Building sustainable member-led communities
When you’ve put late nights, sweat, and tears into building a community, it can be stressful to let your members take the reins.
But it could also be the best thing you could ever do–if you find the right balance between empowering your members to take the lead, and maintaining a hold on community quality and direction.
But the most challenging piece of becoming member-led? Figuring out how to make it sustainable for the long run.
That's why we were thrilled to host an expert panel with Nicole Keurig, Community Engagement Manager at Miro, and Matt Carnevale, Marketing Manager at Exit Five, to dig into how they've successfully built member-led programs that actually work. In this discussion, they shared their proven strategies for identifying community leaders, creating meaningful rewards systems, and building sustainable programs that scale.
Their communities–while different in size and scope–have both mastered the delicate balance of transforming passive participants into active community leaders in a way that feels natural and rewarding.
Miro's Hero community of over 5,000 project and product manager members and Exit Five's 2,000-strong paid B2B marketing community offer valuable insights for anyone looking to evolve their community from admin-driven to truly member-led.
We're breaking down all the key insights here, and you can access the full recording at the end of this article.
What are member-led communities and programs?
A member-led community is one where participants actively drive value for each other, rather than relying solely on community managers to create content and spark engagement. In truly member-led communities, members step up to:
- Lead events and workshops
- Answer questions from other members
- Create valuable content
- Mentor newcomers
- Shape the community's direction through feedback
For example, in Exit Five, all events are run by members themselves. As Matt explains, "Nobody from the Exit Five team is running them." One recent event featured a member conducting website teardowns, where other members submitted their B2B websites for expert feedback.
Meanwhile, Miro's Hero community program empowers their most engaged users to host regular show-and-tell sessions, participate in product feedback, and mentor new members. Nicole shares that their MVP (Most Valuable Participant) program focuses on the top 5% of contributors who "generously give their time and resources" to benefit others.
What people get wrong about member-led communities
Becoming member-led is not about completely stepping back as a community manager.
Instead, it's about creating the right systems and culture that enable members to meaningfully contribute while maintaining quality and direction. As Matt notes, "I'm just the curator of this stuff."
The key difference between traditional and member-led communities is that in member-led spaces, the community manager's role shifts from being the primary content creator and engagement driver to becoming a facilitator who:
- Identifies and empowers potential community leaders
- Creates clear frameworks for contribution
- Connects members with relevant expertise
- Recognizes and rewards valuable participation
- Maintains community standards and direction
“I think this idea of member led is really about how you get your members to step up and take on larger roles in your community, how you put systems and structures in place, but also how to create an organic culture where that can even happen.”
- Emma Catranis, Circle Community Manager
Benefits of member-led programs
When the conditions are right, member-led communities can transform your business from a resource-heavy operation into a self-sustaining ecosystem.
Take Miro's community as an example. By implementing their Hero community program, they've turned their most engaged users into community leaders who not only contribute content and host events but also serve as product advocates and mentors to new members.
The ROI manifests in multiple ways:
- Reduced operational costs as members take on leadership roles
- Increased engagement and retention
- Authentic peer-to-peer learning and support
- Stronger product advocacy and word-of-mouth growth
Exit Five's community evolved from an admin-driven model to one where members lead events, answer questions, and facilitate connections.
As Matt from Exit Five shared, "We don't do any of the answering unless it's something that we have expertise in... Our members are the ones answering all the questions."
Is member-led right for your community?
Let's address the elephant in the room: member-led communities aren't for everyone.
While they're often celebrated as the gold standard of community building, they require specific conditions to thrive. Forcing member-led approaches where they don't fit can actually damage engagement rather than enhance it.
Consider this: If you're running a structured online course, a compliance training platform, or a product documentation hub, a member-led approach might actually work against your goals. The same applies if you're in a highly regulated industry or dealing with sensitive information that requires strict oversight.
Before we dive deeper into building member-led programs, ask yourself these critical questions:
✅ Do you have the infrastructure to support member leadership?
✅ Can you dedicate time to relationship building?
✅ Is your community mature enough for self-governance?
✅ Do your members actually want leadership roles?
Remember: Just as Exit Five's business model allows for member expertise to shine due to their value being the network you build in the community, your community model should align with your core objectives and capabilities.
Instead of forcing member-led approaches where they don't fit, consider:
- Hybrid models with controlled member participation
- Staged evolution toward member leadership
- Focused administrative leadership where appropriate
- Clear communication channels without forced engagement
Building your MVP–Most Valuable Participants
The foundation of a successful member-led community often starts with a well-structured MVP program.
✋🏼But here's what many community builders get wrong: they focus on popularity rather than impact.
The way Miro’s team approaches finding their MVPs should give you some practical inspiration: they used Circle analytics to identify their top 5% of contributors objectively (Activity Scores show meaningful engagement metrics in Circle), rather than just post count. Then, they hand-pick candidates from this pool and invite them to the MVP circle.
Miro’s MVP program includes specific tracks members can join:
- Event hosting – where community leaders are responsible for hosting events
- Content creation – where they create content and templates for the Miroverse
- Social advocacy – where they’re responsible for posting on Circle and LinkedIn
Each track comes with clear requirements and measurable outcomes, ensuring that MVP status remains meaningful and achievable. But it also recognizes and rewards people for doing what they’re already doing with meaningful incentives, like social collateral, swag, funding for events, tags on Circle, the ability to provide product feedback, and more.
