Professionals working in nonprofit organizations today have the tools to create and build engaged online communities using social media channels or other more sophisticated platforms. Whether the community is focused on a particular cause or issue, or focused on providing advice and free education, online communities have tremendous potential to help nonprofits connect with current and future supporters.

Nurturing a community online has many benefits for nonprofits, including exchanging ideas, increasing awareness about an organization’s causes, increasing donor engagement and more. But opting in — that is, gaining permission from supporters for ongoing engagement and interaction — is a key component of communicating in today’s digital world.  

Here are six steps to take before creating an opt-in online community:

1. Have a clear strategy and objectives – The rise of social media has been phenomenally fast. To catch up, many nonprofits have started using social media with a knee-jerk reaction. To build an active and engaged opt-in online community that will deliver value for all members, it needs to have a defined purpose and deliver focused content, which are typically identified ahead of time in your organization’s communications and content strategy.
2. Get a community manager – To be truly successful, an online community needs a manager who will implement the strategy, analyze results and identify the changes and improvements needed to make and keep the community successful. Not only that, they are mediating, facilitating and encouraging discussions while being a cause evangelist and attracting new members. The community manager is integral to all online communities as, without them, there is no one guiding the effort and nurturing relationships made online and offline.
3. Recruit core members to grow opt-in members – After you pin down your strategy and appoint a community manager, next you need to recruit a core team to kick start your community. Ideally, this should be a mixture of in-house experts, active donor advocates and cause supporters to give members an unbiased, valuable resource and space where they can learn and share.
4. Focus on quality, not quantity – Large numbers of members and statistics of lots of “Likes” are often seen as the best way to impress. Showing that you have a community with hundreds of members can be seen as a quick win when reporting to your board. However, if you’ve got 700 members and only a handful of them are active and engaged, then your community efforts can’t really be considered as a success. If, however, you have 150 members and the vast majority of them are taking part in and instigating discussions and reacting to the content that you post, then you’ve got a community.
5. Get active – Taking part in discussions and linking out to content in other communities is vital so that members can see that your community is part of a wider network. Also, people active in other online communities won’t necessarily be looking to interact with you. You must take the initiative, seek them out, and engage with them in other forums to get them interested in your community.
6. Be committed – Add value to discussions. While much of the content that you provide in your community, and in others, should be what has been planned in your communications and content strategy, leave room to be flexible.

A opt-in online community offers nonprofits the ability to reach advocates and donors around the world using inexpensive and efficient technology. It starts with having a clear strategy and knowing your objectives. Finding and training the right community manager is the glue that builds a thriving, growing community.