Community Engagement - Growing Together

KristinL
Community Team
Community Team
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We’ve shared this before, and we’re proud of the Community’s mission – Empowering people with information and opportunities for connection to use Instructure software successfully. And while each step in the Community’s 8-year history needed different care and different supports to thrive, the mission and one key element were constant as membership and resource counts climbed. YOU. The people who come to the Community to advance their understanding of a product or connect with others keep returning, keep sharing, and keep learning. You make the Community flourish.

The Community Team has something wonderful planned to say thank you for all of your contributions during the next six months. Keep reading to learn more!


8+ Years of Growth

The Instructure Community is an ever-growing place. To put this simply, the Community has grown a LOT in the last 10 years. What do we consider a lot? From 2015 to 2023, Community membership has grown by 3,000%. That’s like watching a 4” (10cm) lucky bamboo grow to be nearly 10’ (3m). That’s an amazing growth rate that brings so much value to those who come to the Instructure Community to learn.

KristinL_0-1685474663555.png In 2015, the (then) Canvas Community originally existed in Zendesk. While it’s a blip in our history now, it is something that is important to our origin story. It’s the small little seed that began everything. The Community Team quickly realized that they would outgrow the features and capabilities of Zendesk and hoped to grow their collection of resources and invite more passionate individuals to participate and contribute to others’ learning. 

That’s why the Community moved to Jive in 2015. Jive made it possible to put down roots, to carefully balance the elements that this “sprout” of an idea needed to flourish. The Community quickly became a place to find answers, browse the guides, network with others, and share ideas. At that point, there were approximately 60,000 members and approximately 15,000 resource items including documents, blogs, events, discussions, and videos.

These little roots needed more space to branch out, to provide room for future acquisitions to branch out as well. In 2020, and just as the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Instruture Community moved to our current platform, Khoros. At the beginning of the year, membership was approximately 500,000. By the end of September and the conclusion of the move to the new Community, over 1,280,000 people were considered members! 

And now, in May 2023, we’re a Community of 1,800,000 individuals from all parts of the globe and home to over 65,300 resource items. We’re growing as a Community in size, power, membership, impact, and resources – together!

While the Community Team makes adjustments to ensure stable growth and prunes back to keep resources current, it’s clear that without invested members and participants like you, the Community would not be the wonderful resource it is. With that in mind, it feels fitting to be intentional about saying THANK YOU. We want to shine a spotlight on you who help, enable, and uplift others who come to the Community to grow professionally. 

Thank you for contributing to the Community!

Starting June 1, and running for the next six months, we’re going to recognize Community members who help others by sharing solutions in the Question Forums. With the goal of enablement, you share resources and best practices, you are really making it possible for everyone to maximize their use of Instructure products.

As a thank you from the Community Team, every time you reply to a thread in a Question Forum, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a $25 gift card. This applies to all of the products in the Canvas, Mastery, Elevate, Impact, and LearningPlatform families. At the end of each month, two people will be chosen! Additionally, each month, the three Community members who provide the most Accepted Solutions will receive a set of Instructure Community stickers. All people identified to receive a “thanks” will be notified via email using the address associated with their Community account. 

Please note that neither Instructure employees nor Community Coaches are eligible for these recognitions. We hope that this clarification encourages everyone to pay it forward and really embrace the peer-to-peer collaboration that takes place in our Community forums. 

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