Get Together

“This is about everyday people coming together with their friends, with their families, with their community, with their colleagues and saying that they have a voice and that they want to use it in a constructive and powerful way in their communities. It just happens to be that we're dealing in philanthropy.” - Joelle BermanIn this episode, we sit down with two bad**s women for a conversation on the joy and challenges of giving circles–how to get one started, how to reach a consensus as a group, and how to celebrate along the way.In 2015, LiJia Gong attended marches and supported the #BlackLivesMatter movement. She felt inspired to do more. So she and three friends started gathering, exploring how they might use the bonds of their friendship and shared values to reduce inequality. Their giving circle "Radfund" was born from these conversations. The friends pledged to pool 1% of their annual income and 0.1% of their wealth annually to support organizers in NYC doing the work to challenge structural inequality and  fight for racial and economic justice.  In this episode, LiJia will share  stories and insights she’s learned from building a "political home" for herself and her friends. Joelle Berman was recently the founding Executive Director of Amplifier, a global network of 125+ giving circles inspired by Jewish values. From that position supporting so many different giving circles, she had a rare view of the ecosystem as a whole, and was able to pinpoint trends and best practices. (Shout out to Amplifier's founder, Felicia Herman, and Amplifier's current CEO, Liz Fisher, for their work continuing to spread the power of collective giving!)From their respective experiences as giving circle practitioners and experts, Joelle and LiJia will share how to build a political home and community around the shared activity of giving. Hear more from other community leaders about stage 1 in getting your people together, 🔥sparking the flame by doing something together: https://gettogetherbook.com/resources#spark-the-flame📙Grab your copy of GET TOGETHER—our handbook on community-building 🔥: bit.ly/gettogetherbook👋Say hi and learn more about work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations, visit: http://people-and.com/

“Meet people where they are, not where you wish them to be.” - Kuik Shiao-YinKuik Shiao-Yin has been called “the Singaporean voice of youth.” While serving two stints as a nominated Parliamentarian, Shiao-Yin delivered clear, passionate speeches that went viral. Beyond her work in government, she has committed herself to developing the "social and emotional capital" of the young nation. Shiao-Yin co-founded The Thought Collective, a group of social businesses including the School of Thought and Common Ground, a coworking and event space. These spaces are designed to equip more Singaporeans with the social and emotional skills they need to create the cultural change *they* want to see.  In this episode we discuss weaving the fabric of the young nation-state together at the grassroots and governmental level. Shiao-Yin shares her opinion that every successful community starts with leadership that has cognitive clarity and then remains vested in getting clearer and clearer. Shaio-Yin poses questions to other community leaders like, “What is it that you want?” “Who is this for?” “Who do you want to be?” “Who do you want others to be?”We believe nearly every challenge of building a community can be met by asking yourself, “How do I achieve this by working *with* my people, not doing it *for* them?” Shaio-Yin offers clarity of thought and kindness, and exemplifies what it means to “build with.” To hear more from other community leaders on “building with” at Stage 1 in getting your people together, 🔥Sparking the Flame: https://gettogetherbook.com/resources#spark-the-flame👏Learn more about Shaio-Yin and say hello at https://www.facebook.com/shiaoyin📙Grab your copy of GET TOGETHER—our handbook on community-building 🔥: bit.ly/gettogetherbook👋Say hi and learn more about work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations, visit: http://people-and.com/

“Treat people like they're part of the brand, because they are the brand.” - Aundy CrenshawWhere do you find the funkiest, dirtiest, most addictive house music around? Look no further than Dirtybird Records.  Aundy Crenshaw and her husband, Barclay Macbride Crenshaw (better known as DJ Claude VonStroke), have translated this style and sound into a community vibe that comes alive at their events. Together, they have gathered a group of artists that feel like family and fans that are their greatest advocates. In this episode, Aundy and our "Get Together" Correspondent Mia Quagliarello start at the roots of Dirtybird Records and move into the new challenges they face today in keeping their community banded together while apart. The ethos at Dirtybird has always been to “treat people like they're part of the brand, because they are the brand.”Aundy and the small but mighty team at Dirtybird are a testament to the fact you can’t fake the funk. When you pinpoint your people, genuine passion attracts passionate people. Hear more from other community leaders about stage 1 in getting your people together, 🔥sparking the flame: https://gettogetherbook.com/resources#spark-the-flame👏Learn more about Aundy and Dirtybird Records at: https://dirtybirdrecords.com📙Grab your copy of GET TOGETHER—our handbook on community-building 🔥: bit.ly/gettogetherbook👋Say hi and learn more about work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations, visit: http://people-and.com/

