I’ve been thinking about community ownership and operating models and I’m interested to learn more about where community sits within your organisation.
There used to be clear but disparate schools of thought—one side stating that a Community Team should be its own autonomous, self-governing unit, with the other side suggesting it makes more sense to report to another department.
I have an opinion but I’ve never worked as a CM from within a large enterprise. I’m curious to hear from those of you that do (or have).
I think my current position is that in smaller organisations or those in which the community is only serving one department, reporting to that department makes sense.
For example:
| Community goal | Reports to |
|---|---|
| Support deflection | Support |
| Acquisition, advocacy or events | Marketing |
| Product feedback, testing, ideation | Product |
Whereas enterprise-scale communities serving lots of departments are probably better served with autonomous leadership. Provided the department doesn’t become a silo and there is strong cross-functional governance, it seems like the most effective way to avoid too many competing stakeholder priorities.
This data from the Community Roundtable seems to conclude that the independent approach is growing across their respondents, of which approx 30% are from orgs of 1000+ personnel.
What benefits or challenges do you face as a direct result of your community ownership and governance model?