With community building at the core of Facebook’s mission, the social media company is launching the Facebook Community Accelerator — a programme that aims to equip communities with the training, mentorship, and funding they need to grow.
The project, an evolution of Facebook’s Fellowship programme which in 2019, supported 115 participating leaders worldwide, seeks to support communities across the Asia Pacific region. The goal of the programme is to help enable community leaders to understand and address their needs in sustaining and strengthening their communities, while establishing and managing strategic relationships with key partners.
This goal is achieved by providing support to credible and qualified community leaders who are selected out of the programme’s pool of applicants.
Selected community leaders stand to gain a slew of perks that include:
- Growth Focused Training where participants go through an intensive training programme geared towards helping them create a growth plan for their communities with the help of tools offered under Facebook’s family of apps.
- Mentorship and Partnership under the skillful guidance of Facebook team members and experts in product and community growth who will be imparting knowledge and insights through hands-on mentorship, as well as connecting them to local funders and partners.
- Funding opportunities to approved growth plans that emerge on top after a process of iteration and execution. This also comes with funding and continued support from Facebook’s network and dedicated teams encompassing a total of $3 million worth of funding which will be awarded to up to 80 participants.
With all these benefits at stake, Facebook will be gathering some of the most passionate community leaders in the region through a rigorous selection process. Selected community leaders will be spending three months of their time learning from experts, coaches, and Facebook’s custom curriculum to craft a growth plan that matches their goals.
Community leaders will also get to showcase their communities and progress to external funders and partners in an event that will culminate the programme.
Partnership with e27
In Asia Pacific, Facebook has chosen to partner with e27 to bring the Community Accelerator to life. Over the next six months, Facebook will work closely with the e27 team to deliver learning, ecosystem connections and core coaching for the selected community leaders.
“The goal of the Facebook Community Accelerator is to help impactful communities grow. To achieve this, we want to ensure that we deliver a programme that is highly personalized and pertinent to our community leaders across the region – equipping them with the tools they need to meet their goals and create further impact in their communities. We are excited to partner with e27 to deliver this in Asia Pacific”, said Grace Clapham, Head of Community Partnerships APAC, Facebook.
For years, e27 has been one of APAC’s go-to platforms for news, community, events, talent, funding, and more. Having made connections and establishing many different partnerships in its vast network, e27 has long positioned itself as a community leader in the tech startup ecosystem.
Also read: Are you a community leader? Facebook wants you.
“We’ve been fortunate to grow as a community over the years and, in partnership with Facebook, we hope to help more communities scale and grow. Facebook brings a tremendous amount of knowledge, partnership activities and support to fledging communities and we hope communities can take advantage of this to scale the impact of their respective efforts,” said Mohan Belani, CEO and Co-Founder of e27.
e27 will also tap into its APAC network to gather support and exposure for the participants and their respective communities.
“It is in our DNA to work with small organisations and enable them to succeed. As a community ourselves, we understand the pains of growing a community and know how to solve them,” added Belani.
End goals
In order to positively impact the lives of millions of people and break systemic barriers that obstruct community growth, Facebook seeks to help community leaders grow their memberships and expand to new geographies.
Not only will selected community leaders benefit from the training and mentorship that is part of the programme, but they will also become part of a peer network of similar stage leaders with similar challenges whom they can also learn from. Through the programme, they will be able to network with potential funders and ecosystem partners, while enjoying increased visibility through Facebook’s and e27’s support.
The programme will run for a total of six months. By the end of the programme, participants are likely to gain tools and knowledge that will help define a strategic roadmap for their respective growth plans.
More importantly, they will be able to go through tested community models for sustainable scale, gain a network of funders and support partners to help sustain their growth, access a bigger reach that includes entry into new markets, and positively impact people’s lives.
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