’re asked a ton of questions about your values, interests, etc. and then rank them in order of importance. After that, you’re matched with others who share said interests by percentage. Meetup offers both online and remote groups too, so you can take part even if you’re stuck at home for a while. For example, if you’re interested in getting together with people who share your ethnic background or language, and also want to discuss tabletop gaming, this is the place to find them.
And it doesn’t have the membership business tools that dedicated community business platforms do. Discord has a community forum-type engine that supports different kinds of content, stickers, emojis, video, and more. How do you meet new people when life is busy, when you need a change, or when you move to a new city?
If software gives you everything you need to run your community business without a lot of integrations, it’s an all-in-one. We’ll round out this list with LearnWorlds–a great course platform with a basic community platform attached. LearnWorlds is a SCORM-compliant course platform with a website-builder attached. It also has some useful marketing tools, things like customer sales funnels, email, and affiliate programs. Wild Apricot is a community management platform created for nonprofit organizations.
If you divide your time between several different interest groups, you may be delighted to discover that you’re seeing some of the same faces in these different places. Pretty much every neighborhood out there has a need for some kind of volunteer work. This may entail dropping off warm meals to homebound elders, walking dogs at a shelter, pitching in with a community garden project, or sorting items for a local library sale. One of the best ways to get involved in a community (and thus help to expand or cultivate the one that’s right for you) is to be of service. Use it to connect with fellow runners, cross-trainers, pilates/yoga enthusiasts, weightlifters, etc.