Start Where You Are: A Simple Community-Building Checklist
For people who are managing a community and feel unsure where to begin.
Managing a community can feel heavier than expected
Maybe you have inherited a community.
Maybe you were asked to “just get people engaged.”
Maybe you care deeply — but feel unsure what to focus on first.
If that sounds familiar, this checklist is for you.
This is not a growth guide.
It’s a grounding tool to help you understand what already exists — and how to start from there.
What this checklist helps you do
Start Where You Are is a short, practical resource designed to help you:
- Make sense of the community you are responsible for
- Identify existing people, strengths, and relationships
- Understand shared challenges without framing people as problems
- Find a calm, realistic starting point
- Take one meaningful next step — without overwhelm
No platforms. No funnels. No “engagement hacks.”
Just clarity.
Who this is for
This checklist is especially useful if you:
- Are managing or supporting a community (online or offline)
- Have inherited a group, audience, or space you didn’t build
- Feel pressure to “do more” but don’t know what actually matters
- Want to build something sustainable, not performative
- Care about people and context, not just metrics
What’s inside
The checklist walks you through:
- Understanding your role and what you already bring
- Mapping people and participation already present
- Noticing where community already happens
- Identifying shared challenges and unanswered questions
- Connecting existing assets in simple, human ways
- Choosing one small, realistic next step
You can complete it in one sitting — or return to it whenever things feel unclear.
Why I created this
Too much community advice assumes you are starting from scratch — or that the answer is another tool, platform, or strategy.
In reality, most people managing communities already have more than they realise.
This checklist is built on an asset-based approach to community development, which starts with what’s already there and helps you build from that foundation.
Download the checklist
About the author
