The Power of Community

Sarah Leary began her research of community back in 1999 which led to developing a sports community in 2008, Fan Base. The community had little success and Sarah faced the question of “when do you cut the rope and try something else? Or hustle a little more to get the momentum?”. Sarah decided to cut the rope and two years later founded Next Door. She recognized that people had both social and professional identities, but there was an underserved neighborhood identity that needed attention. Sarah began going door to door, meeting to meeting, and person to person explaining the concept of Next Door. She began a long and thorough process to find neighborhood champions who would invest time in their neighborhood to recruit and introduce the platform to others. As the community grew, racial profiling became an issue, but after implementing detailed checklists and procedures for members to stop and think before taking action, Next Door’s racial profiling reduced by 75%. Next Door now has communities in 94% of US neighborhoods and continues to grow rapidly. Who is this episode for?: B2C, In Person & Online, Starting & Scaling 3 key takeaways: - The quality of neighborhood community champions was crucial to the success and growth of Next Door. - Next Door reduced Racial Profiling by 75% after initating a detailed checklist for community members to stop and think before reporting. - Gathering individuals together in a physical space developed deeper connections that strengthened the Next Door community and made it possible to scale online.