Sophie Bujold: The last example I wanted to give you of something really creative. In a slightly different space.
It's still in the space of partnership, but this is an idea that came out of partners asking for something and members really needing something that wasn't fulfilled in the community. So I have a client who had a community that helped people who had started dabbling in art, turn that into a career in the design space.
And people were coming in wanting to learn how to use Photoshop and a bunch of other things and leaving with full fledged design businesses at the end of the day. And one of the things that she started seeing over the years is she had her own design studio, the com, the community had been born out of her blogging about her experience as a designer and eventually developed into a membership community and all those things, but she was getting more and more partners coming in.
That had design requests that she could not fulfill. These were for surface pattern designers. So if you don't know what surface pattern designers are, they're the people who design all the patterns that go on housewares, pillows, notebooks all the things that have a pattern on it. They're the people who develop that.
And. In her community, she saw a real need to help people get their first experience with large brands, learn how to redesign briefs, learn how to develop a portfolio for a client. So she developed a mentorship program in her community. That served clients that she did not really have the will or capacity to serve in her studio.
So she actually paired clients with their permission to a community led project where they would put the brief out to the community. It would be run by her design studio experts who would give feedback to members in the community who were submitting ideas on how to make their idea better and stronger.
And then at the end, they would curate the final portfolio that was to be presented to the client. Whatever the client bought, the community owner or leader got a commission on, and the person who designed whatever pattern got money for their first. Design project. That was an example of an extreme ability to really recognize, okay, I've got this source and this pool of people who are asking to give me money for something.
How can I leverage the community to make it something that's worth their while? So for anyone who's in a service-based community, that's an amazing example of how you could do that. And it definitely was one of those programs where I. There was a bit of a social impact assessment there.
A lot of her members were people in under sourced communities looking to create jobs for themselves, and it gave them exposure that they would not have had elsewhere. So that really created a sense of loyalty in the community. It was a great retention tool to say, Hey, if you're in this community, you get access to job opportunities.
And just one example that I didn't wanna leave this session here today without talking about, because that was definitely a great addition to just even getting those membership fees.
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