 It's always hard to, to best example of this journey for me, you know, the, as I said, we're celebrating four years as a chapter this year, and within our community, and really the work that I've done and the work that we've done in that community wouldn't be possible without the amazing support, work within the tech community, and helps support community-oriented organizers who are doing amazing community work. And so, our first community, this is a new, a new community forming around this concept, this identity, and I'm finding that I'm actually, you know, kind of starting over how you go from scratch one of those frustrations. And of the things that I felt locally in my city-building community, is that something that's universal. So it got me thinking, you know, the same things I had. So I posed a question to Twitter. I said, do you help organize community and tech? You know, I want to hear from, you know, build connections that actually made this work easier for them to do. And I heard from all over the world, actually. I, it was immediately started, and I originally started as a, sort of expanded into this talk, but I heard from people in the UK, California, North Carolina as well. But I was surprised to hear that they all really share the same frustrations. And to be overarching, you know, the whole thing that I took away, is that you really can't effectively support the tech community until you understand who they are and who they seem to serve. So my goal today is to give you the tools you need to effectively and efficiently make an impact on your community. And argue with some information you need to find a community that works, that's good for you to be involved with. And then build a long-lasting relationship with them that's mutually beneficial for this community and then also for you personally and for your company. So I want to sort of define what I'm talking about when I say community. So I'm speaking specifically about communities that are within the realm of software development, some facet. So talking about tech events like user group meetings, workshops, tutorials, classes, hack-cons, conferences, project nights, code copies, install vests. There's a lot of different things to see out there. But some of these groups are directly tied to a company or nonprofit that houses that work. And then some communities are completely led by volunteers who are just passionate and want to help the people in their community. And some are run by paid community organizers. I paid, I'm a developer advocate, I get paid to help the community now. Some tech communities goals are tied specifically to the advancement of a certain language and for development method and others are committed to the advancement of diversity in tech, for example. In these conversations, there were five major themes that arose. The first one, listen, learn, and then be straight up. Second one, make it easy to request support. The third one, be prepared to offer more than just cash. Fourth one, think long term. And fifth one, encourage your employees to participate. I'm going to dive into each one of these now. So for the first one, when you're thinking about supporting tech community, you should really have a conversation first that it should start there. So reach out to the organizer or organizers and see if you can buy them coffee or buy them beer to talk about their community work and be prepared to have this meeting outside of business hours. So this conversation can be a great way to build a deep connection and really ask them questions. But also, it's a way that you can sort of build a bridge. So be understanding if this person says they don't have the time to meet with you because if they're a volunteer, they have a day job, they may not have time outside of their community work to meet with someone. And in that case, maybe just ask if you can come to one of our events as an observer and then email them afterwards some questions. And by sort of seeing them, you can see first hand if you can identify areas where they need help that you're able to offer. Christina Slater of DatProject, CSS.com, EO, UpForLove, and CSS classes said, Start a dialogue. Understand the community and be transparent about why your business is involved with supporting your tech community. By supporting your tech community, you're creating a value you're also marketing the existence and culture of your company. You're fostering avenues for continuing learning and improvement for tech workers in your city. And you're also letting your city know that you care about the ecosystem of the tech workforce outside of your walls. But really, all of these are awesome reasons to get involved, but bear in mind that not every one of these goals is going to fit within the mission of a community organization you want to support. So as an example, Royal Velvet, the local chapters are run entirely by volunteers. And because of this, building strong support community partners is really key to the success of each of these chapters. Sylvia Pelopour, GDI, Raleigh, speaks really highly of a local sponsor. She said, they are helpful to us and our community first and sell themselves second. The recruiting and sales pitches are there for a spectral and appropriate. So if you're a helpful community partner, that makes community organizing easier for these volunteers. And in turn, they're going to happily say the praises of your company. It will guide us in things you need to know to ensure you can provide the support that this community is going to need. So when you meet with this organizer, there are some really key questions you should ask. First, you know, honestly, tell me about your community. What is the demographic of the type of people that attend your events? What is the group's core mission and what are the most pressing goals? What are you trying to achieve in the work that you're doing in this community? What are the three concrete things that emerge to be the most to be able to achieve these goals? And why are you doing this work? You know, what is your background? What are your personal goals? You know, everyone that's doing this community work has a personal reason why they're doing it. Maybe they just, they really want to help people, but also maybe they're trying to move in and sort of advance their career and pick up new skills. Initial questions. You're super happy. You're super stoked. You're excited about the community. The goals, the line of your own. You've found some things that you think you can help them with. The organizers are super passionate and they're really excited. The