If you're passionate about how the world builds meaningful communities, you likely know Casper ter Kuile. After an early career in grassroots climate organizing, Casper earned masters degrees in Divinity and Public Policy from Harvard. While there, he started a reading community around the Harry Potter texts, that has grown to more than 70 chapters and millions of podcast listeners around the world. Casper is also co-author of the How We Gather report, a cultural map of Millennial communities, and now a brand new book: The Power of Ritual, which is available for pre-order and will publish on June 23, 2020. In this episode, we go deep on two things Casper knows a lot about: rituals and communal reading. As Casper says, “ritual makes things real,” taking what’s invisible and making it visible, tangible to us. Casper has honed the craft of cultivating a community’s identity through ritual. Established rituals have the power to connect new community members to others who came before them. That will help your community stick together as it evolves. Hear more from other community leaders about stage 2 in getting your people together, 🔥stoking the fire: https://gettogetherbook.com/resources#stoke-the-fire👏 Learn more about Casper’s work in the world: https://www.caspertk.com/📙Grab your copy of GET TOGETHER—our handbook on community-building 🔥: bit.ly/gettogetherbook👋Say hi and learn more about work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations, visit: http://people-and.com/

Tim Courtney was a key part of a monumental shift at LEGO. For seven years, Tim was the steward behind LEGO IDEAS, a crowdsourcing platform that allows superfans to submit and vote on new ideas they want LEGO to bring to market. If you've ever played with a Minecraft LEGO set, a Big Bang-themed kit, or a collection of women of NASA, you have the LEGO IDEAS community to thank. Today the LEGO community has grown from a 20,000-person test group in Japan to a global community  numbering in the millions. Tim, a lifelong lego enthusiast, was the connective tissue between these superfans submitting ideas and the business and design teams at LEGO HQ in Denmark. We'll ask Tim about his experience creating a platform that allows so many people to submit and engage with ideas for the biggest toy company on planet earth. Tim will also share about the perspective shift at the company, and setting new standards for how they talk about customers and make decisions. Transitioning to see the collaborative potential in your customers or fans or community members is hard for any community leader, especially those in a company structure, and sometimes it takes a big project make the case for such a transition. If you want to get to know Tim or hire him, check out his website www.timcourtney.netGrab your copy of GET TOGETHER—our handbook on community-building 🔥: bit.ly/gettogetherbookTo learn more about People & Company and how we work with organizations passionate about their communities, visit: http://people-and.com/

Today we're interviewing Dr. Gbemisola Boyede, the founder of "Ask The Paediatricians," an online medical education community that can offer all of us some much-needed inspiration in the time of COVID-19.In Dr. Gbemi's home country of Nigeria, the child mortality rates are high. But what causes these deaths isn't a lack of cost-effective treatments for common diseases. It's a geographic and information gap between parents and practitioners that leaves many parents uninformed and without access to experts who can treat their children.Dr. Gbemi saw this problem manifesting online. When everyday people offered up false remedies for each others kids, she'd find herself  intervening. Playing whack-a-mole with each of these threads wasn't going to work, so she opened the ‘Ask The Paediatricians’ Facebook group. Its mission is to educate regular parents by giving them direct access to medical practitioners.The group grew quickly and organically. Today there are more than 2,000 medical professionals who login to help more than 580,000 parents with their medical questions. Dr. Gbemi has also expanded the groups reach to Nigeria's most impoverished people–parents without access to phones or the internet—through offline work that brings volunteers to under-resourced regions around the country.What stuck out to us about our conversation with Dr. Gbemi was how natural her community-building instincts were. We like to say that no matter if your community gathers online or off, the secret to community building isn't about management, it's about creating leaders. Dr. Gbemi has done that at every stage of her journey, giving volunteer moderators tools, bringing other doctors in to do webinars instead of just leading them herself, and giving people all sorts of roles and ways to plug into the mission in their local areas.If you want to get involved with Ask The Paediatricians, you can find their group on Facebook or head to askthepaediatricians.comGrab your copy of GET TOGETHER—our handbook on community-building 🔥: bit.ly/gettogetherbookTo learn more about People & Company and how we work with organizations passionate about their communities, visit: http://people-and.com/

