Context: most weeks, I go to Gitcoin’s Public Library, a nourishing Wednesday chat where a different host proposes an obsession or idea and the group talks it through. This is a write-up of mine — not a formal talk or proposal as such, but a funny fragment of an idea that’s been circulating around my head.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with TV magicians.

I grew up in a very small village in the English countryside in the 1980s and I spent a lot of that decade watching cheesy older men in suits perform close-up sleight of hand or the ol’ three ball trick. It didn’t matter that the only people who looked like me on screen were getting sawn in half, wearing feathers and a frozen smile; in a life that’s so far been full of brilliant rabbit holes it’s clear that magic is one of my longest-standing fascinations.

For years now, I’ve led or sat in on brainstorming sessions with many different types of company or project in my angel portfolio and network - from virtual student study startups to web3 gamers to data storytelling nonprofits to venture firms - where each is trying to answer the same question:

How on earth do I start with community strategy?

By this, I mean these companies or projects know true community building could be brilliant for deepening engagement and weaving their network more closely together but aren’t clear, practically, how to go about it. And, in conversation, when I went out looking for easy resources to share, there were so few available that I decided to write up this simple framework so others can use it.

But first: let’s check this is relevant for you. I’m going to assume that you either have:

“What are you working on right now?”

“Are you on sabbatical? Does that mean you’re going back to your old job?”

“Are you taking time out? Why?”

So many questions like this recently, and I always hear a hidden set of questions and anxieties behind them — on money, productivity and privilege.