scan of the tech game. It should really also move you to ensure that you're supporting a community that is able to source out there for ways to increase diversity and tech. But just as many examples of tech community is getting along. So if your company is committed to hiring diverse engineering teams, it's imperative for you to support community groups that are also committed to promoting this inclusion within their communities. Conversely, you really don't want to make the pop of supporting a community group that is actually known to be a toxic place for people who aren't in marginalized groups. And so if these people are avoiding this community and your company starts supporting them, they're also going to avoid your company. So you don't want that. And the conference for this year, there are the conference, you know, for those who haven't seen this controversy. The conference shows a keynote speaker with ties to white supremacy. And this caused a lot of public outcry. And all of the sponsors who were billed on the conference started to receive an onslaught of emails from people begging them to hold their support. So after they announced this keynote speaker within a few days, the conference lost almost all of their sponsors. And, you know, without saying the names of any of these companies, you don't want to be the person that the company starts getting this onslaught of emails. And if they had up front sort of asked the conference, you know, what is their policy around the type of people they ask to speak, what is their code of conduct, what do they do, they could avoid that PR nightmare. And so nobody wants that. So once you've decided that a community is really awesome, there are some more questions that you should probably ask before you put your name in the line of effect. So first, obviously, you know, do you have a code of conduct and diversity statement for your community? Do you have policy against teachers, almost organizers, using sexualized images, activities, or other material at your events? What strategies are you employing to ensure that your community promotes inclusion and diversity? And what percentage of your speakers say in the last 12 months you have represented a diversity group? And the last question is there alcohol at your community events? And if you do provide alcohol, do you have an alcohol policy around that? And do you ensure that non-alcohol beverages are also available? Once you have a community that you want to support, you really want to make it easy for them to sustain themselves by giving them the tools they need to get the resources that you've promised to them throughout time. So find ways to make yourself available to these new communities, by making these avenues for them, and making it easy for them to reach it. So, for example, Tasherscott.indc.ca in New York City said, if your company sells tech services, you should be sponsoring tech events. Attendees of tech community events are more likely to be dedicated to their craft and have a look around and insights on how to solve problems, since they see how others follow. Sponsoring tech events also gives companies the potential to be campus face-to-face in a more natural environment. So one great way that you can make it easy to support these groups is, you know, have a forum that they fill out on your website. Github does a great job of this, actually. They got a community section on their website, where putting on events, you put in your requests for the kind of support that you need, and then Github can let you know, you know, whether or not you're able to fill it in time for you to give them. This is really awesome because not only is Github making it easy for community organizers to get what they need from them, but they're also creating a funnel where they can easily see again the year, you know, what the full impact of their company was on the community, how many people they reached, and, you know, what that did for those community members. So money is a great thing, and, you know, most communities need money to do something. Something that will help our community grow and sustain. But sometimes I think it's great when it comes to work, then it's worth. As a volunteer, you know, trying to track money in and money out and budgeting and doing the accounting role with processing donations can be a lot more work than you can handle. So sometimes when it's supporting a tech community, the best thing you can do is actually just do some of the work so the community doesn't have to. So you can take care of purchasing some of the things that they need and just, you know, believe in that work. So if you're not sure where to start, a really great place to just, you know, get the ball rolling is buy snacks, and events. You know, every tech community or every, you know, you know, glove snacks. It's great to have a little bit of extra food to keep your brain power growing. That's an easy place for you to just think of, just have an event involved and, you know, add that to your community event. Some other great ideas and things you can offer, offer space. Your company has a really awesome conference room. You know, this is offering tables, chairs, mics, microwave access. It's just critical to a community event. You could also do any name tags, power strips, stickers, button-maker, owner of laptops. You know, there's a ton of things that you can just eat that if you have extras, things laying around that you can treat them. Some sort of larger scale things you can do. We have one to communicate or to coordinate the logistical stuff for the venue. So the community organizer doesn't have to. By doing this emotional labor, a reminder that you allow that organizer to just really focus on the content of the event. You know, everybody loves free stuff. And when people are walking around, if you're in the company's name on their, you know, or share it on their bag, that's an awesome cheap marketing way to spread the name of your company around. Lastly, you know, you can provide the group access to appropriate discounts when possible. So an example of that, both the lodging for out-of-town speakers or event judges. If you're an appropriate free business, if you offer a service that the community can take advantage of, then you can provide, or make them apply for free or discounted subscription to that service. So outside of just giving things to the community for one event or a couple of events, another way that you can really help them be sustainable is to think long-term. So find ways to sustain this group that, you know, really benefits you, but