Love the "Friends of" model, I might borrow some ideas from that! Do you have anything else about how you share that, or how you choose/reach out to the NFPs?
In addition to your point about net givers vs net takers, every time I've written or talked about our membership models, I've reminded people that we didn't pull these numbers and models out of thin air...they were based on actual activity happening in our community where we saw potential (like your night owl membership). All of our biggest successes came from *letting* things happen based on what we notice, rather than trying to *force* things to happen. Brilliant post, Tom, on all accounts. -Alex ------------------ *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* Better Coworkers: http://indyhall.org Weekly Coworking Tips: http://coworkingweekly.com My Audiobook: https://theindyhallway.com/ten On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 5:50 AM, Tom Lewis <t...@coworkinc.co.uk> wrote: > We have a very similar demographic to you in that most of our members are > older, married with kids, and few can afford to live in the centre of Bath, > so people commute in and out. This means that there is limited demand for > memberships outside the 9-5. We looked at doing community memberships, > partly because we do have people asking about the benefits we offer > (discounts at local cafes and events etc) but we decided that it would end > up diluting our community not enhancing it. I think an important thing to > remember is that all communities are different, and we all approach > coworking in the way that suits our community (both inside and outside the > physical space) best. We were worried that we'd lose what makes our space > special. However, we so worry about being seen as cliquey or elitist. > > So, what we've done is turn the situation around. We've taken the > approach that we should make ourselves more attractive for those who could > enhance the community, and who can actually come here, but who aren't able > to do so (mostly due to cost). So we've done three things to address this > > 1. About a year ago we launched our 'Friends of The Guild' programme where > we invited 20 local not for profits/charities to take us up on the offer of > a free membership. This has been a huge success- not only do these > organisations really benefit in terms of practical things like fast > internet access, but they've embraced being members and have gained a new > platform to share what they do with our other (paying) members. It's > really enriched our community, and we've found more events happening, more > goodwill and an overall better sense of mission. The NFP's also spend lots > of money on room hire, which we didn't plan, but they tell us they'd rather > spend it with us than anywhere else (obv we give them max discount) > > 2. We realised that we have a very small but loyal subculture here of > people working late, many of whom are second jobbers or on the side > startups. We've decided to formalise this and are about to offer night owl > memberships, at a very affordable price, so we can attract people who > otherwise couldn't afford to be here- particularly younger people, > students, older people. We are discussing how much day time use to include > as well, because we don't want these night time members to be strangers. > > 3. We've identified some areas of diversity where we are lacking (and > we're a city of 80,000 mostly wealthy, mostly middle class, mostly white > people so it's not easy). We're going to offer really juicy 'getting > started' discounts to younger people, people who have just started a > business, and return to work parents > > We hope that this is a constructive way of enriching our community. I > always have in the back of my mind Alex H's words of wisdom- it's all about > net givers not net takers. We're looking for more net givers, who will > take a free/discount membership and give something back. That's our best > approach to building community outside our core rack rate paying members > > On Friday, 27 January 2017 22:15:16 UTC, Julia Ferguson wrote: >> >> Cowork Frederick has been considering adding a community membership - one >> that does not include any use of our coworking space, but are struggling >> with why someone would want such a thing. We want to position the >> membership correctly and make sure there is real value there before we >> starting signing people up. >> >> Members of Cowork Frederick like the friendships they've built here and >> most of our members freely talk about how they are more successful, more >> productive, or just plain happier because of the other members in the >> community. That's pretty cool, but it currently happens because they come >> here to work and are running into each other, getting to know each other. >> Because our members haven't been interested, we don't have a lot going on >> outside of people coming together to work. 80% of our members are married >> with children and, when they are not working, they want to be home with >> their families. >> >> To those who have community (only) memberships - what sorts of things do >> you do to help those who don't come into your space to work connect and get >> value from their membership? >> >> We've just relaunched a lunch & learn series (members teaching members) >> and do a something social (networking without networking) each month. We're >> also on the verge of launching a program that aims to bring leads to our >> freelance members. We have a Slack group, but it's not very active. There >> are many, many Meetup groups and other ways people can find others of >> like-mind and connect free of charge. I can't get my head around why >> someone pay us for a community membership. >> >> Why would you say your community members pay you for their membership? >> What value do they get? >> > -- > Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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