60+ articles on community building at https://medium.com/together-institute. Community definition, a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.
I think the traditional definition is missing a key piece. I believe that every community needs to have an internal purpose first to truly function as a community. See more. A community is a group of people who share something in common. I argue we need a way to differentiate those goal driven channels from groups that are heavily relationship based aka communities. As there is no singular figure of authority in this space, I imagine this will best happen as a series of conversations among community builders. Although communities are us Twitter Literacy: Knowing How To Use It is Key, Making Twitter Tolerable, One Glitch App At A Time, No, I Didn’t Hear About the Latest Trump Tweet, Why data privacy is a human right: in conversation with Aurélie Pols. While shopping for groceries a few weeks ago, I picked up a pack of salad and flipped it around to learn about its origin. One way to look at that is to differentiate between the internal purpose of a community (we take care of each other) and the external purpose (we have a collective goal). Here is how the dictionary defines “community”: I think the traditional definition of community is outdated. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area or in virtual space through communication platforms. But maybe communities with internal purpose are powerful channels to have external purpose? But that doesn’t mean yet that I’ll feel a sense of community with them. 41 synonyms of community from the Merriam-Webster Thesaurus, plus 113 related words, definitions, and antonyms.

Community synonyms. Community: the people living in a particular area. As this article in the Atlantic points out beautifully, we have shifted from, traditionally, being born into a community to, now, choosing our own communities and expressing our identities through them. Why does this matter? in so many ways, I think we are missing out on the true power that “real” communities can have. Durable relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define a sense of community, important to their identity, practice, and roles in social institutions such as family, home, work, government, society, or humanity at large. As someone who works with communities on a daily basis and has studied hundreds of them over the last couple of years, I sense a lot of confusion. Without trust and relationships, it becomes a project, an initiative, a movement. I’d love for this to be a conversation starter and would LOVE to hear what “community” means to you. I see a lot of community definitions that are a version of the following: A community = a group of people that care about the same goal. You need a bunch of people who are alike in some way, who feel some sense of belonging or interpersonal connection. I hear the word being used, when really the authors mean a series of monthly events, a Facebook page, a group of customers that has loyalty towards a specific brand, a yearly conference, all customers of an e-commerce brand, social media followers, everyone who uses Twitter, people who happen to vote the same way, etc. I have so, so many attitudes, interests and goals that I share with other people. But communities, in my opinion, optimize for something else: the relationship and trust among themselves. In my personal opinion, this definition does not qualify as a community, unless these people have trusted relationships with each other. For that, it needs relationships. And maybe we’ll have to find ways to differentiate between different kinds of communities. The term is used as a catch-all phrase for anything that has to do with a collection of human beings, from the very tangible to the very abstract. As someone who works with communities on a daily basis and has studied hundreds of them over the last couple of years, I sense a lot of confusion. I see 2 problems: With the traditional definition being somewhat outdated and the term being used broadly by marketers, brands, entrepreneurs, event organizers, social media managers etc. If you care about bringing people together, this might be for you. To kick off this conversation, I offer an attempt at defining “community”: Community = a group of people that care about each other and feel they belong together. Thank you! Why?
But most of the “communities” I come across, are in my opinion not actual communities. They are groups of people that care about the same goal, but they are not communities. “A feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests and goals”: this part comes closer to modern forms of communities. But for many of us, our village or neighborhood isn’t anymore our key definer of identity or fellowship. The term is used as a catch-all phrase for anything that has to do with a collection of human beings, from the very tangible to the very abstract. If you leave comments or message me, I’ll make sure to collect all the answers and report back. Have thoughts and feedback on the writing above? Everyone in it has something in common. Find more ways to say community, along with related words, antonyms and example phrases at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus. I’d love to hear from you — message me at fabian@together.is — thank you!

That’s what community used to be, historically. You can define a community by the shared attributes of the people in it and/or by the strength of the connections among them. Because there are so many things in the world where people come together with a shared goal / purpose / attitudes / interests: project teams, companies, political movements, etc. A community is a social unit with commonality such as norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. We need to update what “community” means in today’s world. Communities, of course, can still have shared goals as well. Every few weeks I send out a short email with 3–5 of my favorite insights, blog posts and articles about building meaningful communities. Or are you looking for a speaker for your next event? Immediately something caught my attention: my salad was inviting me to join its “Facebook community”. It matters, because ultimately project teams, companies and political movements optimize for an external output (aka whatever their goal is). If even my salad has / is a community, what does “community” even mean?! Check out the Community Canvas, the open-source tool we have created to support community builders across the globe and join our Community Builder Facebook group where we come together to share community relevant topics and learn from each other. Find another word for community. I think the two entities have very different impact in the world.

Another word for community. More on this piece below. Sign up here. I get the sense that the term “community” is really hot in the advertising/marketing/sales/startup/event space, because it alludes to more than just a transactional customer-company relationship. However, I think it’s too broad and vague. It is mostly based on shared location: “a group of people living in the same place”. Top synonyms for community (other words for community) are society, public and communal. How Do Your Instagram Comments Stand Out In A Sea of Sales Bots.