also helps them with more than just one really big event. You know, a lot of that group has a goal that they're working towards, and they need to raise money for that. You know, helping them to sustain themselves for the next year or a few years is an amazing impact. So Jan Lenhart of Honey and CouchDB said the best thing companies can do to help communities and events is to act selfless and not look for a direct return of investment. The return always comes, and usually with greater value, that would have been achieved So once in a while you're doing this, you know, go back to SNAPS and just submit to provide them once a month for a year. And then have someone by community or as I have an organizer to check in with to get them dropped off or ordered, and then they can say for all of their meetups that year you know, another way is to offer dedicated space to the group that they can use every month and even better create a portal that they can actually see and tell you. And the greatest gift any community organizer is encouraging your employees to participate. So, you know, it's a final theme and you know, obviously I'm pretty sure the choir here, you know, everyone who's here is... I'm going to go back to the people here today who had to use personal time to attend this event. There might be some people who are coming because they don't want their company to think they're looking for a new job. And so, you know, encouraging your employees to participate in the tech community may seem like no greater, but there are a lot of employees out there who are discouraged, there are employees who are participating. And so, you know, there may be a lot of reasons for that. It's possible that you've been heard in the past you've sent a cut-up employee to a conference and then they got recruited and left. I don't think anyone's ever heard of someone who, you know, was really happy at their job and just got swept up by some grieving rival company and, you know, got stolen away. You know, these folks had already decided to participate before they got there. Got said again, you know, bonus points consider attendance of the tech community members as training hours and let your company attend or let your employee attend on work time. You'll be investing not only in the skill of your employees, but in their work life as well, while keeping impact to the training budget though. So, I don't know if you can see this Dunkirk cartoon, but I really like it, it's like the media with one of your boss. He says, let me in training to keep up with technology trends. And one of his employees says, me? And he turns to him and says, you're fired. I only want people who already know how to do their jobs. He says, I didn't see that coming. And his co-workers says they don't have any workers or a precious resource to any tech company. And there are endless reasons to encourage them to be part of the community. If you're titled training dollars, encourage your employees to participate. You know, it helps to gain knowledge training and productivity resources. And if the events are after hours, this doesn't cost you anything. So, Florida Mitchell, HP Northwest, and there's also one author and speaker who wanted to tell people that the community will help them scale up, and also make connections for the next step. So, for you, as someone who works, if you work for a company that says that you can attend, you know, this could be like I said, following your passions and your own time, or the evenings can be ends. You know, this isn't possible for everyone. Unless your company is supporting you, it's difficult to have time if you have families and other things going on that are outside that you need to take care of. But if you have the ability to pay off the bill, make the extra person all the time worth it. So, the best piece of advice I received from folks who have since hesitation from their managers is don't ask permission. Your employer's not paying you for your free time. Rob Hill of Romonco Camp and HACVT said, honestly, there's a big aspect of not asking permission of my employer to do it. It's part of how I stay engaged with my employer. He also said, I'm way more interested in building a healthy and supportive community than being the needs of anyone of my employer. So, for team leads and managers to take note, if you let these passionate people do these things, they can. If you don't let them do these things, they are going to do them anyway. So, why not encourage it? And even smaller, allow yourself to depend from it. Depending on the event, you could offer talk time to your employee and a term for them reporting back to the rest of your engineering team. You could offer a conference, write a blog post, bring her into our blog, post a viewing party, one or two of their favorite talks if there was a video about the event, or even give them training on the skill they learned. So, these people not only get to benefit from learning these skills, but your whole team benefits from a skilled version of the content that they found most applicable to your team. So, in closing, in all truth, this talk is selfish for me. In doing this work, I've seen a lot of community organizers get burnt out. They did so much work, they had amazing sold out events, but they felt alone, they were doing most of the work themselves, and they just burned out, they flashed the pan, and then that community goes away. So, without any successor or other people supporting them in this work, your city loses a value for resource. So, I think every successful community organizer deserves a break. And, also, deserves to be part of a community who's willing to step in and help give them the time. So, as community organizers, whether the communities are physical or virtual, we all really love people in our own ways, and we have the hardest time saying, you know, someone in our community says they need something. So, this is a blessing and a first for us, because without support we inevitably give too much, and we turn it into monsters, and into superwives. So, I challenge everyone here, if you have ever attended or enjoyed a local music group, a conference, or a tech community meetup, or what day is this weekend, reach out to your organizer and ask them how you can help in the future. Even if it's just volunteer organizing one meetup next month, or buying pizza for an upcoming meetup that's happening, you're going to have to do, and really be paying a small fraction of the benefit you earn from these events. At the very least, if you see these amazing people at the bar, buy a vocal. They are.