Cmx-Community-Industry-Report 2022

POWERED BY BEVY
2022 Community Industry Report
Table of Contents
Introduction
04 Executive Summary
06 Key Findings
10 Methodology and Demographics
SECTION 1
The Community Professional

13 Community Professional Experience and Demographics
15 Job Titles, Team Structure, and Departments
21 Community Professional Salaries
23 The Most Common Frustrations for Community Professionals
SECTION 2
Community Programs and Engagement

27 The State of Community Programs
30 Benchmarking Community Engagement Rates
32 Community Program Types and Participants
34 How Communities are Managed
37 The Shifting Community Events Landscape
42 The Most Popular Community Platforms and Technology
46 Measuring Community Health and Engagement
51 Focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
53 The Rise of Web 3.0
© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 02

SECTION 3
The Business Value of Community

55 The Most Common Community Business Objectives and Metrics
59 The Continued Struggle to Measure Return-on-Investment
62 Growing Investment and Confidence in Community
65 Best Practices from Successful Communities
67 What’s next?

INTRODUCTION
Executive Summary
Welcome to the 4th annual Community Industry Report!
Since 2017, we’ve been conducting this research to better understand how the community industry  
is evolving, and how businesses are building community. This year’s survey was the largest ever
conducted in the community industry, with 778 community professionals participating.
The report focuses on three overarching themes:
01. The Community Professional

How are roles, responsibilities, and team structures evolving?
02. Community Programs and Engagement

What programs are businesses investing in, which metrics do they track, and what do engagement
benchmarks look like?
03. The Business Value of Community

To what extent are businesses able to measure the value of community and what is that value?
What we found is truly exciting. The community industry is maturing. Community is becoming a more
prominent and independent department within organizations. Community teams are growing in size
and becoming more specialized, with increased focus on functions like community operations, design,
and events. And the overwhelming majority of companies report that they’re increasing their
investment in community in 2022. 
That all said, community professionals still have some serious challenges ahead. Measuring and
proving the value of community is a challenge that continues to plague community teams.  
While we’re seeing the rise of new technology to support community operations, a lot of the work
community teams do is manual and hard to scale. Despite investment growing, community teams  
still report being underfunded and lacking necessary headcount.

We also looked into macro trends this year like Web 3.0 and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in
community programs.
And for the first time, we collected data on community salaries and community and event engagement
benchmarks.These will both be made available in interactive dashboards on cmxhub.com, where you
can play with the data yourself.
We conduct this research because we believe it helps advance the community industry and enables
community teams to get the recognition and support that they deserve.
We hope you find this research valuable and put it into action. Most of all, we hope it helps you build
more successful and meaningful communities.
David Spinks
Founder, CMX
VP of Community, Bevy

INTRODUCTION
Key Findings
01
Community management is
moving from a growth to a
mature industry.
22% report having a dedicated community department, up
from 15% last year. Community roles are also becoming
more specialized, with 35% of teams having at least one
person focused full-time on Community Operations.
02
Organizations believe in the

value of community, but
continue to struggle to  
measure that value.
87% agree community is critical to the company’s mission
and 79% believe community has had a positive impact on
their organization’s objectives. But, only 10% say they can
financially quantify the value of their community and only
one-third can connect their community data to their
customer data.

INTRODUCTION
Key Findings
03
The community software market

is a blue ocean, with no clear
winners (yet).
90% of community programs include an online forum/
message board. However, the range of tools used to host
communities is vast. The most common platforms
businesses use to host their online communities are free
tools like Slack, Facebook, and Discord, but the platforms
that they’re most satisfied with are white-labeled tools like
Khoros, Discourse, and Discord.
04
In-person is making a comeback

AND virtual is here to stay.
29% of communities hosted an in-person event in 2021,
despite the surge of COVID-19. 90% of those who host
events for their community report hosting virtual events in
2021. 72% of those plan to offer the same number or more
virtual events in 2022. Almost 4 in 5 community
professionals who haven’t hosted in-person hybrid events
yet plan to do so when it is safe to gather.

INTRODUCTION
Key Findings
05
Community-led events are

gaining in popularity.
44% of those who run events report that some or all of their
events are community-led (hosted by members). 25% of
those who have community-led events just started them in
the past year. Of those who are not yet running community-
led events, 49% plan to do so in the coming year.
06
Communities are cautiously

dipping their toes into Web 3.0
15% of communities are actively working on Web 3.0
focused projects and an additional 17% are considering it.
Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are the
most common form of Web 3.0 project that community
teams are working on.

INTRODUCTION
Key Findings
07
Community programs are

increasingly focused on driving
growth.
19% of community programs are focused on acquisition as
their top objective, up from 13% last year. Customer
support and success continue to be the most popular
objectives, but customer support decreased slightly from
26% last year to 24% this year. This represents a shift in
how businesses are thinking about the value and focus of
community.

The State of Community Programs - 2022 Community Industry Report
INTRODUCTION
Methodology and Demographics

The 2022 Community Industry Report is based on the responses of 778 community professionals
who completed an online survey in December 2021 and January 2022.
To invite responses, we shared the survey across the CMX community in our Facebook group,
Slack, and email list. We used email and social media outreach from CMX and Bevy, as well as from
our distribution partners Bramble, Insided, Common Room, Grazitti, Discourse, Higher Logic,
Chaordix, Khoros, and Hivebrite. Our results include community professionals from 64 countries
representing a range of industries and company sizes.
For some questions, respondents were given the opportunity to write in an answer. Several of
these anonymous responses are included throughout the report.
Organization Demographics
What best describes the primary focus   Approximately how many employees  
of your organization? does your organization have worldwide?
B2B 64% 1 - 50 34%
B2C 41% 51 - 200 16%
Education 17% 201 - 500 11%
Nonprofit 14% 501 - 2,000 15%
Web 3.0/Crypto 5% 2,001 - 5,000 7%
Government 4% 5,001 - 10,000 6%
Other 7% More than 10,000 11%

