Commitment is not only the starting place for community building, it’s the step that cannot be skipped. If the people in a group are not committed to building a community together, they won’t be able to build community together. Why? Because you can’t coerce a group into community, and you can’t organize them into a community. A group has to take responsibility for the community building process. It’s something we do together.

This is the essence of the difference between team building and community building process. Team building is organized by management. It’s not necessarily something that the members of the potential team elect to have for themselves. Community building involves a group of people who choose to build community together.

Community building starts with a suggestion; let’s build community together. It moves forward with the agreement of all involved. It makes it to the end of the challenging community building path with the commitment of the members.

Commitment offers the additional benefits of security of the members. When you know you’ll work it out, you’re more willing to interact authentically. It fosters camaraderie, a sense of us all being in this together. Commitment means the members feel supported by one another.

But the most important factor of commitment is that it denotes a willingness and a desire of the members to build community together.

Photo Credit: Vilmos Vincze