From Genetic Counseling to Community Management

Episode Summary: In today’s episode, we’re joined by Lauren Hagerty - Director of Marketing & Community at Power to Fly. This community helps marginalized groups grow and advance in their career, as well as implements and improve companies' DEI programs. Lauren discusses the Power to Fly Virtual Events Program hosted on Bevy and their internal platform, and how they host unique hiring events, community-member hosted events, intimate Keynote Speaker events, and much more. We also dive into the DEI initiatives instilled into their clients’ organizations and metrics used to measure progress. For more information on this community, sign up on powertofly.com Who is this episode for?: B2C, Online, Scaling 3 key takeaways: 1. Power to Fly’s 3-Prong Approach to its organization: 1. Always improving the products they have, 2. How to better serve their clients, 3. How they innovate on new products and services. 2. Various DEI Metrics of Power to Fly: Diversity of Speakers, Diversity of content, diversity of photos used on homepage, and diversity of who’s creating the content. Implement diversity, equity, and inclusion in every aspect of your community. 3. Power to Fly has community members self-organize events starting with an application where the individual must demonstrate the core values, and then through a training program on virtual events and finding the best jobs for their community members. Notable Quotes: 1. “Just as important as it is for us to diversify our companies.It's just as important to diversify the communities that we're building alongside our companies. So the real work here is done in equity and making sure that the people that are coming to your company and coming to your community are staying, participating, and engaging in what you're creating.” 2. “Something that's super interesting about the community world is this is one of the spaces where I think having a wide variety of transferable skills can be utilized to its fullest potential. Whether you have a background in sales, customer success, marketing, social media event planning, there are so many nuances to being a successful community builder. On top of this, just a high level of emotional intelligence and ability to communicate with people. You really can come from any industry from any part of an organization and thrive here because so many roles require such vast experience in multiple different sectors.” Rapid fire question answers: 1. What’s your go-to pump-up song? Remind me to Forget by Kygo 2. What’s your favorite gift to give to others? Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chafsky 3. How did you go from doing Genetic Counseling with a major in Medical Laboratory Science Research to being a Community Manager? Both are about helping people navigate tough information and I transferred my knowledge and passion over. 4. What’s a go-to community engagement tactic or conversation starter? What are you binging on TV right now? 5. Have you ever worn socks with sandals? Yes - with Crocs 6. Who in the world of community would you most like to take for lunch? Lisa Khan of Gather Around 7. What’s a community product that you wished existed? A product with more customization - EX: GA Pixel Embed 8. What’s the weirdest community you’ve ever been a part of? Babs of Peloton - Anyone to talk and share anything around Peloton. 9. If you were to find yourself on your deathbed, what would your last piece of advice be? Everything happens for a reason, but if you work hard, it’s always for the right reason. a. Sub-Advice - Don’t keep your jacket on when you’re in the car, your body’s going to acclimate and you'll stay warmer if you put it on outside.