INTRODUCTION
Methodology and Demographics
Which of the following most closely describes the industry you work in?
47 %
11 % 10 %
7% 6% 6% 4% 3% 3% 3%
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27 % 20 % 19 % 12 % 4 % 18 %
$1 billion+
Under $1 million $10 million to
$99.9 million
$1 million to
$500 million to
$9.9 million
$999.9 million
$100 million to
$499.99 million
section 1
The Community  
Professional
Communities exist and thrive because of the people who run them — you!  
We start this report focusing on the community professional and the community
team.
Our findings support what we hope you are seeing as well: Community teams
continue to evolve from a nice-to-have to a more mature and complex
department within businesses.
In this section:
Community Professional Experience and Demographics
Job Titles, Team Structure, and Departments
Community Professional Salaries
The Most Common Frustrations

for Community Professionals

SECTION 1 . THE COMMUNITY PROFESSIONAL
Community Professional
Demographics and Experience
Which option best describes your level? How many years of experience do you have
as a community manager/professional?
Associate/Specialist 19%
Less than 1 year 12%
Manager 42%
1-2 years 17%
Director 20%
3-4 years 21%
VP 2%
5-7 years 22%
Executive/Chief Community Officer 5%
8-9 years 7%
Founder 8%
10+ years 21%
Other 4%
Do you manage at least one person on the community team?
49 %
Yes, I manage
employees
26 %
Yes, I manage
contractors
38 %
No

Community Professional Demographics and Experience
Race / Ethnicity
White 70%
Female
Hispanic or Latino/a/x 11%
64%
South Asian 7%
Black or African descent 5%

Male
35% Southeast Asian 4%
East Asian 3%
Middle Eastern 3%
Multi-racial 3%
Non-Binary
1% Indigenous 1%
Other 1%
What country do you live in?
Canada 5%
UK 8%
Netherlands 2%
France 2% Germany 2%
USA 50%
India 6%
Israel 2%
Colombia 2%
Indonesia 2%
Brazil 2%
Other 17%

Community Team Structure  

and Department
A majority — 64% —of respondents report their full-time job is focused on community. The
remaining 36% are most commonly working on other roles like marketing or communications in
addition to community.
While community most commonly remains part of the marketing department, 22% reported that
they have a dedicated community team, up from 15% in 2021. This is a big signal that
community teams are becoming essential to the business.
22% of companies
report having a
dedicated community
team, up from 15% in
2021.

Community Team Structure and Department cont.
What else do you work on in addition to community?
Marketing 49 %
Content Creation 43 %
Communications 40%
Social Media 33 %
Product Development 25 %
PR 18 %
HR/People Ops 11 %
Other** 43 %
0%
n=212 **Common “Other” responses include customer success and support.
What department is your community team part of?
28 %
22 %
14 %
8% 9%
6%
5% 4% 3% 1%
0%
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n=773

Another sign of growing stability: 89% of respondents say their community currently has a dedicated
community manager, staying consistent from the 89% reported last year and remaining up by a large
margin from 71% in 2017.
That said, only 44% of organizations report that they had a dedicated community manager when they
launched their community. That means a lot of businesses are experimenting with community before
they’re ready to hire for it.
As for community job titles, they aren’t standardized. The most common job title for community
professionals is community manager, but outside of that there’s a wide range of titles used.
44% of communities launch

with a dedicated community
manager
89%
of communities have
dedicated community
managers

What do you call yourself?

This year, we asked for your job title.  
Not surprisingly, the most common title was
Community Manager.
Other common titles include:

Head of community
Community Lea£
Director of Communit¥
Senior Community Manage
Community Specialist
We’re also seeing titles that show what part of the community someone is responsible for such
as manager or director of:
Digital Experience Programs Community & Success
Community Engagement Customer Advocacy and Marketing
Community Experience Knowledge and Community Management


As community teams mature, they’re also becoming more specialized. This year, we identified  
the most critical functions and asked how communities are staffing for each of these roles: Is it a full-
time job or part of someone’s job? Most, it turns out, are at least a part of someone’s job.
One key trend is the growth of community operations as a function. 96% of community teams have a
community operations function, and 35% have someone dedicated to community operations full
time, proof that this role is becoming a critical part of community teams.
Another trend is moving past the days of the solo community manager that does everything.  
24% of community teams have someone dedicated to running events full time, 24% have  
someone focused on community growth full time, and 23% have someone focused on education and
training full time.
35% of community
teams have at least one
person dedicated to
community operations
full-time.

Which of the following roles do you have on your community team?
Engages directly with the 46 % 52 % 1%

community
Focuses on operations and 35 % 61 % 4%

processes
Designs community 28 % 60 % 12 %
products and experiences
Runs in-person or virtual 24 % 65 % 11 %

live events
Grows community through 24 % 61 % 15 %

marketing
Manages community
governance and voting 23 % 50 % 27 %
structure
Develops education and 23 % 55 % 22 %

training
Runs chapter-based event 15 % 47 % 38 %

programs
Full-time role Part-time role Don’t do this n=774

Community Professional Salaries

One question we’re often asked: What’s the salary range for community managers?
New this year, we asked respondents to provide their salary in US dollars. Of course, salaries vary
based on role, years of experience, and location, some of which we break down below. We did not
receive enough data to provide statistically significant insights from regions outside the US, so all
of the data shared here are for US-based salaries. All average salaries below have at least 50
respondents in that segment unless noted.
by Level by Years of Experience
$86,340.00 $84,429.00
Community Associate Up to 2 years
SAMPLE SIZE: 51 SAMPLE SIZE: 77
$110,992.00 $110,992.00
Community Manager 3 to 4 years
$139,721.00 $124,850.00
Director of Community 5 to 9 years
$149,815.00 $153,435.00
VP, Founder, Exec** + 10 years
** This is from a small sample size of only 27 people. ** NOTE: This is from a small sample size of only 27 people.