In the time of Coronavirus and self-isolation, how do we find meaningful community online?We checkin today with Carly Ayres of the Slack group "100s Under 100," and revisit our stellar conversation with her from almost a year ago. //If you're on the internet or if you're working in design today, you may have heard of Carly Ayres (@carlyayres). She's full of personality, sharp ideas, and has an alluring rebellious vibe. Carly's designs are not of the polished, precious, or minimalist ilk we've become accustomed to. Her work is interactive, it's dynamic, and it's sincere. If you want proof, visit her website CarlyAyres.com. It is a Google Doc. Almost five years ago, Carly started a community in Slack called "100s Under 100," a play on the Forbes "30 Under 30" list and other similar awards. The Slack group brings together a vetted collection of designers, everyone from senior creative leads at big companies like Dropbox to high school students looking for feedback on their college applications. "Hundos" feel they are on the same team, sharing resources, insights, and feedback in what can otherwise be an isolating profession. (Full disclosure: Kevin Huynh, my partner in People & Company, is a "Hundo.")We wanted to ask Carly about this special Slack group because we get questions about community "watering holes" all the time. People want to know what platform they should use to bring their people together online. Or what they can do to actually make a digital space engaging. Carly has figured all of this out and more.How did Carly pull it off? We sat down with Carly to learn more.🔥 Check out our book Get Together: How to Build a Community With Your People 📙Get Together is a podcast about the nuts and bolts of community building. Hosts Bailey Richardson and Kevin Huynh of People & Company ask organizers who have built exceptional communities about just how they did it. How did they get the first people to show up? How did they grow to thousands more members?

In each episode of this podcast we interview everyday people who have built extraordinary communities about just how they did it. How did they get the first people to show up? How did they grow to hundreds more members?Today we're interviewing Kelsa Trom, the Head of Programming at NEW INC.NEW INC is the first museum-led "cultural incubator." The New Museum here in New York City opened the program in 2013 as a home artists, activists, futurists and technologists. These multidisciplinary people come together for one year to create, pushing forward everything from new businesses, to ambitious art installations, to provocative experiments in science and urban design.In its sixth year, NEW INC has over 100 creative entrepreneurs as members, with 175 mentors supporting them and 350 alumni. And we love this stat: they are 50% female and 49% POC.In this episode, we ask Kelsa about the work she and her team prioritize to bind and support the members in the space.If you want to get involved with the NEW INC program, whether its by applying to be a member or a mentor, you can find all that information at newinc.org. They’re also on socials at @newincGrab your copy of GET TOGETHER—our handbook on community-building 🔥: bit.ly/gettogetherbookTo learn more about People & Company and how we work with organizations passionate about their communities, visit: http://people-and.com/

In each episode of this podcast we interview everyday people who have built extraordinary communities about just how they did it. How did they get the first people to show up? How did they grow to hundreds more members?Today we’re talking to Nitika Chopra, organizer of Chronicon, a conference that brings together hundreds of people with chronic illnesses.Nitika has been living with severe psoriasis since age 10 and was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis at age 19, which made it difficult for her to walk.That personal experience led her later in life to speak openly about what she's been through. Nitika hosted events for people with chronic illnesses, forged a Facebook group, and last year brought people together in person for Chronicon, a one-day gathering in New York City.Chances are you have a friend, family member or colleague who is struggling with a chronic illness, and you might even be dealing with one yourself. Studies show that 45% of the United States population has at least one chronic illness today, and the rates are expected to rise to 49% by 2030. At Chronicon, Nitika and her team designed an event especially for those who fit in this category,  celebrating "all they have been through and how they have learned to thrive in their lives."In this interview, we'll learn more about Nitika's journey and how she went about designing the specifics of Chronicon–from the space to food—to make sure folks with chronic illnesses felt honored.For more from Nitika and Chronicon, head to: www.chronicon.conitikachopra.cominstagram.com/nitikachopra/ Grab your copy of GET TOGETHER—our handbook on community-building 🔥: bit.ly/gettogetherbookTo learn more about People & Company and how we work with organizations passionate about their communities, visit: http://people-and.com/

In each episode of this podcast we interview everyday people who have built extraordinary communities about just how they did it. How did they get the first people to show up? How did they grow to hundreds more members?Today we’re talking to Scott Amenta, co-founder of the COS Tech Network, a community of people working as Chiefs of Staff in companies around the world.The COS Tech Network started in 2016 when Scott found himself as a Chief of Staff, a role that quite is new in techland, and, for Scott, felt somewhat undefined. He decided to seek out other Chiefs of Staff so he could learn tips and tricks, and also get inspired about career trajectories the role could lead to.COS can be a lonely position, an ambiguous one. Scott had the intuition that others were tossing the same questions around in their head and he did something about it. A Medium post call out led to a dinner, a dinner led to a slack group, and the slack group has led to chapters around the world and a wealth of insights and resources. Recently, they even found their community covered by The New York Times.Tune in to learn more about how Scott got COS Tech Network off the ground, and what tools the extremely organized group uses to communicate, collaborate, and connect.---For more from Scott and COS Tech Network, head to: costechnetwork.comscottamenta.commedium.com/cos-tech-forumGrab your copy of GET TOGETHER—our handbook on community-building 🔥: http://bit.ly/gettogetherbookTo learn more about People & Company and how we work with organizations passionate about their communities, visit: people-and.com/