Empowering Collaboration: Implementing Resilia’s Community

By Eric Montes de Oca, Engineer II @Resilia

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

-Henry Ford

Throughout history, the survival and progress of human beings have been intimately linked to their ability to form communities and establish strong interpersonal relationships. From prehistoric times, the need to unite and cooperate has been fundamental to overcoming the challenges presented in each era. In the dawn of humanity, hunting and gathering together were essential for obtaining food and protecting themselves from hostile environments. The strength of a united community allowed them to face dangers and utilize resources more effectively than as individuals.

As society evolved, the creation of settlements marked a significant milestone, settlements provided protection and comfort and fostered specialization which led to an exchange of knowledge, skills, and goods among community members, leading to the emergence of the first trade routes, where goods and services were exchanged, laying the foundations of what we now know as the economy. A fundamental truth is highlighted throughout these historical events: collaboration and interaction among individuals have been essential for human progress. The ability to work together, share resources, and knowledge has allowed humanity to overcome obstacles and move toward a more promising future.

Even in a digital age, the need for interaction and collaboration remains relevant; like in the past, the migration of our interpersonal relationships to the digital world has become crucial for the success of our species. The internet has redefined how we connect and relate to each other through social networks, online forums, collaboration platforms, and communication tools that enable us to share information, ideas, and experiences instantly and globally, proving to be invaluable in creating virtual communities where collaboration, joint learning, and problem-solving are encouraged.

Forging digital bonds

Currently, in a digital era where in-person interactions are becoming less frequent, it is vital to use technology as an ally to generate high-impact groups that share interests. Within the Resilia app, we offer 1:1 calls between our users and experts in non-profit organizations, providing invaluable coaching, mentorship, and guidance, which are extremely useful for our users to clarify all their doubts. Continuous monitoring of this functionality paired with subject-matter expertise highlighted the common questions among our users. Thus, as Resilia is an app focused on our users, we identified the need to create a community for them.

Community is a space where users can stay connected to learn from experts, get inspired, and find a community of peers with shared goals, it is also a safe space for our users to share questions and answers among various non-profit organizations and be part of spaces and groups with common interests. By being part of a community, we are creating a knowledge database for non-profit organizations. We believe that if we can give our users a community of Resilia experts and other nonprofit professionals, they will be able to grow quicker and more effectively.

Evolving our Product

Our app is not static; it grows and adapts to the new needs of our users. In the practical case of adding Community as a feature within the app, there is an extensive planning process behind it. Within this process, we needed to choose a provider for the generation of our user network, and it was decided to use a tool called Circle, which allows the creation of highly engaged online communities where members can exchange ideas, seek feedback, and interact with each other. It also has several technical features that make it essential for its implementation within the Resilia app, including:

• Branding
• Customization
• Moderation
• API / Integration with our app

Seamless integration of Circle with our application is achieved by focusing on branding and customization. This ensures consistency and familiarity in the user experience (UX/UI), strengthening trust and credibility with our users. Maintaining a similar template to the app reduces the learning curve for using the Community, facilitating a smooth transition between both platforms.

A crucial factor within social networks is maintaining a tone of cordiality and professionalism that encourages our users’ continuous activity in an atmosphere of respect and tolerance. To access the Community, users are initially asked to accept usage guidelines, where we emphasize the use of language. However, controlling what each user can post is a challenge. Fortunately, the integration leveraged Circle’s word and phrase restriction features to boost Community Manager’s moderation capabilities. This helps to maintain a safe environment where our users can grow together.

From a technical perspective, Circle.so provides an extensive API, including numerous endpoints and comprehensive documentation. The availability of a well-developed and documented API streamlines the work of our developers, allowing them to make integrations faster and more effectively. Additionally, the integration of Auth0 as Single Sign-On is another highlighted aspect. This functionality is highly advantageous as it eliminates the need to create new users within Circle. Instead, user authorization management is done through Auth0 using their credentials. This significantly simplifies the login process and improves the user experience, allowing them to access the social network using the same credentials they already use in our main application.

Using Circle to create Resilia’s Community

Undoubtedly, many factors were considered when choosing a third-party tool to be implemented in an app. Still, these were some of the main advantages we saw in Circle to use its implementation and create our Community feature. Once the tool was chosen to be integrated into the app, creating a new flow for our users, designing and developing screens, and building code capable of handling all the required business logic was necessary. The following diagram provides a general overview of our users’ process to access Community:

The first step in the process requires our user to have an account within Resilia and log in; it’s essential to mention that Community is currently only available as a soft launch for Pro and Enterprise accounts. The Community Gating rules will check that the user account should have access to Community; if that’s the case, the “Community” option will be available in the navbar.

The first time a user tries to access Community, an interstitial page should prompt; this page will contain all of the guidelines we expect our users to follow to ensure Community is a space of collaboration in an environment of respect and tolerance. We require that our users agree on the guidelines; otherwise, they won’t be able to access Community.

Once the user agrees to our guidelines, all the business logic will be performed on our server; this includes authenticating the user with the same Auth0 credentials, adding the user to the relevant spaces and cohorts, and a redirection to our customized Resilia-like Circle implementation. In the left side, we can find all of the available spaces and cohorts for the user. Within these spaces and cohorts our users are free to create posts or reply to them, and access live events; we actively encourage them to be active members of Community to help accelerate each other’s growth.

Embracing Growth Together

Since the soft launch of our Community in May, we have been humbled by our users’ positive response, the feedback we received highlights the value of Community as a virtual gathering space, where knowledge flows freely, connections are forged, and growth is fostered. Witnessing how our users utilize the Community to accelerate their personal and organizational development warms our hearts.

At Resilia, we understand that success is an ongoing journey, and there is always room for improvement. Our dedicated Community management team has diligently monitored the platform to identify areas where we can enhance the user experience. So far, we have encountered some challenges post-soft-launch, and we are committed to addressing them swiftly. For instance, we are implementing internal processes, such as tagging teammates in specific comments, to streamline communication and support within the Community.

Our mission is to empower non-profit organizations on their noble quests, and we firmly believe that Community is an integral part of that mission. We envision it as a dynamic tool that evolves alongside our users’ changing needs. This means continuous updates, feature enhancements, and, most importantly, listening to our users’ voices to steer the development in the right direction.

As we embark on this journey together, we invite all our users to participate in our Community’s growth actively, come share your knowledge, seek inspiration, and connect with like-minded peers who share your aspirations. Together, we can create a collaborative and supportive ecosystem that propels us all towards a future where non-profit organizations thrive and impact the world.