Community Professional Salaries cont.
$134,446.00
Manages employees or contractors
SAMPLE SIZE: 187
$95,859.00
Does not manage anyone
SAMPLE SIZE: 187
$123,962.00
Company Focus: B2B
SAMPLE SIZE: 209
$112,139.66
Company Focus: B2C
SAMPLE SIZE: 187

The Most Common Frustrations  

for Community Professionals
As in past years, we asked community professionals to identify the top three challenges they face.
And, once again, the most common challenges are:
01. Consistently engaging members
02. Quantifying the value of their community
03. Dealing with manual efforts
These have been the top three challenges every year that we’ve done this research.
What are your top frustrations about managing your community  

and its activities?
n=732 Note: respondents could choose up to 3
Difficult to consistently engage members 46 %

Hard to quantify the value of the community 38 %
Efforts are largely manual and not automated 34 %
Not enough staff 27 %
Not enough budget 16%
Lack the right tools and technology 16 %
Not able to access the data I need 16%
Difficult to attract new members to the community 16%
Difficult to work get buy-in from leadership 14%
Difficult to work effectively with others in my organization 11%
Difficult to maintain a consistent brand experience 9%
Negativity or toxic behavior in the community 9%
Planning events takes too much time 7%
Hard to manage complex governance and voting structures 1%
I don’t have any frustrations about our community 3%
0%

The Most Common Frustrations for Community Professionals cont.
Tips from other community managers:

Since engaging community members is such a common
challenge, we asked respondents to share some of their
engagement tips and techniques.
"Creating a conversation where we genuinely ask how they personally are and what they are up
to. We add an image or video that represents us in an effort to humanize ourselves and show
them we are people like them. This results in loads of images and announcements or support
comments that truly engage everyone and bring them together."
"Reach out to suggest a 1:1, with a focus on 'I'd like to meet you to understand how this
community can help you and your work with a direct link to my calendly where they can book  
a time which works for them."
“Ask them how they got into our very niche industry.”
"Asking ‘Why are you here?’ It all starts with why — the shared purpose we're all in the group in
the first place."
“Asking new members to introduce themselves and answer the random question the previous new member
asked in their intro (rolling prompt), and then following up to invite that person to share what data projects
they're working on in our general channel.”

The Most Common Frustrations for Community Professionals cont.
"Go-to is often tagging in other folks within the community to highlight something they've done
tagging in others to respond/connect on something similar."
"We host a cohort-based onboarding program through Discord, where users are onboarded by
other beta testers in a synchronous orientation. Once onboarded, we welcome them to the
community. It's not a super specific tactic, but we see a lot of people responding with gratitude
and excitement. Because our beta testers opt-in to two events before even joining our Discord
community (their initial beta orientation where they learn how to use the beta product and
leave feedback, and then a follow up orientation a few weeks later where they teach another
member how to use the product) we've observed a pretty high level of commitment to the
community from the start. It's a rigorous process, but it also ensures we're attracting deeply
passionate people with a pay-it-forward mindset."
“We usually lean towards 'fun' engagement opportunities — riddles, trivia etc and once
they've started engaging with fun stuff, we see them go on to do other things of more value.”
Have more questions?

Join our Slack community and ask away!

SECTION 2
Community Programs and Engagement

Now that we have a better understanding of community professionals and teams, this section of the
report dives into the work that those people are doing.
This year we studied the different ways that communities gathered:
Synchronously: A shared experience that everyone experiences and participates in at the same
time, like a conference.
Asynchronously: An experience that people experience and participate in at separate times,  

like an online forum.
We also asked what types of activities communities host, what software platforms they use, and how
satisfied they were with their platforms. (Hint: The most commonly used platforms aren’t necessarily the
ones that get the highest marks.)
We examined larger trends like the continued impact of COVID-19 on in-person and virtual events, how
community teams are investing in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and the extent to which teams
are dipping their toes into Web 3.0.
In this section:
The State of Community Programs

Benchmarking Community Engagement Rates
Community Program Types and Participants
How Communities Are Managed
The Shifting Community Events Landscape

The Most Popular Community Platforms and Technology
Measuring Community Health and Engagement
Focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The Rise of Web 3.0

SECTION 2 . Community Programs and Engagement
The State of Community Programs
Through five years of research we've seen exciting growth in the age, size, and number of
communities.
Communities are getting started and staying around: In 2017 only 28% of communities were at
least five years old; now that number is 47%.
How long communities have existed
2017 2020 2021 2022
Less than 1 year 27% 18% 13% 14%
1 - 2 years 23% 21% 18% 22%
3 - 4 years 23% 20% 21% 17%
5+ years 28% 42% 48% 47%

The State of Community Programs cont.
Number of members in the community
2020 2021 2022
1 - 99 10% 7% 9%
100 - 999 22% 19% 23%
1,000 - 9,999 30% 28% 27%
10,000 - 99,999 23% 26% 23%
100K - 500K 7% 10% 8%
500K - 1M 2% 3% 3%
1M+ 7% 7% 7%

The State of Community Programs cont.

How community strategy has changed over time
Building a new community 23 % 24 % 27 %
Scaling an existing community 59 % 62 % 47 %
Revitalizing a community 10 % 9% 21 %
Other
8% 5% 5%
2020 2021 2022
Similar to previous years, most companies report that they are focused on scaling an existing
community. But this year, we are seeing a steep increase in those who report they will be focused
on revitalizing existing communities.
Where are we seeing this shift?  

