Contribute/Lifecycle/draft

	Contribute Wiki
	Owner: Community Building Team	Updated: Frequently
	Whether you've been building a community for a long time or you are just getting started, these pages will help you find the information you are looking for to build vibrant, supportive communities that will have impact on your project.

Contribution Lifecycle

This document seeks to define the process by which a Mozilla team becomes a community contribution area. The process is broken down into phases which, in our experience, communities go through as they develop, and includes milestones and resources for growing and supporting Mozilla communities.

Each phase of the lifecycle is designed to meet the client at their point of need and to provide a framework on which they can build.

In the community building context, an “Activator” is a dedicated community building resource from the team. This person’s work shifts in each phase of the lifecycle.

Pre-Work

In this stage teams are completely unfamiliar with working with contributors, do not understand the value of doing so, and have significant concerns or roadblocks to beginning the process.

Starting

At this stage clients don't have volunteers yet and they are committed in building a community around what they are doing.

Learning and preparing for growth

Clients at this stage have connected with some volunteers and are interested in learning about how to build on what is working and laying the groundwork for scaling.

Scaling

Clients have volunteers involved in their project and they'd like to turn up the dial on participation. Teams in this stage, having a few core contributors and many active contributors, are ready to steward their communities through on-going, significant growth.

Sustaining

At this stage community active and stable and is interested in keeping that momentum growing and retaining key contributors.

Pre-Work

Definition

In this stage teams are completely unfamiliar with working with contributors, do not understand the value of doing so, and have significant concerns or roadblocks to beginning the process.

Learning Stage

Unconsciously Incompetent

Measure of Success

We will know that the client is ready to move to the next phase when a dedicated staff resource has been appointed to work with us. This person is known as the community coordinator or activator.

Milestones

• Attend Getting Ready for Participation workshop. This can be done in modules.
• Understand each stage of the community building lifecycle and have clear expectations of how progression through each cycle works. *Has walked through storyboards of community lifecycle, as well as the lifecycle of community building.
• Understand the community building pillars and how their team’s work can connect to those pillars.
• Staff person from team commits to acting as community coordinator (activator) and agrees to work with their CBT partner.

Resources

• Getting Ready for Participation Workshop Modules

What’s possible? Active vs Passive Transparency Exercise Communication Channels, and how/when to use them Action Plan for Next Steps Video on the impact of working with contributors-- we need this to be made-- can a contributor make it, possibly working through Dia and her video producers? Info on where they can go to ask questions/field concerns-- Consumable “contact us” documentation Get involved page tutorial, how it works, how to get connected Way to reach out to specific locales and skill sets to get the things your community needs.

Activator role in this stage In this stage, the activators are identified. This staff member partner is committed to bootstrapping participation in their area of the project. This commitment should be reflected in the performance goals for the person taking on this role.

CBT Role During the pre-work stage, the CBT partner does the following: Helps partner team to understand the the community building lifecycle and the community building pillars. Helps partner team connect with a Designing for Participation workshop. Works with team’s manager and other decision makers to support the appointment of a community coordinator (activator). Risks At this stage the risk is that they will remain resistant to inviting contributors into their part of the project.

Despite an activator being identified, that they are not empowered by their managers to take action, and they are not given resources or team support to be effective.

The Activator role is tacked on “ in addition” to other work, and can be de-prioritized.