✨ The difference between communities and movements

Oh hey there legend.

I’ve been studying the key traits of movements and have found them fascinating to compare between communities. I’d love to share what I’ve discovered.

So grab a tea, play this music I composed and let’s dive in.

What is a movement?

I’m so glad you asked. Let’s unpack a key definition.

The key here is that movements are significantly large. They transcend borders and timezones.

Some of the greatest movements also nearly always believe in something that’s greater than themselves. For example:

Black Lives Matter believe in a world free of racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by Black people.

Swifties celebrate Taylor Swift’s music and journey and believe in promoting kindness and positivity.

So how are movements different from communities?

First things first. Here’s our definition of community to be crystal clear:

When distinguishing between communities and movements, here's how I see it:

A community is typically defined by its connection to the organisation or person that runs it. It is a group of people who share common interests, values, or goals and are brought together through an organised structure. For example, a community might be built around a specific hobby, profession, or locality, with members actively engaging and supporting each other within that framework. The aim here is to always have members supporting each other on their shared endeavours.

On the other hand, a movement is a significant number of people who organise themselves to act together on a large scale, often for a social or political cause. They are bounded by a belief for a better world. Almost always movements also take on a life of their own and run themselves. They are usually driven by a shared vision of an idealistic future and a desire for social change. Movements are often selfless, with participants working collectively to address larger societal issues, seeking to create a broader impact beyond the confines of any single organisation. It’s a lesser focus about supporting one another, and more about binding together to advocate in the external world about what they believe in.

Overall there are clearly many similarities with a few distinct differences.

The Mindset

Movement leaders tend to have a distinct mindset, especially when creating multiple leaders within the group to collectively build and grow it together.

Because building a movement isn’t just about building great relationships at scale, it’s about leading others to become great leaders. 

And you know what happens after that?

The group starts self organising and transcends borders and timezones as they collectively grow it together.

This is a great trait that many of us community builders can learn from. Some communities also do this very well (SexTech School, Write of Passage, One Roof to name a few). But the clear distinction is that the greatest leaders don’t just serve their members directly. They serve a group of leaders to in turn serve members on their behalf.

See how this plays out in action below.

If you manage an audience within a business (a passive group of people that consume the content of that business), it might just be 1 person managing that group e.g. sending newsletters or posting on social media to the audience.

All businesses need an audience, but not all businesses need a community.

Those that do have a community, typically there is just 1 person managing that community e.g. organising events or welcoming new members.

See how that plays out:

However some of the greatest movements start because there is 1 leader or community builder at the centre that identifies more leaders within the group who in turn serve the members.

They always involve more people to build the movement together and typically it will always outgrow that 1 original leader.

This is another key difference between communities and movements.

We are so use to just having 1 person serve a group of people in a community or communicate with an audience.

But the traits of great movements is when the community builder is at the centre, communicates and creates more leaders in the community (such as Ambassadors) to build the community WITH them. They are not serving the members directly 100% of the time. 

Instead they are creating a space for members to serve members and so on it goes, until it grows beyond them.

Would Canva been able to grow into the design movement it is today if they hadn’t trained their members/customers to train other members/customers about how to use Canva?

I love emphasising this point through some beautiful quotes.

Because remember, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” - Lao Tzu

Let’s take that one step further with the difference between communities and movements, “Organise one member event, create one memorable moment. Teach members how to organise events, create one viral movement.”

You made it

Alrighty my friend, you made it to the end. I’ll be back in your inbox on 17th to answer your most pressing questions.

Which reminds me, have a question you’d like to ask about community building? Hit reply to let me know. I’d love to help you.

Until then,

Paz Pisarski
Co-Founder of The Community Collective

You can expect this newsletter on the 17th of every month.
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Bonus Section

Still reading huh? Well you made it to the bonus section where I share an insight into my life.

Proud moment: We just celebrated The CC’s Birthday Party with Cake and LUNA in Melbourne and feeling super proud about everything we’ve achieved in the last 3 years!

Challenging moment: Travelling and working remote comes with it’s challenges too so it’s finally nice to be home and in routine again.

Personal moment: Just spent 1 month working 3-4 days per week remote whilst travelling Europe and feels like a big business milestone to be able to design and live the life you’ve always dreamed of. Feeling very grateful.

See you next time.