A reflection on The CMJ Group’s work with creating employee engagement initiatives and an employee and partner community of practice from 2024-2025.

Communities are like family systems, and many of them function like "low-effort families," where closeness is performed but never actually built. This post breaks down the engagement mistake that causes it, and the real formula for creating authentic closeness in your community.

Digital engagement solely for its own sake is dead; community builders must shift their focus to what happens outside the online space, optimizing for members to be “out in the world doing the thing.” But what does that mean today?

Your community doesn't need thousands of members — it needs the right ten. Learn who and how to tap to improve engagement strategically.

Struggling with community exclusivity? Community strategists Carrie Melissa Jones and Kelly Shetron explore mindful exclusion, the Community Compass framework, and how to define your community's purpose. Essential insights for membership creators and community leaders building authentic, connected spaces.

It doesn’t matter if you have been building community for days, months, or years. There is one topic that gives most community builders pause: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). A community KPI is a key performance indicator that helps you monitor your community’s contribution toward larger organizational outcomes.

If a community gets bigger, will it lose its magic? How can you preserve the coziness? Over the years, our clients have asked us these questions many different ways. In this post, we’ll discuss how we think about cozy communities—and whether they can scale.

The 7 steps to take before launching your enterprise brand community, along with an estimated timeline for each step.

Find the latest and greatest reads for community builders in our roundup of the best community books from 2020-2024

Learn how to collaboratively write community mission statements and vision statements.

Discover how to enhance your community-building efforts with effective content and programming strategies.

The importance of a well-structured community team and its collaboration with other departments in building strong enterprise-level communities

Forj has acquired Mobilize. What does this mean for community professionals and those who build community technology?

What is community strategy? There is a lot of misunderstanding about this simple term. Let’s break it down and define it clearly, so you can get to work creating one.