Reply to comment

This is part two of a series on online collaboration for grantmakers. In part one, we looked at determing the value of creating a collaboration community. In part three, we discuss the importance of understanding your users and the user community.

If you're a funder in the philanthropic sector, and you've concluded that online collaboration is a great tool for solving issues like transparency, capacity building, and strategic alignment with your grantees, the next step is to know what obstacles you'll need to overcome to make your collaboration initiative a success. Some of the biggest gotchas include:

Understand, and plan for, the 90-9-1 guideline

There's an entire web site devoted to the concept of "participation inequality," but the idea is simple: in online communities, roughly 90 percent of the members follow passively, 9 percent participate as "editors," commenting on or tweaking what others say, and only 1 percent actually create new content, discussions, and the like. This is only a problem if (1) community sponsors expect levels of active participation radically different from these ratios and (2) more passive forms of participation are disregarded or undervalued. Set realistic expectations, plan accordingly, and measure passive use as much as active use. Then 90-9-1 just becomes a natural outcome of the way people behave online, rather than an indicator of failure.

Plan for the two kinds of time: Outlook time and sundial time

Everyone working in philanthropy is extremely busy. If you're going to get people to visit your community site, it needs to deliver very valuable and irreplaceable information and connections. And an online community — like any other kind of worthwhile community — takes a long time to develop, nurture, and mature. You're going to be in it for the long haul, and both community sponsors and members need to know and expect that.

Email is the killer collaboration app

An online collaboration community's biggest competitor is the email inbox of every member.  However siloed and inefficient managing email threads may be, it's a quick, familiar, and comforting routine that's hard to beat. Expect to do a lot of interacting with members through that inbox, with the goal of steering them toward participating in a community environment where their work is more visible, persistent, and reusable.

With realistic expectations and conscious plans in hand, it's time to start thinking about who's in your community. We'll cover that topic next time.