Is having a community risky for your business? (Mission Statement Formula inside)

Long story short: YES, it is.

Why? Any initiative that mix people to work together is risky. (period)

When you bring people and processes together, many things can go wrong.

Your community may be boring. You may be struggling to get people interested and involved. The community may produce disappointing results or no results at all. (For you and your members)

Your infrastructure and technology may be absent, broken or unreliable. Or maybe internally, you cannot agree between the different departments involved about approaching the community for success.

Risk has two sides. 

You can see the idea of having a community as an entire risk venture, and you may want even to think to avoid it altogether.

On the other hand, you can see it as an opportunity with full potential to seek awareness and growth for your business goals.

However, we can’t see the communities as good or bad, and this matter is not black and white. We need to accept the risks, understand them, embrace them, and be motivated by the potential opportunities a community brings to our table, the people, and the ideas.

Four principles to measure the potential success of your community

We need a clear sense of what we can achieve with the good and the risks that a community might have and then use these four principles to start understanding the degree of success that we can get from it:

• Measure and have a clear understanding of the value we want to produce and deliver to the community members.
• Set and put in place a defined plan to reach that value.
• Define the set of KPIs to measure the community success effectively.
• Set reasonable milestones of success that are reasonable, measurable and flexible.

Now that you got the principles let’s go back to the beginning.

We need a north, a mission statement for your community even before planning and setting up your KPIs to measure success.

How to create your community mission statement

Let’s see how can you get your community statement done and how to involve your colleagues and team during the process to define it.

TO DO (Yes, I’m giving you home/office work!)

Grab a paper and write what you think can be your community mission there. Once done, imagine yourself in someone’s else shoes. Does it grab you? 

Remember that your community mission must relate to your business vision too. Do you think your initial idea for community vision connects with the people who know and follow your business vision?

Now get more people from your company or organization contributing, let them tweak it, add what they feel about it. Their insights will be a fantastic source of truth during the process and help you shape your community mission in the right direction.

Ensure to include all different roles, and ask them to challenge your thinking, find what is not right and add elements you are missing.

Once feedback has been received, please clean it up and improve your work with it. Everyone involved must see its impact as a contributor to your community mission.

At this point, you might have a ton of ideas and feedback. 

Now cut that chase reword your community vision, so it is short, memorable and easy to get from the very first read.

Please find below two good examples of good mission statements.

Examples of Good Mission Statements

Harvard Business School

Mission statement:

“To provide meaningful forums for HBS alumni to connect with one another and the School, inspire through engaging, diverse and enriching programs, and to make an impact in their personal and professional communities” 

Why it is good: 

It’s inspirational and attractive. It reflects their values and gives a powerful message to their community. Members can always go back to this mission to remember why they are part of the community in the first place. 

World Merit

Mission statement:

“We believe that complex global issues are fought by building confidence, raising aspirations, and connecting diverse people of merit.” 

Why it is good: 

World Merit succeeds in concisely explaining the reason why they exist and why they do what they do. The wording is to the point, memorable, and inspiring.

Takeaways

If you are considering launching a community for your business, please see the idea in the right way.

Today we learned that not everything is bad and not everything is good either.

Every piece of the process and the community itself will bring challenges and opportunities to the game.

However, you and your team may want to carefully consider the community mission statement before diving deep into the KPIs generation process.

Remember to include everyone as a contributor for the community statement: marketers, customer service, support agents, customer success and even tech staff (developers, etc)

Ensure to do the homework share above. (Yes, you are not saving yourself from this one 🙂 )

And share in the comments below what challenges or risks are stopping you to launch your community or defining the right KPIs to measure its success.