Welcome to the Couchers.org team! It's an exciting time here, and you're coming on as one of our first Community Builders to help achieve a critical mass of users.

Community Builders are more than just ambassadors, as the Couchers.org platform is centred around the communities that they manage. They are the volunteers responsible for growing and populating the platform itself through local outreach while moderating, running events, and organizing in other ways. Simply put, we would like you to build a thriving local community.

Our core growth strategy is to grow a network of Community Builders around the world, each connecting us with other couch surfing community organizers in their network, bringing their own local communities on board, and facilitating activity on the platform. With this core foundation built on trust, we will be able to expand the userbase sustainably, open communication channels, and create the platform that Couchsurfing™ should have been.

About being a Community Builder

On the Couchers.org platform, your responsibilities are to create a community page, keep it active through discussions and events, maintain public information, and make sure all content and member actions are within the Community Guidelines.

Outside of Couchers.org, you are critical to our outreach which you can do through bringing your local community onto the platform and by sharing Couchers.org through word of mouth, online spaces, and media outlets.

Platform tasks

On the platform, your community page must be populated with some content. Check out the Madison, USA Community Page for an example.

In the first week, please complete these tasks:

1. Short description: write some text (50-80 words) for the community overview to appear under the “General information” in the "Overview" tab (example). Email description to community.building@couchers.org and we will update it. Please remember to email this description to community.building@couchers.org
2. Long description/page: Write text for the "Local info" page (example). This can be edited on the page.
3. Start discussions: create new discussions on your community page, and make sure you are responsive when other people interact to keep up momentum (example).
4. Community Builder diversity: If all of the Community Builders in your community are men, you must recruit one who is not a man.

We may remove communities where the Community Organizers do not meet these 4 minimum platform tasks, as we need the communities present to be active.

Outreach tasks

1. New Community Builders: Find experienced and well-connected couch surfers in other cities to do what you're doing, or find other people to lead your community alongside you. Your own networks are best, but you can also search through Facebook groups and the Couchsurfing™ app for event organizers.
2. Event outreach: Attend events for other couch surfing platforms (including Couchsurfing™, Facebook and WhatsApp groups etc.), and tell people about Couchers.org. Of course only do this if your city has low Covid risk.
3. Media outreach: Contact local new outlets, blogs, magazines, YouTube channels and influencers that have an interest in travel or community matters, and give them information about Couchers.org and your local community, with the aim of getting content published.
4. Digital outreach: Spread the word on your social media platforms, find online groups (e.g. Facebook or WhatsApp) and contact your friends. If possible, convert existing digital groups to include Couchers.org (like the Chicago community).

Resources

• The Couchers.org Plan
• FAQ
• Details about Couchers, Inc.

Reporting Users and Content

We are still in the process of building out further reporting and moderation features. In the meantime, we would like you to keep an eye on activities on the platform, and report content or users you see that you believe are out of line with the spirit of the platform.

Please send reports to support@couchers.org

Future of Community Builders

Community Builders are an initial part of the Couchers.org platform. In the future, we will transition to full Community Moderators with extended powers over moderating their community. This is part of our plan to implement a distributed moderation model, where power and responsibilities are spread out instead of centralized. It will take time to build these features. We will, of course, be looking to successful Community Builders to take up Moderator positions.

Contact with the Couchers.org Core Team

If you have any questions whatsoever, or any other reason to contact us, please get in touch by emailing community.building@couchers.org. We will quickly respond to any communication!

Welcome to the Couchers.org team! We are really excited to be growing this platform alongside you!