Communities that have existed at least 10 years are more likely to be the focus of revitalization
efforts. It’s possible that as community is becoming more popular, companies are revisiting their
old programs.
44% of communities launch with a dedicated community manager
< 1 yr 1 - 2 yr 3 - 4 yr 5 - 9 yr 10 - 14 yr 15+ yr
Building a  
70% 44 % 20% 11 % 1 0% 4 %
new community
Scaling an existing 
22% 36 % 6 0% 64 % 4 7% 49 %
community
Revitalizing a 
5% 1 5% 16 % 20% 3 5% 38 %
community

Benchmarking Community
Engagement Rates
This year for the first time we asked participants to provide us with engagement rates for their
communities. Our goal is to start developing benchmarks so you can understand how your
community compares and use it to set reasonable growth and engagement goals for your
community.
Most communities fall in that 1-30% engagement rate range. And you can see some clear trends in
total member growth as a community gets older.
Benchmark data: How engagement rate varies by community size

1,000
10,000  100,000 
1 - 99 100 - 999 9,999 99,999 499,999 500,000+
1 - 10% 38% 25% 26% 27% 24% 22%
11% - 20% 20% 26% 22% 27% 24% 27%
21% - 30% 12% 18% 19% 18% 16% 15%
31% - 40% 5% 5% 13% 10% 10% 11%
41% - 50% 5% 8% 4% 8% 8% 9%
51% - 60% 5% 8% 7% 3% 6% 5%
61% - 70% 5% 4% 3% 2% 2% 4%
71% - 80% 5% 4% 5% 3% 4% 0%
81% - 90% 2% 2% 2% 2% 4% 2%
91% - 100% 3% 1% 0% 0% 2% 5%

Benchmarking Community Engagement Rates cont.
Benchmark data: How community size varies by age of community
< 1 yr 1 - 2 yrs 3 - 4 yrs 5 - 9 yrs 10 - 14 yrs +15 yrs
1 - 99 29% 12% 7% 3% 3% 1%
100 - 999 43% 34% 18% 16% 9% 10%
1,000 - 9,999 19% 37% 31% 23% 19% 30%
10,000 - 99,999 6% 15% 32% 34% 26% 23%
100,000 - 499,999 2% 1% 7% 13% 16% 17%
500,000 - 999,999 1% 1% 2% 3% 6% 7%
1,000,000+ 1% 1% 3% 9% 21% 10%
"Remember that the  

total size of your  
community matters  
much less than the  
amount of members who  
are meaningfully engaged."

Community Program Types  

and Participants
As we’ve seen for the past few years, customers continue to be the primary participant type in
communities. Some 69% of all communities serve customers; 40% report that customers are their
primary participants.
Who participates in the community you are responsible for?
Customers 40 % 29 %
Users 18 % 36 %
Employees 4% 49 %
Advocates 6% 38 %
Industry members 10 % 26 %
Developers 8% 21 %
Influencers 2% 25 %
Volunteers 5% 21 %
Alumni 3% 14 %
Token holders/owners 1% 4 %
0%
Primary Participant Participant n=775
90% of community programs hosted are asynchronous (forums, chat rooms, and message boards).
75% of community programs are synchronous (events, voice chats, and conferences).

Community Program Types and Participants cont.
If you’re starting a new community today, chances are you’re starting with an asynchronous
program — 60% of communities start in this way. 22% started with a synchronous experience like a
conference or event, and 18% started with both.
What type of community programs does your organization host?

n=777
75 % 90 %
Online forums,
Conferences   chat rooms, or
and/or events message boards
35 %
11 % Customer advocacy
programs
Other
26 %
Customer advisory 
board
In what format did your community program start?

n=732
Asynchronous only 60 %
Synchronous only 22 %
Both 18%
0%

How Communities are Managed

The most common way online forums/message boards are managed is via a mix of in-house staff
and community members. Many companies (38%) prefer to manage the community entirely with
in-house employees.
What best describes how you manage your online forums/message

boards?
n=702
Community-led
14%
38% 44% Mix of in-house  

In-house and community-led

How Communities are Managed cont.
Another common question in the community space is “How many moderators should we have in our
community?” Of course, the more active members you have the more moderators you’re likely to need.
Our new benchmarking data looks at the number of moderators based on the size of your community.
We also asked whether non-employee moderators of online forums/message boards are paid; the vast
majority are not. Only 14% pay their moderators.
Benchmark data: How number of moderators varies by size of community
1 - 99 100 - 999 1,000 - 10,000 - 100,000 - 500,000 - 1,000,000+

9,999 99,999 499,999 999,999
1 37% 43% 29% 18% 11% 17% 6%
2-4 51% 44% 54% 45% 46% 17% 27%
5- 9 12% 8% 10% 29% 9% 22% 14%
10 - 24 0% 2% 6% 11% 17% 28% 27%
25 - 49 0% 0% 1% 5% 7% 6% 6%
49 - 99 0% 0% 1% 0% 2% 0% 4%
100 + 0% 2% 1% 1% 7% 11% 16%
14% of companies pay their moderators

The Shifting Community Events

Landscape
Despite several surges of COVID-19, 20% of communities hosted in-person events in 2021.
Unsurprisingly, virtual events remained common in communities as the COVID-19 pandemic

continued in 2021, with 90% saying they hosted one.
Responsibility for managing virtual events also remains unchanged. As in 2021, the community
team is most often charged with hosting the company’s virtual events.
What type(s) of events did you host for your community in 2021?
n=560
Virtual 90 %
In-person 29 %
Hybrid 28%
0%
of communities hosted
a virtual event with
66 % more than 100
attendees

The Shifting Community Events Landscape cont.
What team(s) is responsible for managing your company’s virtual

events?
n=508
Community management 55 %
Event management 21 %
Community members/ 16%

volunteers
Demand generation/ 12 %
marketing
Field marketing 9%
It varies based on the event 27 %
Other 5%
Unsure 2%
0%

