Communities, just like the people they are made up with, are multifaceted. Despite having central goals and objectives that it seeks to pursue, a community is strongest when it is aided by meaningful partnerships outside its defined scope and purpose.

Through collaborations, communities are able to better address problems that intersect within the different demographics each community caters to. Moreover, they are able to help provide solutions not only for their specific audiences, but for adjacent communities that share similar challenges. As such, at the Facebook Community Accelerator, collaborations between different participating communities are encouraged and supported.

Community-building itself is a challenge. Thus, for many participating communities, becoming a part of an accelerator programme under the guidance of Facebook is beneficial to their cause. Furthermore, collaborations between communities help them widen their audiences and access more to people, and through partnerships, these communities are able to share their strengths and best practices with one another.

Challenges in community-building

While discussing their community-building efforts, Filipina Homebased Moms (FHMoms), a community that helps mothers obtain financial security and personal growth by helping women find home-based livelihood opportunities, explained that “during the start of the Facebook Accelerator programme, the Philippines was in the path of 4 typhoons, which affected the access to electricity and internet connectivity of everyone in the country. This slowed our progress for a month and a half.”

Despite this, the team behind FHMoms persevered. With the help of Facebook’s growth-related training, hands-on mentorship, and funding support, FHMoms aims to reach more Filipino stay-at-home mothers who need help or access to a source of livelihood and internet connectivity.

There are a variety of challenges that hinder communities from being able to flourish. Indonesian Babywearers (IBW) says that because of the nature of the community they are building, which is to provide consultations and education on baby-wearing — even at low cost — they still face the challenge of growing their community as people were “deterred by the price, which in turn has had an impact on our goal to improve the mental health of our community, especially mothers,” they explained.

Yohana Habsari, the chief proponent of the project, elaborated “we have had to find a balance in setting a price that is between the price of a professional consultation and what is acceptable by the community to enable mass education.”

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Just like FHMoms and IBW, many other participating communities turned to the programme to help address challenges in their community-building efforts. Thailand-based community Local Alike which focuses on empowering and connecting Thai tourism to the world and Philippine-based #MentalHealthPH whose goal is to promote and protect mental health awareness, both cited the pandemic as a key hurdle in their initiatives. Meanwhile, fellow mental health advocate, Ooca, explained that finding the right team members has been their biggest challenge.

Mental health was a big topic at this year’s community accelerator. Joining #MentalHealthPH and Ooca is MotherHope Indonesia (MHI) seeks to create a safe place for moms and promotes perinatal mental health literacy to support mothers and families affected by perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. MHI cited stigma surrounding mental health, funding, unintegrated perinatal healthcare, and untrained health workers and volunteers as some of their key obstacles.

Addressing these different challenges can be tricky and requires careful guidance from various community experts. BEAGIVER, a community that focuses on helping people create social impact, argues that it is important to keep members engaged. With the help of Facebook’s community management resources, BEAGIVER is hoping to design a chapter’s journey and membership journey, among other strategies, designs, and process, that they are coming up with to ensure meaningful experiences.

Advancement for Rural Kids (ARK), on the other hand, said that in order to address their challenges, they leveraged Facebook’s unparalleled reach into the rural areas of the Philippines. “We used the ad credits and utilised the persona analysis and other marketing skills we learned in the community accelerator to ensure we understand our target and potential partners,” they said.

These are only some of the challenges faced by the participating communities. Thankfully for them, however, apart from the programme’s arsenal of support, they can readily rely on partnerships and collaborations with one another for stronger community efforts.

Partnerships and collaborations

In building communities that can grow together, one must examine where pain points intersect so that efforts to address them can become collaborative in nature. In the case of FHMoms and #MentalHealthPH, Maria Korina of FHMoms said, “many of our moms are suffering from postpartum depression and other mental health issues but they don’t know where to go or who to ask for help. We decided to partner with #MentalHealthPH to explore ways to help our moms achieve better mental health.”

#MentalHealthPH and FHMoms offer similar forms of support to a common demographic through their various programmes such as consultation and access to mental health resources, among others. On the flip side, #MentalHealthPH acknowledges the crucial role of mothers to promote and protect mental health not only for themselves but also for their households. This easily aligns with FHMoms’ goals of empowering stay-at-home moms.

Local Alike on the other hand has partnered with YOUNGHAPPY, a community that helps seniors maintain an active lifestyle that promotes their self-esteem, keeps them engaged with their peers, and supports their wellbeing. Because this community is mostly made up of people who love to share their daily routines and special events with families and friends on social media, they are the perfect community to collaborate with for Local Alike’s goal of promoting community-based tourism.

Meanwhile, IBW sought partnerships with two participating communities. The first partnership with Ooca mutually benefits the two communities because of their intersecting interests. Members of IBW that need to seek mental health services are unable to do so due to the pandemic. Thankfully, Ooca’s services — which are mainly offered online — have become relevant and useful for their community.

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Moreover, while Ooca is a platform for online consultation, IBW has can provide specialists to perform the consultation. With their collaboration, IBW can reach more users both locally and internationally on the Ooca platform, while Ooca is able to enter the Indonesian market.

Their second collaboration supports a similar community while addressing similar pain points. MHI believes that social support requires an environment in which women can learn that they are not alone, they are not to be blamed, and that recovery is possible. This collaboration is fitting since IBW operates as a strong “virtual village” of women who can empower one another — which strengthens and supports MHI’s vision.

Lastly, ARK and BEAGIVER — both based in the Philippines — saw great potential in collaborating with each other. The team behind ARK explained that “BEAGIVER serves similar profile communities that we partner with. There is a potential that they have communities who want to solve hunger and food insecurity and want to be on a path to self-sufficiency.”

Meanwhile, BEAGIVER elaborated further that “both ARK and BEAGIVER are committed to uplift the economic condition of families in the community, and the community as a whole. While our entry point approaches are unique and different, the end goal is the same — no family should go hungry and communities must have economic opportunities or alternatives to better their lives.”

Moving forward to a more collaborative future

As these partnerships continue to evolve — forged by a burning passion to pursue common goals under the expert guidance of community-building juggernauts like Facebook, these communities are well on their way to creating meaningful impact. Having already mapped out future plans of launching online and offline events, establishing larger partnerships, raising public awareness, and amplifying causes, there is much to be expected from these budding community leaders.

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“The problems that we are solving are big and structural. It cannot be solved by any one organisation or any one solution. It can only be solved as a large partnership or coalition of similarly intentioned individuals, organisations (public and private, for-profit, and social profit), communities that bring diverse thought, talent, and experience,” said Ayesha of ARK.

Through the Facebook Community Accelerator, these communities do not only benefit from a slew of technical support, mentorship from a team of experts, and funding; more importantly, they get to form important networks and partnerships with other communities that can collectively impact the world in much bigger ways.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 
Facebook Community Accelerator

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