Get Together

“Society is losing something when we don’t share our weirdness with one another. You're losing something when you have someone at your table and they don't share what makes them different. One of the purposes I have in life is to create spaces where people will share what is interesting about them, and why they are different.” - Sophie Mona Pagès

As a Moroccan immigrant growing up in France, Sophie Mona Pagès grew up feeling a bit “weird” in her complex identity. She craved a space infused with diversity, inclusion, intimacy, modernity, and beauty. 

Instead of waiting for such a space to appear, she created LVRSNFRNDS herself. The 20 attendees at the first event in East London were people Sophie found on dating apps who she “would be happy to spend an evening with.” She asked them to fill out a form if they wanted to attend, spend 15 minutes with her on a call, and gathered fun facts about each attendee to spark conversations. The group was diverse across identities and ages, and meaningful relationships were sparked. The night was a success. 

Today LVRSNFRNDS gathers people around the world, to fight loneliness and enable meaningful connections of all kinds. Hand-selected members have access to events where they’re asked to contribute their voice to conversations on intimacy and relationships.

In March 2020, the community traded bars for virtual rooms. We’ll talk with Sophie about developing a playbook that captures shared values, facilitating online conversations, and why this work matters to her.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• Origin story. Finding the first 20 people.
• Can’t fake the funk. “I grew up feeling weird.”
• Going virtual. People showing up and supercharging the why--support.
• Facilitating online. Empowering members to step up as hosts.
• Building playbooks with members. Acknowledging that people mess up and creating a response for when that happens.

👋🏻Say hi to Sophie Mona Pagès and learn more about LVRSNFRNDS.

✨Thank you to Marjorie, “Get Together” correspondent,  for bringing us this story.

📄See the full transcript

This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 

🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.

We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. 

And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.

Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

“As the community grows and people come back, they start wanting to know more about us and where we're coming from. We wanted to make that really clear--the origin of all of these recipes and of our family.” - Sarah Leung

The Woks of Life has opened the door for many families to connect over the food and memories they love. The Leung family, Bill and Judy, and daughters Sarah and Kaitlin started the blog to document their favorite Chinese dishes and family memories in 2013. 

Food has been a central part of their family's heritage. Sarah’s grandpa was a chef in the New York Catskills and Sarah’s dad, Bill, worked with him in the restaurants.

Today, their blog is recognized as an authority for Chinese cooking and has sparked a robust online community. They developed their beloved editorial lens by capturing sincere experiences and rich memories with food as Chinese Americans. We talk with Sarah of how her family found their voice and supercharged others to share theirs too.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• Origin story. Sarah and her sister realized they weren’t eating the food of their childhood without their parents around.
• Role modeling conversations. Attaching memories to recipes.
• Spark of community. Realizing that the blog was bigger than just their family.
• Creating an editorial lens. Capturing the breadth of experience people have with Chinese cuisine.
• Responding to feedback. Keeping the blog “living and breathing” and always improving.

👋🏻Say hi to Sarah and learn more about The Woks of Life.

✨Say hi to Maggie Zhang, “Get Together” correspondent.

📄See the full transcript 

This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 

🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.

We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. 

And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.

Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

“Everyone has that thing that makes them super excited they can just talk endlessly about it. When you’re interviewing you're feeling around for that geyser. You don't know what's going to make them light up. As you find it, you can feel that flow and the change in their voice.” - Maggie Zhang

Maggie Zhang and Bailey sit down to reflect on Maggie’s learnings so far as a “Get Together” correspondent. Maggie’s approaching her 10th episode on the podcast. She’s brought us the stories behind creative communities like Improv Everywhere, Atlas Obscura, and Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls. Her curiosity, creativity, and thoughtfulness has leveled up our podcast immensely —from how we choose guests, to how we approach our interviews and edits.

Outside of the podcast, Maggie is the Design Community Manager at Spotify. She has also worked at IDEO, Substack, Daily tous le jours, and she once traveled around the world to create her own publication, Commonplays, about what makes a place creative and innovative. 

