Open Community Leadership

POPCOM Framework

The core framework of Open Community Leadership (OCL)

What is POPCOM?

POPCOM is a framework for understanding why open source communities grow, stagnate, or collapse from the human side.

Most communities focus on technical infrastructure: the tools, the platforms, the contribution guidelines. POPCOM focuses on the other infrastructure. The invisible one. The one made of people, by people.

The framework maps six dimensions of community health. When all six are working, communities are self-sustaining. When one breaks down, people start quietly leaving. And often before anyone notices.

The Six Dimensions

P — Participation

How people join.

Participation is more than showing up. It is the moment someone moves from observer to member. It is the friction (or lack of it) in the first step. It is whether a new person feels like the door was open or they had to find the side entrance.

Questions to ask:

  • How do people find out you exist?
  • What is the first action a new person takes?
  • Is that first action easy, meaningful, and acknowledged?
  • What is the gap between attending and participating?

Signs this dimension is broken:

  • New people come once and do not return
  • No clear first step for newcomers
  • Onboarding is assumed, not designed

O — Ownership

How people gain responsibility.

Communities stay alive when responsibility is distributed. Ownership is the process by which a participant becomes a steward and someone who feels the community is theirs to protect and grow.

Without ownership transfer, communities become dependent on a single person or small group. When those people burn out or leave, the community collapses.

Questions to ask:

  • Who owns what in your community? And do they know it?
  • How does someone move from participant to owner of something?
  • Is ownership offered, or does someone have to ask for it?
  • Is there any onboarding for the ownership?
  • Is the leader recognised for the ownership?
  • What happens to ownership when a leader leaves?
  • Was there an offboarding for the transfer of knowledge?

Signs this dimension is broken:

  • One or two people do everything or an entire group is in charge but no one leads
  • Volunteers do not know what they are responsible for
  • Nothing is documented, so only the founder knows how it works

P — Purpose

Why people stay.

People do not stay in communities because of tools or platforms. They stay because something about being there matters to them. Purpose is the shared 'why' that keeps people coming back even when it is inconvenient.

Purpose is not a mission statement. It is felt. It is whether someone would describe your community to a friend with enthusiasm or obligation.

Questions to ask:

  • Can your members articulate why your community exists?
  • Does the community's current activity still reflect its original purpose?
  • Do members feel the community's purpose aligns with their own goals?
  • When did you last revisit why you do this?

Signs this dimension is broken:

  • Attendance drops without obvious cause
  • Attendees come but not many stay
  • Long-term members become passive
  • Events feel like obligations rather than gatherings
  • Members felt that their attendance do not really matter

C — Connection

How relationships form.

Connection is what separates a community from an audience. An audience consumes. A community relates. Connection is the formation of real relationships between members, not just between members and the leader.

Communities with strong connection are resilient. When something goes wrong, people hold each other. Communities without it dissolve the moment the organiser steps back.

Questions to ask:

  • Do members know each other and not just the organiser?
  • Are there spaces and moments designed for relationship-building, not just content delivery?
  • Do people in your community help each other outside of official events?
  • Do people in your community meet up outside the official meetings/events?
  • Would your community continue if you were not there?

Signs this dimension is broken:

  • Members only interact with the organiser, not each other
  • No informal spaces or side conversations
  • The community feels like an event series, not a community
  • The community does not know how to communicate or continue without the organiser

O — Opportunity

How contributors grow.

People need to grow. When a community offers no path forward: no new challenges, no new responsibilities, no new experiences, then people move on. Not because they have left, but because they have outgrown.

Opportunity is about creating pathways: from attendee to speaker, from volunteer to co-organiser, from participant to leader. Communities that do this well become pipelines for the broader ecosystem.

Questions to ask:

  • What can someone do in your community that they could not do when they joined?
  • Are there visible paths from participation to leadership?
  • Do you actively invite people to take on more, or wait for them to ask?
  • Are opportunities distributed equitably?
  • Are the opportunities documented in places accessible to the community?

Signs this dimension is broken:

  • The same people speak, lead, and organise year after year
  • When members are not given the chance to
  • New members plateau quickly
  • Talented contributors leave for other communities

M — Mentorship

How communities reproduce themselves.

Mentorship is how communities survive beyond their founders. It is the transmission of knowledge, values, and practice from experienced members to newer ones. It is not through documentation alone, but through relationship.

This is the dimension that open source communities most consistently neglect. And it is why so many communities fall apart with their founders.

Questions to ask:

  • Who is teaching the next generation of leaders in your community?
  • Is mentorship formal, informal, or nonexistent?
  • Do experienced members actively invest in newer ones?
  • What knowledge would be lost if your three most experienced people left tomorrow?

Signs this dimension is broken:

  • Leadership knowledge is held by one or two people
  • New organisers are thrown in without support
  • The community has no next generation of leaders

Using POPCOM in practice

For individuals: Use the Leadership Passport to reflect on your own journey across the six dimensions.

For communities: Use the Community Health Check to assess where your community stands.

For workshops: Start with Workshop 1 — The Experience Is the Community, which introduces Participation, Connection, and Mentorship through lived experience.

For modules: Each OCL module maps to one or more POPCOM dimensions. See the module overview for the full mapping.

License

CC BY 4.0 — Open Community Leadership (OCL) Free to use, adapt, and share with attribution.