Virtual events appear here to stay, with 72% of respondents planning to offer the same number or
more virtual events in 2022.
A rising star in the event space: hybrid events. 78% of communities that did not host a hybrid event
in 2021 plan to do so when it is safe to gather.
When it is safe to gather in-person, do you

plan to host more or less virtual events?
n=548
More virtual events 15 %

78 %
of those who did not host
The same number of virtual 57 %
events hybrid events in 2021 plan
to do so when it is safe to
gather
Fewer virtual events 28%
0%
Anyone who hosts events at some point asks the same question: What percentage of our RSVPs
should we expect to actually attend our event? Of course, this depends on factors like event size,
whether or not the event is free, and other variables not represented in this study. The results are
pretty spread out, but based on the data you can safely expect anywhere from 30% to 70% to show
up.
On average, what percentage of people who RSVP to your virtual events

end up attending the event? *
n=298
19% 16% 16%

12% 14% 10%
3% 3% 6% 1%
0%
0%
%
%
%
10%
%
- 20
- 40
- 50
- 60
- 70
- 80
- 90
- 30
- 10
0-
11
31
41
51
61
71
81
21
91
*Events with attendance of 100 or more

Community-led events are on the rise.
These are programs where companies empower members of the community to self-organize chapters
and events on their behalf. Sometimes these chapters are regional, hosted by members for their local
peers. With the rise of virtual events, members are now also organizing topic-based chapters with
events focused on a specific theme.
44% of respondents report that some or all of their events are community-led today. Among those
communities that don’t have a community-led event program yet, half report they plan on launching
one in 2022.
What best describes how you manage your events?

n=580
HQ-led 56 %
Community-led 12 %
A mix of in-house and 32%

community-led programs
0%
49 %
of those not yet
hosting community-
led events plan to do
so in 2022

Our data shows that while some community-led programs are mature, many others have only recently
started down this path: 1 in 4 of those who have community-led events started them in the past year.
Most programs (29%) only have 1-4 active hosts. Some mature programs have over 1,000 active hosts.
How many active hosts (community members who host events) do you
have in your community?
n=253
29%
17% 15% 11% 7% 7% 5% 5% 4%
0%
4
- 24
- 49
- 99
0+
9
t ou rs d ual
- 24
- 99
1-
5-
r e on’t
100
ts
hos embe divid
10
25
50
ven
100
250
m In
How many community-led chapters do you have globally?
n=252
27%
20%
9% 11% 7% 9% 7% 8% 2%
0%
+
4
- 24
- 49
- 99
hap n’t
0
- 24
- 99
s
1-
5-
100
e c e do
ter
10
25
50
100
250
havW
How long has your community had community-led chapters?

n=117
15% 19% 16% 15% 15%

10% 10%
0%
ont n
rs
rs
rs
rs
hs
rs
6 mer tha
hs
yea
yea
yea
yea
yea
ont
1-m
1-2
3-4
5-9
14
15+
Few
10-
6-1

The Most Popular Community

Platforms and Technology
As we see each year, there’s a wide range of community platforms that companies use, and there
isn’t one clear leader. In fact, 1 in 4 of our respondents selected other from our list of options —
meaning that they’re using a tool that isn’t in the top 9 tools.
New this year, we also asked users to tell us how satisfied they are with the community platform
they’re using. We didn't see a direct line between the tools people use the most and the tools
people are most satisfied with. Khoros Communities had the highest satisfaction (57% extremely
satisfied) but only 8% of those surveyed are using it.
What platform(s) do you use to host your

community forums/message boards?
n=713
Slack 25 %
Other** 25 %
Facebook group 19%
Discord 14 %
Custom/Built in- 11%
Linkedin group 9 %
Khoros Communities 8%
Salesforce 8%
Discourse 7%
Higher Logic Online 5%
0%
**Common “Other” responses include Telegram, WhatsApp and Mighty Networks.

The Most Popular Community Platforms And Technology cont.
How satisfied are you with your platform for managing your
community?
Khoros Communities 57 % 31 % 12%
Discourse 50 % 44 % 6%
Discord 50 % 43 % 7%
Slack 47 % 42 % 11 %
Custom Solution 32 % 55 % 13 %
Facebook Group 31% 45 % 24 %
LInkedIn Group 29% 54 % 17 %
Salesforce 23% 54 % 23 %
0%
Extremely/Very satisfied Somewhat satisfied Not satisfied

With virtual still being the primary way that companies are organizing events, Zoom continues to
dominate as the primary event platform companies are using by a huge margin.
After Zoom, the platforms being used are spread relatively evenly across Google Hangouts,
Eventbrite, Microsoft Teams, Bevy, Hopin, and Meetup.
29% of respondents selected other, which shows that, similar to forums and message board
software, companies are using a wide range of tools to host their events.
Disclosure: CMX was acquired by Bevy in 2019.
What is the primary platform(s) are you using to host events?

n=559
Cvent - 5%
Bevy - 13%
Bizzabo - 4%
On24 - 5%
Microsoft Teams- 13%

Hopin - 10%
Zoom - 73%
Eventbrite - 13%
Other** - 29%
Meetup.com - 9%
Google Hangouts - 14%
**Common “Other” responses included Discord, Airmeet and Livestorm

Community operations tools are on the rise.
These are tools that are built to help community teams automate processes, manage mass
communications, organize data from different platforms, and become more efficient at managing
their community at scale. If forums, chat groups, and events are the frontend of community
management, these tools aim to be the backend.
We were curious to find out how many companies are using tools like this today. 43% say they are.
The most popular tools are Orbit (orbit.love) and Common Room (commonroom.io), and we’re
seeing a large number of tools entering this space.
Do you use any of the following community automation / CRM tools?

n=472
Orbit 8%
Common Room 7%
Commsor 3%
Dots.Community 3%
Other** 27 %
None of the above 57%
0%
**Common “Other” responses include Salesforce, Hubspot, and Marketo