In this episode, you’ll learn more about Maggie and absorber reflections from helping us make the podcast.

👋🏻Say hi to Maggie and share any ideas for the podcast at maggie(at)people-and.com

This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 

🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.

We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. 

And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.

Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

“The hallmark of Toastmasters is making things fun because we want people to come back. We can have the best education in the world but if you're not coming back, it's of no use.” - Joe Smith

Toastmasters was founded on October 22, 1924 (97 years ago!) at a YMCA in Santa Monica, California by a man named Ralph Smedley.

Ralph set out to offer a functional value--creating a space for members to improve their public speaking. What continues to keep people coming back decades later is the inspirational, supportive, and fun vibe of the group. 

Toastmasters is sustained by a vibrant group of volunteers. Today there are more than 364,000 paying members around the world, and one in three members also volunteers for the organization.

Joe Smith is a longtime Toastmaster and serves as the Program Quality Director for District 38 of Toastmasters in the Philadelphia area. We talked with him about Toastmasters’ history and the magic that keeps members coming back to learn and volunteer.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• Can’t fake the funk. How Joe found himself at Toastmasters.
• Origin story. People are afraid of public speaking--everywhere.
• An activity refined over years. Clubs gather around table topics and prepared speeches with clear roles.
• Creating leaders. “Members have reaped the benefits throughout their life and they want to pay it back,” so they step up as volunteers.
• World Championship of public speaking. Celebrating and expanding the pool of speaker feedback.

👋🏻Say hi to Joe and learn more about Toastmasters.

📄See the full transcript

This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 

🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.

We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. 

And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.

Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

“We really managed to create a community of doers. Our people always look at how they can impact the world, how they can impact change.”  - Colombe Cahen-Salvador

In 2016, Colombe, Laura, and Andrea were devastated by the UK's decision to leave the European Union. Colombe is French, and Andrea and Laura are Italian. For them, the E.U. is a symbol of a more open and global society.

In response, the team completely changed their lives to organize. Colombe and Andrea started by creating Volt, a pan-European political party. They were the first to attempt and succeed in building a continent-wide political party. 

But in doing so they realized the biggest issues of our time weren’t just European issues, they were global issues–climate change, big tech, and the rise of fascism. Action would be meaningless unless the world bands together. 

Colombe, Andrea, and Laura have been working over the last year on a global campaign movement called NOW! to unite and solve shared global challenges. We talk with them about how they are developing leaders around the world and taking action together.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• What brings Colombe, Laura, and Andrea to this work. The need to bridge gaps across the continent and the shared experience of Erasmus.
• Shifting direction. Making the decision to redefine who their community was built with from local to global. And, inviting members from the original community to stay engaged.
• Forging a watering hole. A global platform to connect people with varying access to technology.
• Listening. Creating space to hear community and systems to reflect insights back in tools, resources, and stories.
• Shared activity. Bringing together volunteers, the most energized members, for weekly community chats, talking about global topics from a local perspective.
• Call to action. How you can get involved.

👋🏻Say hi to Colombe, Laura, and Andrea and learn more about NOW!

📄See the full transcript

This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 

🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.

We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. 

And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack, and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.

Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

“Stop using the word community. We all know community is magical but doesn’t come together by magic. It’s magical because it’s this elusive thing. So take the ambiguity out of it. Stop using the word and get more specific.” - Kai Elmer Sotto

People & Company’s theme of our last year was to refine the process we use to teach community building. How did it go? What did we learn? What will 2021 hold?

Kai, Kevin and Bailey sat down with our friend Marjorie Anderson, “Get Together” correspondent, for a no-holds-bar reflection. They dove into their coaching process, learnings with clients going virtual, and what’s ahead for 2021.

Note: we had some technical difficulties and audio is not as clear as always. 

