#community-building

#community-building

How did you build your village? We asked NPR's audience this question in our newsletter in January, inspired by Life Kit's interview with Priya Parker on how to create community. The key is to start imagining the community you might want to live in and then take steps to make that a reality, says Parker, a conflict resolution facilitator and the author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters. Many of our readers have done just that.

What makes Granada so unconventional is the fact that it's located on the lower level of their actual home, a situation enabled by LA County's relatively new Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation (also known as MEHKO) permit. The permit allows Wayser and Watters to legally serve coffee and food out of their house, with limitations on the number of staff and total annual earnings.

Michelle Paulin dances while instructing youth at the Dulce Tricolor Venezolano dance group at the Ariel Dance Studio in Campbell on Jan. 25, 2026. Dulce Tricolor, a Bay Area Venezuelan dance group founded in 2019, teaches children traditional folk dances while preserving culture, building community and offering a sense of home amid Venezuela's ongoing political and economic crisis. (Josie Lepe for KQED)

People say it takes a village to do difficult things: raise a child, sustain a community, build a barn. But we don't often talk a lot about what it takes to be a villager. What does it mean to not just be in a community, but to help create one? Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, says the key is to put yourself out there, even if it's scary.

All the swiping, chatting, and meeting up on Thursday nights - even when you're super tired or not in the mood to go out. Now imagine putting that same effort into seeing your friends. On TikTok, people are talking about the importance of friendship and how easy it is to deprioritize your besties. While you might love your friends, it's not uncommon to go weeks, and sometimes even months, without seeing them.

"You can have as much money as you want to pour into the algorithm and buy ads," Kaplan told Business Insider. "But if you don't have the right founder who's able to build a community and the attention that you need to build a real product that people want, all of that money ... is meaningless."

That model no longer fits how tech leaders work today. Over the past years, I have spent time in conversations with founders, executives, and operators who carry real responsibility inside their organizations. As a community builder, I often speak with them before they commit to attending events. Their questions are direct. They want to know who will be in the room, how discussions are structured, and whether the environment allows honest exchange.

We don't know where the product is going to end up because the celebrity will pick the product,

EuroPython wouldn't exist if it weren't for all the volunteers who put in countless hours to organize it. Whether it's contracting the venue, selecting and confirming talks & workshops or coordinating with speakers, hundreds of hours of loving work have been put into making each edition the best one yet. Read our latest interview with Jakub Červinka, a member of the EuroPython 2025 Operations Team and organizer of PyConCZ 2026. Thank you for your service to EuroPython, Jakub!

I was raised by entrepreneurs, but I never wanted to be one. Instead, I saw myself in a big corner office in the city. I started climbing the corporate ladder, but being laid off twice showed me that a corporate career wasn't as secure as I thought. I started freelancing, and soon opened a marketing agency called No Subject. We focused on events and influencers, back when we were still calling them bloggers.

"Before the creator economy had rules, roadmaps, or ring lights in every bedroom, Brianna Mizura was already building something rare: community. What started as short-form POV storytelling quickly evolved into a universe of characters, emotional arcs, and inside jokes that millions of Gen Z and Gen Alpha fans didn't just watch-they lived inside. Today, with more than 20 million followers across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, Brianna is one of the internet's original breakout stars-and one of its most enduring."

My hope is that this new community building and George Street public plaza will become a cherished destination in Sydney's city center, a generative place for people to connect, recharge, reflect, and take a pause from the rhythm of a fast-transforming city.

Tribes and communities are deeply ingrained as important in the human psyche. By leveraging this fact, you can more efficiently increase engagement and foster loyalty among your customers, regardless of the type of product you're selling. This goes for almost all companies. That's not to say that some types of products and services aren't more or less suited, but except for a few specific niches, almost any can benefit to some degree from a community.

John Gourley of Portland-based Portugal. The Man has been quietly dropping heat since the mid-2000s, well before the formation of P.TM and the band's move from Wasilla, Alaska, down to Rip City. It's been all community building of some sort or another: community building with other musicians and creatives, community building between cultures and traditions, and community building with the land and its stewards.

Designers Ye Jin Lee, Jung A Park, and Yujin Lee definitely think so, because they created FURNY to solve exactly this problem. FURNY isn't your typical furniture design project. It's a mobile furniture system specifically built for co-living spaces, and its entire purpose is to help people start conversations without that painful awkwardness we've all experienced. The concept is simple but clever: what if furniture could be the friendly person who breaks the ice first?

Travis, previously an Air Force flight surgeon, had matched into a military-sponsored orthopedic residency in Houston. With a 1-year-old and a newborn in a brand-new city, Erin paused her career as a labor and delivery nurse to support her husband's residency and get the family settled. Unpacking was the easy part. Making the unfamiliar feel like home was the real challenge.

The way I think about community, I try to look at it through the lens of what would I be interested in, what do I want to attend?

Younger immigrant members of the time bank often offer assistance with household tasks, like carrying heavy things up the stairs. She recalled a story of members rallying to help a woman in her 50s who had to leave her home on short notice. They moved boxes, painted walls and stripped floors to make her fixer-upper livable. In return, Albright said, immigrants often request help with navigating challenging systems, like health care appointments.