Measuring Community Health and

Engagement
We wondered: How healthy do community professionals consider their communities to be? 40%
report their communities are extremely/very healthy. Additionally, we were curious how common
it is for communities to send health surveys. It’s not overly common; only 53% of community
management professionals send community health surveys to their members. Community teams
have an opportunity to get to know their members better by sending regular community health
surveys.
How healthy do you consider your How often do you send a

community to be? community health survey to your
n=771 members?
Extremely healthy 6% n=696
Automatically sent after 3%
Very healthy 34 % someone joins
Somewhat healthy 51% Monthly 5%
Not healthy 8% Quarterly 12%
Not at all healthy 1% Twice per year 10%
0% Annually 18%
Other 6%
We don’t send a community 47%

health survey
0%

The most common metrics community managers use to measure the health of their community are
also the easiest to measure: the number of active members, total members, the number of new
members.
We hypothesized that the number of active members would be the most common metric used to
measure the health of a community. So we asked our respondents about their definitions.
What metric(s) do you use to measure the health of your community?

n=683
Number of active members 73%
Total members 56%
Number of new members 51%
Number of event attendees 47%
Number of comments 42 %
Net Promoter Score 37%
Number of event RSVPs 32%
Number of questions 28%

answered
Web traffic to community 28%
Number of events 28%
Number of member- 27%

created content pieces
Number of champions or 25%

ambassadors
Number of community- 24%

hosted events
Post response time 19%
Repeat event attendees 16%
Repeat event attendees 16%
Sense of Community Index 7%
Other 9%
None 5%
0%

Input from the community:

How community professionals define an active
member
"We have guidelines our community members must follow to maintain the perks of
membership: a certain number of product demos, a certain frequency of social media
interactions, a certain frequency of community forum interactions, and a certain number
of product uses."
"Ideally, someone who is responsive to posts, engages with other community members,
seeks to connect with others through forums, webinars, etc. Community members would
be active fundraisers, returning YOY to participate, and continue growing their learning
and understanding of the impact made through their participation enough to recruit
others."
"An active community member participates at least once a week in posting or

responding to messages. They belong to multiple discussion groups and
provide useful, thoughtful content. If they do not host events themselves, they
support events hosted."

"Community members who engage with content on site — basically those who take an
action, log in, like, report, comment, post and reply. Our community is public and it's not
required to log in to access content, so we can't count the number of visitors as this is
hugely skewed by visitors who come, find a single answer and leave without feeling the
need to join."
"A member who logs in within the last 30 days and is involved in at least one of
the following community activities: 1. Make a post (discussion/question/answer/
reply) 2. 'Like' a content 3. Participate in a poll 4. RSVP for an event 5. Write a
blog 6. Post a comment on the blog or library content piece 7. Mark a piece of
content 'helpful' or 'Best Answer' 8. Upload and download files."

Measuring Community Health And Engagement cont.
Rewarding participation is a core part of most community programs. 88% of communities reward
their members for making a positive impact. Most commonly, they recognize them publicly or give
them gifts/swag.
How are you rewarding community members who make a positive impact?
n=760
Public recognition 62%
Swag/gifts 53%
Access to team members or 44%

experts
Invitations ot exclusive 41%

events
Digital badges 41 %
Training 27%
Free products or product 27%

discounts
Career Opportunities 20%
Cash or gift cards 18%
NFT/tokens 3%
Other 4%
Nothing specific 12%
0%

Focus on Diversity, Equity, and

Inclusion
Last year, we started asking community teams about
their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and
initiatives. When we ran the 2021 survey last year, the
Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of
George Floyd triggered an important conversation
about DEI in the workplace and in the communities run 50%
by businesses.
Now, a year later, about half of respondents say that

they have set specific DEI goals for their community.
of communities have
We asked communities that are taking concrete steps specific goals related
to help those who are underrepresented in their to DEI
communities to share some of their lessons and ideas.
Advice from the community:

Steps you can take to help those who are
underrepresented
"I reach out to existing community members to encourage and invite their colleagues
who live, work and are from the Global South. I am also cognizant of who is being
supported and profiled within the community. For example, ensuring that we are
encouraging underrepresented groups to speak at community events, and profiling a
wide range of innovations in our story blogs."

"We are extremely intentional when it comes to the diversity of our community. Right now,
we host monthly 'summits' dedicated to a different underrepresented group each month
which allows us to feature various speakers from said group, market towards this group
and allies, as well as hold a corresponding virtual job fair to help these people level-up their
careers."
"In my role, I make sure that nobody is being left behind in the community.
This means taking time to intentionally engage and recognize BIPOC people
and women when joining, contributing, and being part of the community.
Because they are the most underrepresented groups in the developer space,
I do this to help them feel that they do belong here."
"Our direction as a company is coming from our diversity, equity, and inclusion
committee, which is comprised of a number of employees and company
leadership — led by our SVP of DEI. Right now, we are focusing on how we as
employees can better ourselves and our company internally in the DEI space,
while sharing learnings and practices with our communities."
"Our overall community strategy is to assist member institutions by increasing

overall member engagement and sustain[ing] an inclusive environment to
create the future of dental education in an increasingly diverse and
interconnected world. We held office hours at the annual Diversity meeting
and are continuing to look for ways to incorporate ongoing initiatives."

The Rise of Web 3.0

Anecdotally, interest in Web 3.0 seems to be increasing among community professionals — but
we’re still in the early stages.
Web 3.0 is a catch-all term for the world of crypto, blockchain, and decentralization.
What does a Web 3.0 investment look like? Companies and communities create their own tokens,
hosted on a blockchain. They can use tokens for gating content, exercising voting rights, and other
forms of utility. They usually offer those tokens to their members, contributors, and investors.
These tokens typically have monetary value and members can trade or sell them, potentially
earning income.
To establish a benchmark we asked about this topic in this year’s survey. The majority surveyed
(68%) aren't considering investing in Web 3.0 yet, but 32% are either already investing in it, or
considering it.
Is your company working on any projects related to Web 3.0 or Crypto?

n=615
Yes, this is our primary 4%

focus
We are working on Web

3.0/Crypto project(s) but 11 %
this is not our primary
focus
We are considering this 17%
This is not something we

are considering
68%
0%
Of those working on Web 3.0 projects, the most common type is the decentralized autonomous
organization (DAO). These are organizations that, in theory, are owned and governed by the
community, which makes collective decisions through democratic voting.

