Community

What is a Community?

Community is a network of people connected by a shared place, purpose, interest, identity or experience, whose relationships foster a sense of belonging, trust and mutual support. Communities may be geographically based, such as towns and neighbourhoods, or they may span organisations, professions and digital platforms.

Communities are important because they create social capital. They enable knowledge, ideas, resources and support to flow between their members, strengthening collaboration, resilience and collective capability. Within an ecosystem, communities help participants coordinate their activities, respond to change and create value that would be difficult to achieve individually.

Many organisations seek to foster a community feel, recognising the benefits of trust, collaboration and belonging. Yet communities are emergent rather than engineered. Whilst leaders can create the conditions in which communities flourish, through shared purpose, autonomy, openness and mutual respect, they cannot manufacture the relationships on which genuine communities depend.

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Related resources

Trust

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