Third email that Greenwire members receive

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Automatic mailings
All emails are sent automatically. This decision was made because you cannot welcome everyone personally. Hendrik: “Offline works best in the end. It is about real contact. The feeling of walking through the streets with a group is not something you can replace quickly with something online.”

Mail

Role of the community manager
The fact that Hendrik can work on Greenwire full-time as a community manager is crucial for the community. His role is very diverse. He does a lot of practical work: organizing drinks and meetings, responding to discussions in the community and recording and reporting technical bugs. But his role is more than that. In the meetings with his colleagues, he includes signals from the community. He plugs new campaigns into the right groups in Greenwire. And – last but not least – he is also the point of contact for everything that the members themselves organize.

Hendrik sees Greenwire as a successful example of putting members more in fax lists charge. Greenpeace's membership has increased since using the community. In addition, there are many more active people. Both for large-scale actions and for 'smaller' initiatives.

Lessons from the Greenwire
So what can you learn from Greenwire? It is important for organizations that want to involve their members to:

To appoint a community manager who will manage relationships.
To facilitate an online platform that enables self-organization.
Involve members immediately upon arrival.
Asking members to help based on their own competence.
Organizing meetings to stimulate a sense of togetherness.
To provide training to members to inspire and activate them.
What other tips does Hendrik have for volunteer organisations that also want to try this? “First, look at which online platform is most suitable for what you want to achieve with it. Make sure it is not too complicated for beginners. We started very quickly with a lot of functionalities. This is overwhelming for many users.” He also advises not to invest too much time in people who do not believe in it. According to him, not everyone needs to use it. Therefore, try to invest energy in people who really want it. Finally, you have to celebrate successes and share them with each other. Hendrik: “Members often do not know where to start. They are afraid that they cannot do much on their own. That is why we always try to share reports of successful campaigns in Greenwire. These campaigns also once started with a single person who had an idea and got others enthusiastic about it.”