Contribute/Lifecycle/draft

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	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.

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. We expect that each client group (team?) will come to us at different phases of the lifecycle. We will support each of them based our assessment of where in the lifecycle they are, and what structure and framework will help them reach the highest potential for contribution.

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.

The stages can also be separated by functional area.

	Definition	Measure of Success
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.	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.
Starting	At this stage clients don't have volunteers yet and they are committed in building a community around what they are doing.	Documented pathway with people to manage incoming contributors must be built for a partnership in this phase to be considered a success.
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.	New contributors ( roughly more than 25) must be moving into/through the pathway and getting connected to opportunities
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.	Teams have established ways to sustain momentum (mentoring new contributors, developing leadership, etc.) and have demonstrated a 10x increase in active contributors. [I really want something in here about measuring leadership.] (This stage is the minimum target for all high leverage partnerships.)
Sustaining	At this stage community active and stable and is interested in keeping that momentum growing and retaining key contributors. stable and adapting	Teams will have optimized their pathways based on data and we will see contribution jump again (and we will have created a case study of the team). Ideal contribution jump metric is currently undefined, and will be determined by what is happening in ""scaling.""