You Need To Ask To Increase Engagement
Every hand in the room was in the air. I knew the number would be high, but I didn’t expect it to be 100%! At a recent leadership program I ran at Gannon University, I asked the current campus leaders how many are in a leadership position because someone asked them to take on the […]
Stop Trying to Engage Your Entire Community With The Same Type of Activities
It was a sad situation, knowing that the group spent thousands of dollars and no one showed up to the event. I was working with a university in Georgia that was hosting an outdoor adventure day for their campus. Ironically, it was raining that day, so they had to move the adventure indoors. The entire […]
How to Allocate Resources For Maximum Member Engagement
1000 Free Hugs signs cost me $40… and that was with premium paper. I used the signs for an event at a conference I was keynoting. The purpose was to create an engaging activity that connected people together and increased the energy of the conference. It took me about 30 minutes to set up the […]
Dirty Marketing: The Negative Impact of Mixing Marketing with Relationship Building in Business Communities
It felt like he had just dropped a dirty towel into our perfectly purified community, and it didn’t sit right with me or anyone else in the group. As a forum moderator for a community of business owners, I facilitate peer groups for members to learn and grow from each other. For example, one section […]
The Importance of Ongoing Support for Your Smaller Community Groups
I knew the whole group would fall apart if I didn’t attend their next meeting. That was how I felt after one distraught group member messaged me to say they were in trouble. Members weren’t showing up to meetings, engagement during the meetings was low, and the group often only covered half of the agenda […]
Make Sure Your New Members Feel Welcomed Within Your Community
I felt like I was back at a Jr. High School dance where each group of friends circled up to form an impenetrable wall to block outsiders from getting in. But I wasn’t in Jr. High anymore; I was an adult at a parent mixer with my wife for our daughter’s school. We had just […]
Engagement Is A Process, Don’t Push It
I never thought knowledge about plastic recycling would be the reason to get more engaged. Those who know me now may find it hard to believe that I hardly participated in any school-sponsored events before college. I was the student who ignored or declined pretty much every extracurricular activity. I thought that was something “those” […]
And the Winning 2023 #FreeHugs Postcard Is…
Thank you to everyone who has participated by submitting wonderful designs and voting for our 2023 #FreeHugs postcard! We are so grateful to Kevin Battersby for such creative contributions. He designed six wonderful postcards for us, and through your votes, one was chosen! Kevin works at Lehigh University as the Assistant Director of Housing. 3 […]
Extroverts Can Be Scary And Decrease Engagement
Now I know how a matador feels when they get trampled by a bull. No, I wasn’t in a bull ring, but when the group of leaders charged at me as I entered the meeting room, I saw parts of my life flash in front of me, thinking it was my final moment in life. […]
How To Spot Trending Leaders In Your Community And Keep Them Engaged
I was paying thousands of dollars but wasn’t engaged at all; therefore, I was not getting any value. Two years ago, I received an invitation to join a fatherhood community. Although I paid my membership fees on time each month, I wasn’t very active in the group. It wasn’t a priority for me at the […]