PREFACE

A Note from Charles

Readers of my book The Art of Community know that my journey toward community expertise began with my own lonely years wondering if I’d ever create the friendships that I wanted or find a place where I knew that I belonged. It took many years and travel through several time zones in Africa and Asia to get to a place where those thoughts no longer distract me. On the journey, the miles were less important than the wise words from mentors, examples from my now heroes, and too many embarrassing experiments to remember.

The journey never ends. It’s a daily practice to remain connected to the people I love, reach out to the people I want to know better, and ensure that I’m supporting people important to me. My personal community is a dynamic creature that needs attention, feeding, hugs, and occasionally a shoulder to cry on. This of course is normal and the best-case scenario.

It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to learn that the principles distilled in The Art of Community have inspired dinners, rituals, retreats, family reunions, heartfelt speeches, and long deep conversations across continents. Thank God for you who gather people you care about.

When starting this book, we aspired to write a guide that would speak equally to and embolden leaders in nonprofits, businesses, civic agencies, faith organizations, and political movements. Indeed, we believe nearly every principle discussed will serve all of these leaders equally.

We educate and encourage leaders to invest in authentic brand communities that both serve organizational goals and also enrich, support, and even heal participants. In our aspiration, this will replace misguided, shortsighted, and exploitative efforts.

As we developed this book, it grew apparent that the language of business and nonprofit leadership is different enough from that of social, cultural, faith, and political movements that we could not write a single book that speaks to both audiences equally well. This is disappointing.

This book speaks directly to businesses and nonprofit leadership in applicable language because they will continue to invest astounding resources to both connect to and gather people for the foreseeable future. In fact, we personally consult with organizations that collectively touch far more than one billion people, and their influence grows daily. Such investments will accelerate as organizations adapt to our growing “experience economy”¹ in which customers seek appealing experiences that connect them with brands.

For those considering this resource to support movements making our era safer, more welcome, honest, and connected, please take what serves you. It’s here for you, and our hearts go with you.

This little book is an offering to help everyone working toward more connection, healing, generosity, love, safety, and joy in a time that really needs it. We promise it is the best we could do at the time.

May all of us who pick up these ideas teach the next generation to conquer the loneliness and disconnection of our time.

Go get them and Godspeed.

Charles Vogl, M.Div.
Beautiful Oakland, CA

A Note from Carrie

When I was ten years old, a teacher asked my mom if I was mute, and my hand shook when I raised it in class. Speaking up was painful.

Yet my silence hid a deep hunger for connection. I wanted someone to ask me, “How are you?” and then wait the five minutes I needed to offer an answer. I both wished for and feared what might happen if others knew my inner world, so I kept my mouth shut.

But when I turned fourteen years old, my father set up a hand-me-down computer in my bedroom. Little did he know that plugging in those cables sparked a career that would lead me to one day connect people around the world—employees, customers, and innovators—and would eventually lead to this book.

At that time, emo (emotional) music—filled with screaming about unrequited love—offered me a safe container for my angst and loneliness. At first, I listened alone in my room. With that “new” computer, I discovered that I could listen with others. I found forums sponsored by my favorite musicians. They felt magical to me: a place where I could find my voice. We talked about music, but more often, we talked about our lives. I dropped my emotional armor online and, for the first time, felt confident that I could speak up and be known.

The forums helped me connect to both my favorite musicians and others around the world. My online friends lived in the Philippines, Florida, England, and New York. We chatted until the wee hours and made phone calls when tragedy struck. These friends taught me how to accept and be accepted. But only from a distance, online.

One night, my childhood friend Samantha called. I listened to her cry before a word came out. Gasping, she asked to meet outside my house. This was the first time someone asked for me in a crisis. Outside, she fell into my arms and then, on my street curb, she shared the painful and vulnerable hurt inside. Just as I shared with others online. I knew to sit and listen.

She then asked if I was OK. For the first time in my life, I answered honestly. I shared feeling alone and broken, forgotten and invisible. I hadn’t yet processed personal family tragedies or my own loneliness with anyone face-to-face. Then I too cried. And she too remained and held me.

Our friendship, cemented that night, got me through high school safely.

Only as an adult do I now recognize my teenage depression, anxiety, and traumatic stress. Then, I saw only a dark pit of loneliness before experiencing being held and accepted. Those musicians, those fans, those concerts, and those forums connected us as lifelong enthusiasts. They taught me how to create community online and then to extend it into my neighborhood and school. I now recognize that we made a life-changing brand community.

So, with hard-won lessons, I now choose to be in connection. Even when (especially when) it hurts. I recognize the importance of a place, online or physical, where fans, friends, colleagues, neighbors, classmates, or anyone else can discover that someone cares. That someone will remain.

Now I help others create this within organizations around the world. There is no cause too small to gather around. Playing with makeup, mobilizing a social movement, and resurrecting a rural school are all great reasons to join together.

Many mistakenly assume that strong community always looks “touchy-feely,” like emotional blathering and directionless wandering. In real-world practice, community is a key to unlocking many critical outcomes, such as innovation, crisis response, and policy change.

Measurable outcomes and relationship building are not opposite ends of a spectrum. They’re connected. Most people just don’t know how to connect them. I hope that through this book you will discover what many are missing.

Welcome.

Carrie Melissa Jones
Seattle, WA