Business Community Canvas
Design your community — one intentional step at a time.
A guided journey through six chapters. Answer at your own pace. Your progress saves automatically. At the end you'll receive a Community Design Report.
For whom
Anyone designing or redesigning a community: leaders, founders, teams and networks.
Purpose
To turn your first inspiring idea into a shared, tangible community blueprint.
What you get
A first blueprint of your community — plus a report you can share, discuss or deepen with AI.
How to use it
Fill it in digitally at your own pace, or experience it as part of a guided workshop.
Step 1 · Context
Start with the context.
Before designing the community, understand the ground it grows on.
Question 1
What opportunity or challenge is this community designed to address?
This is the starting point of the design process.
Question 2
What type of community are you designing?
Click the quadrant that best fits your intention. You can revisit this later.
The Communities Matrix
Four forms of intentional community, positioned along how they share value and how they evolve over time. Select the quadrant that best fits your intention.
Sharing
Exchanging Adapted from the work of E. Kaats & W. Opheij (2012)
About the Communities Matrix
Two axes, four community types
The matrix helps you choose the primary nature of your community. The horizontal axis runs from Improving (optimising what exists) to Renewing (creating what is next). The vertical axis runs from Sharing (joint learning and contribution) to Exchanging (transactional value).
Most real communities are a blend. Pick the quadrant that best matches your starting intention — you can refine it as your blueprint grows.
Read the full explanation on the blogPrompts & examples
- ·Start with the challenge or opportunity, not the solution.
- ·The four community types come from the Communities by Design framework.
- ·Functional & Transactional focus on improving what exists.
- ·Entrepreneurial & Exploratory focus on renewing what is possible.
- ·Most communities are a blend — choose the primary form.
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