One community, as many groups as it needs
Zen Social calls them circles: focused spaces for the whole community, a committee, or a single project — kept under one roof, so nobody has to keep track of five unconnected groups.
A circle for each thing
Announcements for everyone, a quieter one for the board, another for the people organising the summer party. Related, not scattered.
Open, by application, or invitation only
Each circle decides for itself how people get in — some stand open to anyone in the community, others accept applications, others only ever admit the people you invite.
Roles that match real life
Six of them, from owner down to viewer. Someone can follow along without posting. An editor can curate the newsletter without running the circle. Not everyone has to be an administrator to be useful.
Everything under one roof
Getting people in
How it works
Set it up the way your community already works
Three decisions, and none of them permanent.
Create the circle
Give it a name, a photo and — if it helps — a short set of guidelines for how people talk to each other here.
Decide who gets in, and what they can do
Open to all, by application, or invitation only. Pick what new members can do by default.
Bring people in
By email, by link, or by QR code on paper. Add more circles as the community grows into them.
Create the circle
Give it a name, a photo and — if it helps — a short set of guidelines for how people talk to each other here.
Decide who gets in, and what they can do
Open to all, by application, or invitation only. Pick what new members can do by default.
Bring people in
By email, by link, or by QR code on paper. Add more circles as the community grows into them.
The shape of your community is yours to decide
Nothing here infers who belongs where. Membership and roles are set by the people who run the circle, not guessed at by a system watching behaviour. Each circle can write its own guidelines, and adopt the Zen Social netiquette as a starting point rather than drafting rules from nothing.
Give your community a shape that fits it
- Why do you call them circles and not groups?
- Because a group usually stands alone, and these do not have to. A circle can sit inside an organisation alongside its neighbours, sharing members and a common home. The word is different because the structure is.
- Can one association have several circles?
- Yes. An organisation circle holds as many as you need — one per committee, project or interest — while members still see a single community rather than a list of unrelated groups.
- Can someone follow along without taking part?
- Yes. The viewer role reads without posting, which suits people who want to keep up rather than join in. And if they would rather not have an account at all, the newsletter reaches them by email.
- How do people join?
- However you choose: open circles anyone in the community can enter, application circles where someone approves each request, or invitation only. You can invite a whole list at once, share a link, or hand out a QR code.