Sometimes, open source communities build themselves, arising organically from among groups of like-minded software developers pursuing a common mission. This was the case for some of history’s most famous open source projects, like the Linux kernel and the Apache Web server.

But more often, building an open source community requires dedicated leadership and strategy. To attract developers, convince them to contribute code and – most important of all – get them to remain active in the project for the long haul, open source projects need a focused plan and the ability to execute on it.

To that end, here’s a guide to establishing an effective open source community. Whether you’re a lone coder hoping to find just a handful of other programmers to help build your vision, or a company seeking to create a massive open source project on the scale of Kubernetes, the guidance below will help you design and operate a thriving community.

What is an open source community?

Before diving into tips on how to build a successful open source community, let’s make clear what, exactly, an open source community is.

We’re referring to the group of contributors who are committed to advancing an open source project or platform. Typically, a majority of community members are software developers, but open source communities can also include artists, documentation writers, social media advocates and anyone else who plays a positive role in supporting a specific piece of open source software.

As you may know if you’re familiar with open source, there are thousands upon thousands of open source communities in existence today. Some, such as those that develop big-name platforms like Linux and Kubernetes, count thousands of members. Others are small teams of contributors whose output is code hosted in an obscure GitHub repo. But no matter what the size of a project or how famous its code is, it counts as an open source community if it advances an open source solution of some type.

The challenges of building open source communities

Although the proliferation of open source projects might make it look easy to create an open source community, doing so can actually be quite challenging, for several reasons:

• Learning curve: Contributing to an open source project typically requires a certain level of technical expertise. Even if you’re not writing code, you need a technical understanding of what the project does and how it works to be an effective contributor.
• Lack of recognition: Getting people to join an open source community is tough when your project is not well known – and most open source projects start from obscure origins.
• Flaky contributors: Sometimes, open source projects attract eager contributors, only to find that they “flake out” and stop contributing after a few months.
• Lack of cash: Solving all of the challenges described above might be easy if your open source community could pay contributors or otherwise fund its operations. But since most projects are not-for-profit endeavors, they typically have little, if any, money available.

Best practices for creating – and sustaining – a successful open source community

Open source projects that thrive don’t solve these challenges by simple luck. They adopt practices like the following to help launch and sustain dynamic open source communities.

#1. Actively promote your project

The “if you build it, they will come” mantra doesn’t really hold true in the world of open source development. In most cases, no matter how great your project or vision is, contributors won’t find their way to it on their own.

Instead, project founders or community leaders should actively work to build name recognition. They can do this by, for example, blogging on sites that are popular with developers who are prospective contributors, posting in forums where the same developers participate or speaking at relevant tech conferences, to name just a few potential strategies.

#2. Create an “elevator pitch” that explains your project’s vision

To attract contributors effectively, open source communities must be able to do more than just explain what their project does. They should also be capable of articulating why their project is so important or unique.

To communicate this information well, consider creating an “elevator pitch” – a concise summary of the project’s goals and value that you can share in under a minute of speaking or a few lines of text. When prospective contributors can quickly understand why they should care about your project, they’re more likely to engage.

#3. Adopt a governance structure

There are a variety of open source governance models, which help projects make decisions and establish a management structure. A discussion of the pros and cons of each approach is beyond the scope of this article.

What we will underscore, however, is that it’s important to have some kind of governance strategy in place. Don’t assume that your community will naturally coordinate itself, because most communities don’t. They require some type of deliberate decision-making process and, usually, people to serve as leaders.

#4. Make contributions easy

The easier it is for people to contribute to an open source project – whether by writing code or another means – the more likely they are to join the community and stay for the long term. To that end, projects should make it as simple as possible to figure out how and where to contribute. They can spell this information out in concise contributor guides that they post publicly.

In addition, when it comes to contributing code, the process should be as streamlined as possible. Although most projects will want to have some kind of validation process in place to ensure that they vet code before accessing it, code reviews shouldn’t be so time-consuming that they turn off prospective contributors. And if code is rejected, it should be rejected politely, so that the contributors don’t give up.

#5. Consider sponsorship

As we mentioned, operating an open source project is a lot easier when you have some financial resources. To that end, communities should consider seeking out sponsorship.

GitHub has a sponsorship feature that projects can use to fund contributions by individual developers. In addition, building relationships with companies can be a way to “borrow” some of their developers’ (or marketers’, or writers’) time to contribute to an open source community. If a business uses an open source project’s code, they may not mind having some of their employees spend a bit of time contributing to the project, an indirect form of corporate sponsorship.

Long-term open source success

The tips above won’t guarantee that your open source project will turn into the next Linux kernel. But they will help you build a committed, stable group contributors – which is all it takes to launch and manage an open source community that thrives over the long term.