The Rise of Web 3.0 cont.
What kind of Web 3.0 community

are you building?
n=61
DAO 64%
NFT 38 %
DeFi 23%
Other 16%
0%
While not all companies are issuing tokens, some are still working to give their community
members an opportunity to become owners by allowing them to invest directly. 15% of companies
have either taken this route or are actively considering it.
If you're a private company, have you

invited your community members to
invest in your company and become
owners?
n=427
Yes 7%
No but actively considering 8%
No but open to it 15%
We’re not considering it 70%
0%

SECTION 3
The Business Value of Community

As you saw in section 2, one of the biggest frustrations for community professionals every year is
proving the value of community.
For community to become truly established as a part of businesses, measuring and proving value is key.
This section provides insights into how businesses are measuring the value of their communities, and
the extent to which the community industry is getting better at overcoming this challenge.
In this section:
The Most Common Community Business Objectives and Metrics
Business Value Metrics
The Continued Struggle to Measure Return on Investment
Growing Investment and Confidence in Community
Best Practices from Successful Communities

The Most Common Community

Business Objectives
Using the CMX SPACES Model as a guide, we asked respondents about the different objectives
community is driving for their business.
Same as previous years, customer support once again tops the list. One big change is that 19% of
community programs are focused on acquisition as their top objective, up from 13% last year.
Product feedback, like in previous years, is a common objective for teams but rarely the primary
objective.
What are the business objectives for your community?
Customer/user support 24 % 40 % 36%
Customer/user success 24 % 32 % 44%
Marketing/sales/user 19 % 26 % 55 %
acquisition
Customer retention 18 % 44 % 38 %
Content creation 10 % 43 % 47 %
Product Feedback 5% 49 % 46 %
0%
Top objective An objective Not an objective n=663

SECTION 3 . THE BUSINESS VALUE OF COMMUNITY
The Most Common Community Business Objectives cont.
Primary objectives of community over the years
0 2022 2021 2019 Online** 2019 In-Person** 2017
External  External 
Support
Support
Support
1 engagement
engagement
(24%) (26%) (26%)

(29%) (37%)
External
2 Success
Support
Content/contribution
Acquisition
Engagement
(24%) (23%) (17%) (23%)

(24%)
Content/ External
Acquisition
Success
Acquisition
3 contribution
engagement 
(19%) (18%) (14%)
(23%) (18%)
**Note: In 2019, we broke down objectives by online vs in-person community programs

The top metrics community professionals use to measure business impact vary by objective. We
asked respondents to choose the metrics they use to measure their top business objective.
Primary objectives of community over the years
Objective Most Popular Metrics
£ Active users (47%

Customer/user support £ Conversation engagement (42%
£ Answered questions (40%)
£ Product Ideas (41%

Product feedback £ Conversation engagement (41%
£ Customer satisfaction (35%)
£ New customers (46%

Marketing/sales/user/acquisition £ New user/member signup (42%
£ Active Users (42%)
£ Conversation engagement (59%

Content Creation £ New user-generated content (56%
£ New user/member signup (34%)
£ Customer retention (57%

Customer retention £ Active users (53%
£ Conversation engagement (36%)
£ Active users (54%

Customer/user success £ Conversation engagement (42%
£ Customer satisfaction (40%)

Almost all respondents (94%) report their community members are contributing to their business
goals, most commonly by sharing feedback, contributing to content, or making referrals.
How are your community members contributing to the business?

n=762
Share product feedback

65 %
Write articles and/or 59 %

contribute to content
Evangelize or make
referrals to our products or 57%
services
Moderate forums/message 43 %
boards
Host events
36%
Participate in customer 34 %
advisory boards
Develop tools and

applications on our 11%
platform
Submitting and voting on 5%

proposals
Others
9%
Our community members

don’t contribute to the 6%
business
0%

The Continued Struggle to Measure

Return-on-Investment
Just as we saw in 2021, the majority of respondents say that financially quantifying the value of
their community is a work in progress.
The percentage of respondents who say they can quantify the business value of their community
actually went down slightly from 12% last year to 10% this year.
No
Are you able to financially 35 %
quantify the business value of

your community?
55 say it is a work
% in progress
n=680
10 %
Yes

The Continued Struggle To Measure Return-On-Investment cont.
In order to measure the value of community, it’s critical that teams can connect their community
member data to systems where sales and customer data is tracked.
Compared to 2021, we see a small uptick in the percentage of communities reporting they have a
customer relationship management (CRM) system. However, the percentage of communities that
can connect community and customer data via their CRM is relatively consistent year-over-year
(35% in 2021 compared to 37% this year).
Does your community data connect to your CRM?

n=638
37 %
have a CRM but it
does not connect
community and
customer data
37 % 26 %
do not have
have a CRM that a CRM
connects community
and customer data

The Continued Struggle To Measure Return-On-Investment cont.
Only a small percentage of respondents can quantify the value of their community. Of those that are
able to do so, half said their community is driving a return-on-investment (ROI) of at least $1 million.
What business value has your community

provided to the organization?
n=56
Up to $49,999 20%
$50,000 - $99,000 7%
$100,000 - $249,999 9%
$250,000 - $499,999 7%
$500,000 - $999,999 7%
$1 million to $4.9 million 23%
$5 million+ 27%
0%

