What's a coliving community manager or facilitator…?
In listings on this site, occasional events or regular events means there's no dedicated community role responsible for coordinating activities and events. Not sure what is coliving?
A community manager 🕴️
Is responsible for check-in, making sure you know how the property works, plus organising and perhaps also leading some events — but may not often participate.
They're usually a staff member working fixed hours, with other responsibilities such as coordinating back of house operations to ensure quality of service.
A community facilitator 🧚
Is an embeded member of the community, responsible for connecting everyone, making sure there's things to do, and frequently participating themselves. As one of us, we're more likely to become friends and tag-along with them whenever we want to join the group.
Expected to also be living on-site. May additionally look after some management if no one else is responsible, such as in smaller properties.
Key events 🎪
A manager is more likely to organise skill shares, tours and meals at restaurants, whereas a facilitator is more hands-on with activities like karaoke, hikes and potluck dinners. (Yoga and movies are a bit banal as can be organised by anyone, so don't mean community is active…)
The following are best practices in coliving, and should be every week on a fixed day.
- Family meal
- A relaxed social get-together, as a sit-down meal at the dining table. Sometimes provided by the space as a brunch, usually a combination of potluck contributions from everybody. The facilitator or manager must chase everyone to encourage participation. This is also a key moment to get to know new arrivals, so there may be a round of introductions.
- Activity planning
- A gathering to listen to each other's ideas and solidify organisation should anyone want to participate. The facilitator or manager will make suggestions based on their local knowledge, and of what has or hasn't yet been done amongst the group. The results of this will usually be written up on a notice board and/or posted to the group chat.
These should be at the property itself, not a restaurant requiring additional effort to join thus an outing/activity. In smaller properties events may be combined, whilst in larger they'll be independent on different days to increase the liklihood more members can attend at least one.
Who does this?
Often in smaller spaces the founder is community facilitator but may only be part-time with assistance from helpers doing work-exchange as volunteers. In larger spaces, there are usually dedicated staff and as community manager.
It's worth checking to see if the space is a member of industry associations or follows best practices, how volunteers are supported, or even ideally if who's leading community at any time is advertised. Member experiences will be highly dependant upon the support that the founder has access to or volunteers receive, else their own experience.
If you'd like to try out in a community role, we heartily recommend doing work-exchange at a coliving! Explore the directory of volunteering opportunities…
Comparing usual differences
| manager | facilitator | |
|---|---|---|
| residence | off-site | on-site |
| availability | working hours | frequently but part-time |
| participation | occasional | often |
| social cues | is management | is one of the gang |
| ideation | by management | by members |
| problems | solves | refers |
| engagement | employed | work-exchange or founder |
| primary | management | community |
| secondary | community | some management |
Sometimes a manager may reside on-site, especially if the owner, yet may not participate as much as a volunteer facilitator would. They may therefore be described as either.
For operators
We strongly encourage having adequate support for anybody assisting with operations and community, through training, access to best practices and knowledge exchange. Connect into the wider ecosystem by joining the Coliving Hub operator association whom share some best practices, or the free Coliving Community Builders group where you can post opportunities and find some resources. For a higher level of support and defining operating processes you may wish to hire the services of a coliving consultant.
Combined roles
Can be problematic because it's difficult to be friends and socialise with the person handling (or heaven forbid, ignoring!) issues that members may have. When well managed or small this is no worry, yet inevitably there will always be issues of some kind, and in the worst cases without clear responsibility, members may split into groups on conflicting sides.
John Ho (Alt_) advises that management and facilitation roles should not be combined, however they have larger spaces with staff, whereas at lower capacity it does not matter much as everyone gets to know each other better.
Either role could be responsible for complaints and their resolution however it is better for these to be handled separately by upper management, depending upon signficance.
Upper management are often not on site, which can result in issues appearing to not have a timely resolution, affecting member experiences, therefore either role should ideally be empowered for resolution. In the case of facilitator this can be more difficult being embeded thus they are more likely to need to refer to upper management.
Notes
- These roles are used in many sectors, this page only considers as coliving. The most closely related is coworking spaces, however in this case it is almost never as a facilitator unless very large. In these situations the proximity and embedding of the roles is reversed, i.e. a community manager is the centre of a group directly around them, whilst a facilitator is within a looser and wider network group.
- The roles may be used in online communities, where it often significantly comprises moderation, also a component in large coliving spaces having a chatgroup.
- Member, guest and resident are used interchangably, guests are short-term implying hospitality orientation, residents stay longer as tenants, members is the more inclusive and can refer to any though implies a joining process.