Contribute/Lifecycle

Using a series of pilots, we determined that each phase of community involvement can be linked to a lifecycle. Drawing from our pilot projects, in which we developed working groups to do specific tasks to build a stronger community, we identified the contributor lifecycle, a series of processes that walk participants through contribution.

• Read more about contribution pilots here
• Get in touch with people building community at every stage

Starting

• Problem: Your project doesn't have volunteers yet and you're interested in building a community around what you're doing.

• Who: Your project doesn't have volunteers yet and you're interested in building a community around what you're doing.

• What: A checklist of things to be thinking/doing when you're here (watch this workshop video, fill out this template, etc).

• How: See how other people have approached this: David S from Firefox OS engineering, person interested in forming a local community in Australia, etc.

• Checklist:
  • Read stories from existing Mozillians about how they first got involved with the project as volunteers
  • Watch the Designing for participation workshop video (soon to be reshot into a more watchable series of short videos)
  • Join the Grow Mozilla call and introduce yourself and meet other people involved with bringing people in to their projects.

Learning

• Problem:
  • You have connected with some volunteers and you're interested in learning about how to build on what's working so more people can join.
  • Volunteers are coming to you and you are not sure how to mobilize them effectively

• Who:
  • You're in charge of community management/engagement for your group.
  • You're the person volunteers always seem to come to.

• What: A checklist of things to be thinking/doing when you're here (watch this workshop video, etc).

• How: See how other people have approached this: Ben S from WebProd, etc.

• Checklist:
  • Read Margaret's great blog post about increasing participation on the Firefox for Android team that has 5 helpful tips in it
  • Check out the recently awarded Mozilla badges to get an idea of how some teams are recognizing contributors.
  • Watch a couple of these videos that have been created by community builders for people interested in community building.

Scaling

• Who: You have volunteers involved in your project and you'd like to turn up the dial on participation.

• What: A checklist of things to be thinking/doing when you're here (watch this workshop video, etc).

• How: See how other people have approached this: Matej from Creative, etc.

• Checklist:
  • Create a contribution dashboard to give you insight about where you can improve the experience for volunteers
  • Contact the Open Badges team and start a discussion about creating badges for your contributors
  • Get involved in a community building working group to help shape the infrastructure for participation at Mozilla

Sustaining

• Who: You have a healthy and active community and you're interested in keeping that momentum and retaining your key contributors.

• What: A checklist of things to be thinking/doing when you're here (watch this workshop video, etc).

• How: See how other people have approached this: Rosana and Madalina from SUMO, etc.

• Checklist:
  • Module ownership / responsibility