Growing Investment and Confidence

in Community
Despite the continued struggles to measure the value of community, investment and optimism
around community as a critical part of business remains very high.
87% of respondents agree community is critical to their company’s mission. And that’s not just true
of the largest programs; community is seen as mission-critical regardless of how many members
are in the community or how old the community program is.
Our survey uncovered other signs that community’s value to business is being recognized:B
H Increased investmenS
H Growing interest from other departmentF
H Greater perceptions of positive impact
62%  82% 
say their organization will be have seen increased interest in
increasing their investment in community from other
community departments
79%  agree that

believe community has had a community is
positive impact on their 89 % critical to their
organization’s objectives company’s
mission

The Future of Community

This year we asked respondents, “When you think about the future of community, what do you think
— or hope — will happen?”
There’s a clear theme in the responses. Community professionals look forward to a day where the
business value of community is better understood but not at the cost of genuinely connecting people
and building belonging.
They believe the need for authentic community has never been higher, and they see a bright future
for this industry.
“I think community is a very exciting medium that we're only kind of scratching
the surface of its full potential and the place it can hold in people's lives. I hope
that it marks a shift away from goading capitalistic ideals where we're all just
doing stuff for the sake of generating revenue to actually actively using it to make
a difference in people's lives. If covid has taught us anything it's the value in being
connected.”
“The future of the community is bright. One of the silver linings of the pandemic
has been that everyone is finally starting to realize this and the power a
community can have on the business and bottom line.”
“It's integrated into the business model of all companies who benefit from it
– at the very least it's free feedback from customers. At most, it's a place to
build and grow substantial relationships.”

“Businesses will continue to see the value in being community-led and the
power of building products and services will become more thoughtful and
genuine as it lands in the rightful hands of the people. On a broader note,
I hope that community will keep connecting more people in more real
ways, as this will connect us more with how we are wired as a species
[and] result in a happier human race.”
“I really hope companies begin using community feedback to inform product

and business strategies and rely on community professionals to synthesize and
make sense of that feedback. It seems like as time goes on, community roles
are becoming more established, which I hope also means the industry sees pay
increases.”
“Internally, a commitment to the

community, budget, resources, etc.
that help amplify our community's
value into 2022. Overall, peer to
peer problem solving, knowledge
transfer, creating a separate brand
for the community that serves our
existing customers but also opens to
be a space for all in the
philanthropic space to connect.”

Best Practices from Successful

Communities
Finally, we wanted to see if the data showed us anything about what makes some community
programs more successful than others.
To do this we asked, "How successful has your community been at impacting business goals?" and
we dug into the data from the respondents who rated their community highly.
Almost half (43%) of the respondents report their community as very successful or extremely
successful. We sum up the 10 key things most of these companies are doing below.
How successful has your community been at impacting business goals?

n=772
Extremely successful 13%
Very successful 30%
Somewhat successful 50%
Not successful 6%
Not at all successful 1%
0%

Best Practices From Successful Communities cont.
10 Keys to Building Successful Communities
(based on data collected from 778 community builders)
01 Dedicate at least one full-time community manager
02 Provide a variety of paths for community members to contribute
03 Proactively reward your community members for contributing
04 Develop customer advocacy programs and customer advisory boards
05 Host large events (of 100+ people) to energize your community
06 Scale your events with a mix of community-led and in-house staff
07 Build out a community operations function in your team
08 Set specific diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-related goals
09 Send a regular community health survey at least once per year
10 Make community a dedicated department in your company

What’s Next?
We hope this report helps you in planning for the year ahead, designing your community
strategies, and building more successful communities and community teams.
Our mission at CMX is to advance the community industry and help professional community
builders thrive. We do that through our free online community spaces, training courses and
certifications, virtual and in-person events, a job board, and lots of content like this report!
If you’re building community, or curious about building community, we’re here for you!
Want to lurk and learn? Subscribe to CMX Weekly!
Ready to dive in? Join the CMX Community
CMX is powered by Bevy, the community-led event platform. That frustration of automating
manual tasks? Yeah, Bevy takes care of that. To learn more about Bevy and how it can help you
scale your community, book a demo!
Thanks again to our partners for helping distribute this survey!

cmxhub.com

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POWERED BY BEVY

2022 Community Industry Report

10 Methodology and Demographics

The Community Professional

15 Job Titles, Team Structure, and Departments

21 Community Professional Salaries

23 The Most Common Frustrations for Community Professionals

Community Programs and Engagement

30 Benchmarking Community Engagement Rates

32 Community Program Types and Participants

34 How Communities are Managed

37 The Shifting Community Events Landscape

42 The Most Popular Community Platforms and Technology

46 Measuring Community Health and Engagement

51 Focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

53 The Rise of Web 3.0

© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 02

The Business Value of Community

59 The Continued Struggle to Measure Return-on-Investment

62 Growing Investment and Confidence in Community

65 Best Practices from Successful Communities

© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 03

The report focuses on three overarching themes:

01. The Community Professional

02. Community Programs and Engagement

03. The Business Value of Community

© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 04

© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 05

Organizations believe in the

© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 06

The community software market

In-person is making a comeback

© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 07

Community-led events are

Communities are cautiously

© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 08

Community programs are

© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 09

Methodology and Demographics

B2B 64% 1 - 50 34%

B2C 41% 51 - 200 16%

Education 17% 201 - 500 11%

Nonprofit 14% 501 - 2,000 15%

Web 3.0/Crypto 5% 2,001 - 5,000 7%

Government 4% 5,001 - 10,000 6%

Other 7% More than 10,000 11%

© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 10

Methodology and Demographics

Community Professional Experience and Demographics

Job Titles, Team Structure, and Departments

Community Professional Salaries

The Most Common Frustrations

© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 12

SECTION 1 . THE COMMUNITY PROFESSIONAL

Do you manage at least one person on the community team?

© 2022 CMX. POWERED BY BEVY 13

SECTION 1 . THE COMMUNITY PROFESSIONAL

Community Professional Demographics and Experience

Black or African descent 5%

Community Team Structure  

The Most Common Frustrations  

What are your top frustrations about managing your community  

Asynchronously: An experience that people experience and participate in at separate times,  