“I think one of the biggest things for us is making sure that [our MVPs] are participating in a way that's quantifiable on our end, and makes it easy for them to understand. It makes it super accessible and levels the playing field.”
- Nicole Keurig, Community Engagement Manager at Miro
Creating scalable contributor programs
One of the most powerful insights from Exit Five's community is their systematic approach to expertise mapping.
So, instead of giving a top-down answer from an admin when questions are asked in the community, Matt explained, "We have a whole spreadsheet of what everyone in the community's area of expertise is, and then we'll just go and tag those people in the question."
This simple yet effective system ensures that member expertise gets surfaced as often as possible.
What makes it truly innovative is that Exit Five has tapped AI to supercharge this matching process. "I do use ChatGPT to help me with it," Matt shared. "We'll put a question in ChatGPT and it has access to all that data. And it just tells me these are the three people you need to tag."
How to build your own expertise mapping system:
- Document member expertise through a simple Google form
- Create a database of community experts and categories
- Implement systematic tagging processes
- Upload the database/spreadsheet to an AI like ChatGPTCreate instructions for the custom GPT to have it take a question, look in your spreadsheet, and give you the 3-5 members that should be tagged in that postYou can copy and paste all the questions you receive on a daily basis, and identify people to tag in the comments, immediately
- Start small, then use technology and AI to scale your efforts
Create structure around expectations to maintain quality
While member-led communities thrive on organic participation, they still need clear frameworks to maintain quality and consistency. Here's how successful communities achieve this balance:
Contribution and engagement guidelines
- Define specific tracks for contribution (event hosting, content creation, social advocacy)
- Create clear documentation and examples of successful contributions (like in Miro’s co-created manifesto for their Creator sub-community)
- Make participation requirements quantifiable and easy to understand
- Set clear expectations for leadership roles around touchpoints for participation
Quality control systems
- Implement peer review processes for member-created content
- Establish feedback loops with community leaders
- Use regular surveys (like Miro's quarterly NPS) to gather feedback and adjust programs
Rewarding member leaders with meaningful incentives
When it comes to rewarding your community leaders, both Miro and Exit Five have discovered that the most effective incentives align directly with members' professional goals. Exit Five's approach leverages their strong brand presence in the B2B marketing space.
As Matt shared, "We get to incentivize people with status... since there's so many B2B marketers in this space, [if they’re hosting an event with us], they’re all of a sudden seen as an expert."
Meanwhile, the secret to Miro's successful MVP program lies in how they've tied community recognition to tangible professional benefits.
Consider how Miro structures their rewards:
- Product credits for Miro plans
- Event funding for community initiatives
- Early access to product features
- Opportunities for industry visibility
"For MVPs who are in the events track, we provide funding for their events," Nicole explained. "Whereas for consultants or facilitators who have small businesses, those MVPs receive credits towards a paid Miro plan. These are funds that are coming out of their pocket, so if we can give them credits to cover this cost, it lets them invest that money in other things for their business."
This approach demonstrates a deep understanding of what truly motivates community leaders.
“We had been receiving member feedback from members about wanting to benefit like this. So being able to deliver on that, I think, shows a lot of goodwill. It shows that we value them, and really take their feedback to heart, which is I think a key component and wanting to build that culture of generosity and giving back.”
- Nicole Keurig, Community Engagement Manager at Miro
One of the most striking aspects of Miro's community management approach is their commitment to continuous improvement through member feedback. "We do a quarterly NPS survey," Nicole shared. "The results from those surveys and the learnings from those surveys become like our projects for the next quarter, because it tells us exactly what the community is looking for."
This systematic approach to gathering and implementing feedback ensures that the community evolves alongside member needs. As Matt noted about Exit Five's growth, "We've seen that grow from like three comments per post to like seven in the last year through a lot of the strategies that I talked about."
The future of member-led communities
As we look into the next few years, the communities that will thrive aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or the most features, but those that successfully balance structure with authenticity, technology with human connection, and growth with sustainability.
“It's been really cool because we've seen a lot of our members actually ask how they can become an MVP. We've reached that critical mass where they're now wanting to achieve this status. And that was one of our goals for setting it up in the first place, was to really have it be something aspirational that other members wanted to become a part of.”
- Nicole Keurig, Community Engagement Manager at Miro
Here are some next steps to consider:
- Audit your current community programs
- Identify your potential community leaders
- Start small with manual processes
- Build systems based on what works
- Scale thoughtfully with technology
The future belongs to communities that empower their members to lead while providing the frameworks that make that leadership sustainable.
"Get over that fear and just send that message, because people actually do want to get involved. They just need the push a lot of the time."
- Matthew Carnevale, Marketing Manager at Exit Five
This is your push to start building something meaningful.
Watch the full masterclass with Miro and Exit Five here:
Key takeaways
- Start with clear intentionality about your program's purpose
- Build systems that scale with your community
- Create value that translates beyond your platform
- Always keep the member experience at the center of your decisions
- Don’t force member-led if it feels like the wrong fit! There are lots of scaled, hybrid options available
And if you're looking for an all-in-one platform to grow your member-led community?
You're in the right place.
Circle brings together your members, discussions, events, courses, and content—all in one place, under your own brand. Plus, you get access to our customer community full of handy resources and over 13,000 community builders on the same journey as you.
