When you set out to build a community, what you are really doing is creating a space where people can come together and connect with one another. Creating a space can be very different from creating content. For those of us who have dedicated our entire professional lives to the art of content creation, myself included, the mindset shift required to build spaces can be disorienting. It’s a completely different way of thinking about things.

That’s why we invited Bri Leever, a professional community strategist and the founder of Ember, to join us for our latest Beyond the Broadcast virtual event. We launched the Beyond the Broadcast series to help public media professionals learn how companies outside of their industry are building communities and to figure out how they can apply those lessons to their own stations. Bri Leever is exactly the type of person I envisioned talking to public media pros when we set out on this journey.

In addition to helping content creators launch their own paid communities, Bri just wrapped up the first season of her podcast. It’s called Dear Bri, and it’s a Dear Abby-style podcast that helps community builders navigate the space. It’s full of practical advice based on her years of experience. I highly recommend it to anybody in public media who wants to learn more about how to build communities from their audiences.

At our virtual event, I asked Bri for five mindset shifts that content creators need to make as they start to build communities. We covered a lot of ground. I won’t rehash it all here — you can watch the 23-minute video for yourself — but I think Bri’s insights will not only help broadcasters, they will also relieve them. One recurring theme in the discussion is the notion that community building is not a Herculean task that should be undertaken by one person in the organization, but rather an endeavor that involves enlisting the aid and participation of people in the community who are not on the payroll. In other words, you don’t have to do it all yourself!

Bri didn’t just speak to me at our event, she also took questions from the public media broadcasters that attended. (Sorry, there’s no recording of the Q&A — you have to show up if you want to see that!) I was struck by the wide variety of different types of communities public radio stations are thinking about building or engaging with, from kids who are classical music fans to Native American tribes to rural listeners without easy access to the internet. The community building possibilities are endless.

Check out the recording of our conversation, and if community building is something that your public media station is interested in learning more about, join us for our next Beyond the Broadcast event in December:

Join or Die on The Daily Show

We kicked off our Beyond the Broadcast series with exclusive screenings of the documentary Join or Die, which explores the community-building research of Dr. Robert Putnam. Putnam is the author of a groundbreaking book Bowling Alone, which explores the crucial role that community connections play in civic life and in mental health.

It turns out that we’re not the only ones who think this documentary is important. It’s now available on Netflix, and Jordan Klepper interviewed Robert Putnam on The Daily Show this week:

After you’ve watched Join or Die, check out the virtual panel discussion we hosted about how public media can embrace the principles in this film:

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