community-program

name	community-program
description	Design a community program around member value, audience, purpose, participation loops, roles, events or content, governance, moderation, measurement, and sustainable operator workload.

Community Program

Use when creating or revising an ongoing community initiative rather than a one-off post or event.

Procedure

1. Define the members, shared reason to gather, value they receive from one another or the organization, and what the program is not intended to become.
2. Identify desired member behaviors such as asking, answering, sharing work, attending, mentoring, creating, testing, or welcoming newcomers.
3. Design recurring participation loops and formats that make those behaviors easy without requiring staff to generate every interaction.
4. Define roles, recognition, contributor pathways, volunteer or ambassador boundaries, and staff ownership where appropriate.
5. Establish community rules, moderation, escalation, privacy, and safety practices before scale increases consequence.
6. Plan onboarding and re-engagement so members understand norms and can find a useful first action quickly.
7. Measure health through participation quality, contributor distribution, response, retention, sentiment, and member outcomes rather than raw member count alone.
8. Review operator workload and retire rituals or channels that consume effort without member value.

Decision rules

• Community exists when members create value for one another, not only when a brand broadcasts to an audience.
• Growth in membership can hide declining participation quality.
• Staff should enable healthy loops rather than becoming the only source of activity.
• Governance and moderation are part of program design.

Quality gate

The program is ready when member value and desired behaviors are explicit, recurring participation can sustain beyond staff broadcasts, onboarding and governance are defined, operator workload is realistic, and health metrics measure meaningful member outcomes.