Civil Society organisations face increased demands to provide on-line communities for their stakeholders, be they employees, volunteers, donors or service users. Further, Civil Society organisations are often spread far and wide through federal structures, networks of volunteers/fundraisers and/or distributed service units. On-line communities are especially helpful in bringing diverse and distributed organisations together to help fulfil common purposes.
Communities share a number of characteristics – a common history, shared knowledge, common practices, co-location in space and time, common action and a shared vision of the future (Ian Harris and Michael Mainelli, (2011) The Price of Fish, p. 99, Nicholas Brealey Publishing). As the City of London’s leading commercial think tank, we believe that on-line communities can facilitate knowledge sharing, encourage innovation and enable the development of sound strategies to achieve objectives. We develop on-line communities within all the sectors we work with, including financial services, technology firms and public sector bodies, as well as Civil Society organisations.
Z/Yen helps organisations to strengthen community ties with tailored approaches for each situation. Where necessary, we build customised technologies to ensure that solutions are tailored to specific needs. Having provided the relevant community building tools, Z/Yen can manage and maintain community engagement, for example:
Z/Yen’s on-line community work is about the successful design, building and management of stakeholder communities. Z/Yen welcomes discussion with any organisation that seeks to improve its performance and achieve its goals by enhancing and strengthening its community network. For more information please contact Ian Harris.