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 you 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 based on an asset-based approach to community development, which begins with what’s already there and helps you build upon that foundation.
If you read to the end, use this code “freestartchecklist” to get the checklist for free instead of paying $2.97
About the author
