Power in numbers
Meetups are communities where people show up for each other. That’s why we’re asking for our organizers’ help in getting people to show up on election day. We’ve seen what can happen when communities act together, inspire one another, and speak up. The impact can be exponential.

We’re hoping to harness that power to get eligible voters to the polls. That starts with getting registered.

The situation: Low voter turnout
Americans aren’t voting. (Historically speaking, at least.) Voter turnout in the U.S. is a shockingly small percentage of the eligible population. National statistics tell us that 21% of eligible voters in the US still aren’t even registered, and only 36% of voters actually showed up to vote in the last midterm election.

When a large portion of the population doesn’t show up, their voices aren’t heard.

The Gameplan: Organizers use their show up superpowers
During When We All Vote’s Week of Action September 22–29, Meetup will participate in a nationwide effort to educate and mobilize as many citizens as possible to register to vote.

Here’s how:

• We’re asking Meetup organizers to host a Meetup before or during the week of September 22nd, and to devote a few minutes to talk about voting. (we wrote you an easy how-to guide)
• If you’re really passionate about the cause, reach out via this form to learn about additional ways to get more involved
• Spread the word about voter registration on social media using hashtag #WhenWeAllVote

Our Partner:
We’ve joined forces with voter registration organization When We All Vote, a nationwide nonpartisan organization, to give Meetup organizers the tools they need to get their communities registered to vote.

Sound good? Great.

Have more questions? Check out our FAQ page, here.

Oh, and one last thing: Thank you to our Meetup organizers
Your enthusiasm, time, and commitment to your Meetup community humbles and inspires us every day. We’re proud to make a real impact, together.

Meetup Joins Forces with When We All Vote to Get More People to the Polls was originally published in Meetup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meetup is thrilled to welcome 150 top Meetup organizers to our hometown, New York City, for our first-ever Meetup Togetherfest!

The organizers joining us are creating real human connection with every Meetup they schedule and host. We’re so grateful for the chance to be IRL with them.

Meetup Togetherfest will be everything you hope for in a great Meetup — welcoming, real, impactful, spirited, and thoughtful. Program highlights include:

• Priya Parker, our keynote speaker, will lead organizers in a master class on The Art of Gathering with lessons from her forthcoming book of the same name
• WeWork cofounders Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey will share why IRL community matters so much to them personally, and what inspired them to join forces with Meetup
• Organizers will get advice, support, and camaraderie through small group sessions
• Meetup’s product team will give a sneak peek of what’s next for the Meetup

Follow along on social — #MeetupTogetherfest #Meetup.

And, Meetup organizers, if you’re not joining this year’s Togetherfest, keep an eye out for highlights in next month’s Community Matters newsletter.

Meetup Togetherfest was originally published in Meetup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You’ve found a venue, chosen a date, crafted a description, and hit “schedule:” now you get to watch the RSVP’s roll in. But how many of them will come?

We know how challenging Show-Ups can be, and we take it seriously. We have a whole product team devoted to getting more people to come to your Meetups. As the Product Manager of the Show-Ups team, I’m focused on using our products and tools to get more people to show up for you IRL. Here’s how we’re approaching it.

The problem: Trends we’re noticing
Not knowing your Show-Ups makes it tough to plan. Here’s why:

• People RSVP “yes” when really, they’re just “interested.”
• People forget to update their “yes” RSVP if their plans change.
• As an organizer, you plan according to RSVPs, which can mean empty seats and wasted money on prep if attendance and RSVPs don’t match up.
• Your members are expecting an event of a certain size, so it can be a jarring first impression if the Meetup is smaller than they were expecting.

Research: Lessons learned
We’re digging in and finding inspiration from the hosts who have great show-up rates. What do they do differently? Here’s what we’re finding:

• They send reminders leading up to the Meetup using tools like email, messages and comments.
• They often establish no-show policies, making it clear in the Meetup description that no-shows can’t attend future Meetups.
• They get creative with accountability by doing things like charging a fee, but then giving the money back afterwards if you show-up.

Experiments: Solutions we’re testing

Optimized Guest Reminders
We’ve iterated on the reminder notification that goes out 24 hours before your Meetup by testing how a reminder 2-hours prior to your Meetup performs. We’re trying to accomplish two things here: reminding the folks who intend to come of the details, and nudging those who can’t make it to change their status to “No.” This will keep your list accurate. What we found was: there was a significant lift in people updating their RSVP status, as well as a slight lift in show-ups, in the 2 hour test. Next, we’ll be testing different versions and exploring ways to make the reminder experience more flexible for hosts and members.

