Community Management

The ability to launch online communities, design member engagement, and build self-sustaining community ecosystems.

Community Management is the ability to create spaces where people with shared interests gather, facilitate connections between members, and design sustainable participation structures. It covers the full community lifecycle, from platform selection and rule-setting to content strategy, conflict mediation, growth metrics, and monetization.

Business & Management

7 Levels

Published: Mar 16, 2026 · Updated: Apr 18, 2026 · v6

Levels

At this stage, you are exploring various platforms with a new interest in communities. You understand the basic features of major platforms such as Discord, Slack, and forums, observe active communities to identify their operational structures, and learn participation etiquette by reading community guidelines.

Can join 3 or more different community platforms (e.g., Discord, Slack, forums) and use their basic features
Can observe 1 active community for at least 2 weeks and document its operational structure (channels, rules, roles)
Can read a community's guidelines and explain 5 key rules
Can perform basic participation activities in a community, such as asking questions, answering, and reacting
Can observe and record 3 differences between a thriving community and an inactive one

What Comes Next

If you've achieved most items in this checklist, you're ready to launch and run your own small community of 10 to 50 members. Start by defining your community's purpose in a single sentence and writing a Code of Conduct. The Engagement family skills from the Community Skills Framework (The Community Roundtable), especially content curation and conversation facilitation, are central at this stage.

References

The Community RoundtableProficiency Scale

Defines community maturity across 4 stages (Emergent, Established, Managed, Networked) with maturity criteria spanning 8 domains: strategy, content, leadership, governance, culture, tools, operations, and metrics.

Community Maturity Model™

The Community RoundtableCompetency Framework

Classifies 50 core community manager skills into 5 families (Strategy, Engagement, Business, Content, Technical) with role-based priority mapping across Moderator, Specialist, Manager, Strategist, and Director levels.

Community Skills Framework™

Journal of Medical Internet Research (Young, 2013)academic_research

Models the online community lifecycle in 4 stages (Inception, Establishment, Maturity, Mitosis) with academically validated operational strategies and success metrics for each stage.

Community Management That Works: How to Build and Sustain a Thriving Online Health Community

David Spinks (Wiley, 2021)textbook

Systematizes practical frameworks including the SPACES Model (6 business outcomes), Commitment Curve (4 participation levels), and 7Ps of Community Experience Design.

The Business of Belonging: How to Make Community your Competitive Advantage

Wenger (1998), Cambridge University Pressacademic_research

Communities of Practice theory explaining how participation stages (peripheral participation, full participation, leadership) ground the level-by-level transitions in community management

Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity

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Community Management

Levels

Level 1#PlatformBasics#CommunityEtiquette#CommunityObserverObserving the structure and dynamics of online communities while learning the basic features of major platforms.

Level 2#SmallGroupSetup#CodeOfConduct#Onboarding#ContentCurationLaunching a small-scale community with basic rules and an onboarding flow designed for new members.

Level 3#CommitmentCurve#EngagementStrategy#MemberRetention#ConflictMediationDeveloping engagement strategies, managing member retention, and mediating conflicts independently.

Level 4#ModTeamBuilding#CommunityDashboard#CrisisResponse#DataDrivenOpsBuilding a moderator team to share operational responsibilities and systematizing the community through data-driven decision-making.

Level 5#SPACESModel#CommunityROI#Monetization#MethodologyDesignConnecting the community to business value, designing revenue models, and establishing an operational methodology to share with others.

Level 6#EcosystemArchitecture#CommunityGovernance#LeaderPipeline#CrossCommunityDesigning multi-community ecosystems, developing next-generation community leaders, and creating cross-community synergies.

Level 7#CommunityInfrastructure#FrameworkCreator#CommunityLegacyShaping industry culture and standards through communities and pioneering new paradigms in community management.

References

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