Your organization may be putting in a lot of work to create a vibrant online community. But when engagement metrics start to slide, do you immediately try to brainstorm creative tactics to pump them back up? If yes, that may be a mistake.

“The problem is a failure to properly diagnose why engagement decreased,” says a recent FeverBee blog post. “Much like medicine and engineering, it’s far harder to diagnose the problem than to identify the solution.”

Consider whether your community suffers from low value perception. Your members may know about the community but don’t see any reason to join in. This could mean that the purpose of your community may be flawed conceptually. “Ask your audience what challenges they are tackling today and check if this matches the discussions and activities taking place in the community today,” the post says.

Also, consider what your competitors are doing online. Other groups or platforms may be keeping your members engaged. To make your community stand out “usually requires focusing on a unique, growing niche you can dominate (if you’re smaller) or fear of missing out (if you’re the bigger community).”

The post goes on to reveal the reasons behind why people participate in online communities and why people leave communities behind.

Prioritize Accessibility

While #eventtech is helping #eventprofs make meetings more accessible for people with disabilities, technology alone can't solve the challenges of inclusiveness. Great read from @skift. https://t.co/fPb7u84fBJ

— Eventbase Technology (@EventbaseTech) December 13, 2017

People with disabilities are active members in the association space, and it’s vital that they have full access to all meetings and events.

A recent Skift post implores meeting planners to make sure that selected hotels and convention centers are accessible for people with a wide range of disabilities—not just mobility impairments. “It’s incumbent on the meeting planner to be asking all the right kind of questions about accessibility,” David Dikter, CEO of the Assistive Technology Industry Association, tells Skift. “They need to make sure that a hotel or a convention facility is equipped to deal with their entire customer base, not just a certain customer base.”

Other Links of Note

Many millennials would like to work for a good cause, but student loan debt may be holding them back. Blue Avocado reveals how nonprofits can work to attract indebted young professionals.

Are you listening to your donors enough? The Agitator makes the case for urgency in learning more about them.

Should your nonprofit move to the cloud? The Capterra technology blog details the pros and cons.

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