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• About People & Company. Inside look into how People & Company strives to show up in the world.
• Personal year in review. Bailey, Kevin, and Kai reflect on big life moments in 2020.
• Communicating the value of community. Stop using the word "community."
• Looking ahead, 2021. Partnership as the north star for the work at People & Company. 

👋🏻Say hi to us, People & Company, and learn more about our work with organizations.

✨Special thank you to Marjorie Anderson, “Get Together” correspondent.

This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 

🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.

We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. 

And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.

Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

“In creating a home, I'm creating sustainability. And I'm creating excellence within the people that I'll be housing.”- Ceyenne Doroshow

Ceyenne Doroshow is an author, activist, and the founder and executive director of G.L.I.T.S., an organization dedicated to creating sustainable housing and healthcare for Black transgender people. 

Ceyenne has become “the parent that she desperately wanted as a child” for people around the world. At an early age, Ceyenne identified as transgender and faced a world lacking even the language to understand the experience of a trans person. 

In June 2020, Ceyenne co-organized the historic Liberation March, a Black Trans Lives Matter silent march in Brooklyn, NY. At the march, Ceyenne announced to a crowd of more than 15,000 people that G.L.I.T.S. had raised more than $1 million to secure stable housing for Black trans-New Yorkers. 

Through providing both education and housing, Ceyenne is empowering the next generation of Black transgender leaders. We talk with her about the structure and language she has given to the G.L.I.T.S. community at large to create more leaders.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• Origin story. “Sex work, that was my platform. That's how I grew up. That's how I learned a lot about organization. But community is who I am.”
• First member. Alia Adams called Ceyenne from Uganda.
• Creating structure and vetting leaders. The application process and contract G.L.I.T.S. members enter into.
• Creating leaders. Creating a path for leaders to emerge in the G.L.I.T.S. house.

👋🏻Say hi to Ceyenne and learn more about G.L.I.T.S.

✨Say hi to Najva Sol, “Get Together” correspondent.

📄See the full transcript 

This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 

🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.

We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. 

And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.

Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

“You don't have to be a celebrity or a mega influencer to take action and host an event. A hundred people or a thousand people don’t have to attend. It can be five people. That impact is still impact. ” - Nicole àBeckett 

Just after the 2016 U.S. election, many people were saying, “I want to do more to get involved but I don’t know how.” Nicole àBeckett and her brother, David, knew there had to be a better way to bring people together for action on issues that matter. 

They started SameSide with a simple idea—to incorporate civic engagement within existing communities. Based in LA, Nicole worked with a local named Phil in March of 2017 to host the first event. 

Phil had a large network of friends and rallied them just after the Women’s March to campaign for Sarah Hernandez, a candidate for Senate in California. Together with SameSide he paired phone banking with a brewery tour. While phone banking was intimidating to some, the brewery tour with friends nudged fifteen of Phil’s buds to cross the threshold to activism. 

Through SameSide, this accessible activism model has been employed at scale. SameSide offers hosts the tools to learn and take action on issues. A host's job isn’t to be an expert; it’s to convene people around something they care about. The Standard Hotel is hosting pool parties advocating for gun safety.  A woman celebrating her birthday wove in efforts to support ending the rape kit backlog in California. 

We talked with Nicole about how she has empowered hosts with tools to gather folks around what they care about to take action.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• Origin story. The beginning of integrating civic action with existing experiences and communities.
• Supporting leaders. How Nicole instills confidence and educates hosts on civic issues with issue baked tool kits.
• Ramping up the purposeful and participatory in activities. The tools Nicole offers hosts to make events action-focused.
• Leaders roadmap. Nicole utilized email campaigns to plant the seed for folks to take their first action and work up to hosting.

👋🏻Say hi to Nicole and learn more about SameSide.

✨Say hi to Marjorie Anderson, “Get Together” correspondent.

📄See the full transcript 

This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 

🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.

We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. 

And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.

Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

“Leadership is actually the first few followers, not the crazy first person to stand up on stage.” - Anna McAfee

In May 2017, Anna McAfee put up a simple post on LinkedIn to see if anyone living in her hometown of Coffs Coast, Australia wanted to get together. She had just returned after years of living abroad and wanted to “get to know the people behind the profiles” in her area. 

Anna included the hashtag #LinkedInLocal. Fifteen people made it out to the first Coffs Coast event, but the online response was what would change Anna’s life. 

Three strangers—Alexandra Galviz in London, Manu Goswami in NYC, and Erik Eklund in Brussels—raised their hand to also host a #LinkedInLocal in their city. No one could predict what happened next.

Host requests started pouring in from around the world. The founding team was soon hosting after-hours trainings six nights a week to help new cities ramp up. For two years, Anna and her co-creators led, mentored, and managed the #LinkedInLocal global community. At its height, #LinkedInLocal had more than 1,000 hosts and had rallied over 300,000 humans, in 650+ cities across 92 countries. 

Anna & co. fostered this community without formal support from LinkedIn. She walked a fine line between an unexpected, organic community and the priorities of the platform. In 2019, Anna stepped away and she recently co-authored a book about her experience: How a Hashtag Changed the World.

We talked with her about creating a host community and the friction that can appear when an organic community erupts on a major platform.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• Anna defines personal why. Searching for belonging in her local community, Anna used the tool she knew best--LinkedIn.
• Identify the “who” of #LinkedInLocal. The power of a network of hyper-local communities.
• Balancing inclusion and exclusion. #LinkedInLocal’s first core value: diversity.
• Cultivating your identity. Building an organic community within the guidelines of a major brand.
• Support leaders. Anna played the role of connector--making connections within the host communities, helping hosts help themself.

👋🏻Say hi to Anna and grab a copy of her book.

✨Thank you to Mia Quagliarello, “Get Together” correspondent, for spotlighting Anna’s story with us.

📄See the full transcript 

This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 

🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.

We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. 

And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.

Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

“We're not going to give up in-person gatherings, but at the same time, virtual tables have been so meaningful. Post-COVID probably will be a ‘both and’ community.” - Carla Fernandez

In November, we hosted a live interview with Carla Fernandez and Mary Horn in front of an intimate audience. For both women, their work with The Dinner Party is personal.  “We know what it’s like to lose someone and we aren’t afraid to talk about it,” their website states.

When COVID-19 arrived in March, Carla, Mary, and the team “frantically put together some programming.” They stood up a calendar of events, including yoga and journaling, that Dinner Parties could tune into from around the world. But when they turned to their community and asked, “what do you need more of?” the answer grounded them in their founding purpose. 

“They weren't as interested in these one-way teaching experiences,” Carla told us. “What they really wanted was connections and homies that they could talk to about what was going on in their life.” People can go to a yoga class any hour of the day, seven days a week. At the outset of COVID-19, there were a lot of organizations providing those spaces (thankfully!). What Dinner Partiers didn't have was someone that they could talk to about their grief. 

Since that realization, they have launched the Buddy Program, connected affinity groups, and added 70 new tables to their community.  In our live interview, we talked with them about finding an activity that was purposeful, participatory, and offered the peer support people come to The Dinner Party for. 

We have plans to host another live interview soon! Stay in the loop by subscribing to our newsletter.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• Origin story. Why Mary comes to the table. (We first heard Carla’s back when we talked with her and co-founder, Lennon Flowers, on a previous episode of the podcast.)
• Listening to community needs. Asking questions that revealed next steps. 
• Purposeful & participatory shared activity. How The Dinner Party launched the Buddy Program and transitioned the tables online. 
• Paying attention to hand-raisers. How the team supercharged and supported affinity groups that popped up around shared experiences and identities.
• Looking to the future. A post-COVID world with the best of virtual and IRL gatherings.

👋🏻Say hi to Mary and Carla + learn more about The Dinner Party.

📄See the notes from our live event!

This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 

🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.

We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. 

And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack, and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.

Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.