Engagement Experiments
The more “alive” a Meetup feels beforehand, the more likely people are to show-up. We’re running a series of tests to drive engagement between “Yes” RSVPs and hosts leading up to the Meetup.

“Meeting” people ahead of time makes showing up IRL less intimidating, so we’re testing different ways to “Meet your Host” for members immediately after they RSVP to your Meetup.

Active conversations lead to more show-ups. A personal connection to another attendee can give that final push to actually get up and go, so we’re testing ways to spark conversations prior to the Meetup.

We want to hear from you
We plan to roll out the most successful experiments as a permanent part of the product. As we map out future tests, we want your input! If you’ve got an awesome tactic, policy, workaround, or something you’ve found to get more people to show up to your Meetup, let us know.

Experiments to Boost Your Show-Ups was originally published in Meetup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meetup is so proud to announce the promotions of two talented and dynamic women who have already been instrumental in shaping the company. Fiona Spruill, formerly Vice President of Product, has assumed the role of Chief Operating Officer. And Farah Assir, who was the company’s Head of Design, has been named Vice President of Design & Strategy.

Fiona joined Meetup from the New York Times, where she had a 14-year career, most recently as the newsroom’s lead on the design and development of mobile products. She made her mark at Meetup as Head of Global Growth, and was quickly promoted to Vice President of Product. In that role, Fiona launched all new mobile apps and a mobile-first web design, and championed the enterprise product, Meetup Pro.

Scott Heiferman, Meetup’s Co-founder and CEO, has described Fiona as someone who “can move mountains and drive change,” exactly the type of leader Meetup needs, especially as it looks to harness the enormous potential of its new relationship with WeWork.

Farah also joined Meetup from The Times, where she was the lead designer for the NYT Now app, featured as one of the App Store’s “best new apps.” She was named to Fast Company’s list of Most Creative People.

Fiona and Farah are passionate about bringing people together in real life, and if you see them at the NY Tech Localization Meetup (Fiona started it) or the Design Driven NYC Meetup (Farah is a regular), say hi and congratulations.

Meetup Names Fiona Spruill as COO and Farah Assir as VP, Design & Strategy was originally published in Meetup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Update as of December 13 at 7:01 PM EST

In the past week, we’ve launched several improvements to the redesign as a direct result of organizer feedback. You can now:

• Save and preview your Meetup before you publish it.
• Access more organizer tools in more places to help you manage your Meetup, including sorting your RSVP list, managing your waitlist, and viewing payment status.

We’ll continue to put your feedback into action and make improvements in the weeks ahead. If you have questions, feedback, or want to know more, you can:

• Join a Facebook Live with Fiona Spruill, Meetup’s COO, and Carolyn Manning, Meetup’s VP Brand & Community, on Friday, December 15 at 12:00 pm EST.
• Send an email to webfeedback@meetup.com.

Original Post from December 7
The Meetups you host, and the care you put into them, brings people together IRL and makes Meetup what it is. That’s why we want to make sure you have the backstory for important changes coming to Meetup.

We’re launching a clean, modern redesign of Meetup that goes live for everyone on Thursday, December 14.

The redesign started with the app launch. Now it’s time for the web design to catch up. Starting next week, everyone will have a consistent Meetup experience across our apps and website, which will help get more people to your Meetups. Go see what’s new.

These updates are a big shift, and we’ve been hearing from thousands of Meetup organizers about what’s working and what’s not. We released a preview of the redesign to all organizers in early September. In the months since then, we’ve been listening, carefully considering your concerns and ideas, and taking action.

From what we heard, we made these changes:

• Brought back the ability to reply directly in comments (NEW)
• Highlighting your next Meetup prominently
• Showing full descriptions to people who haven’t RSVPd yet
• Expanding character limits for descriptions
• Removing the color filter from your Meetup group photo

And you can expect this in the near future:

• You’ll be able to save a draft of your Meetup
• Creating a preview of a Meetup so you can see what it will look like before announcing
• Improving tools that help you manage your Meetups, such as sorting, waitlist, and payment status
• Bringing the member list and profiles to new design

Some things that are not changing:

Formatting in descriptions

We know it’s important for your members to be able to find important information about your Meetups.

We removed formatting on the web (it hasn’t existed on the apps for over a year) to create a more seamless browsing experience for members who are looking at your Meetups. The majority of our members use Meetup on a mobile device and we’ve heard from them that the variation in formatting from Meetup to Meetup created a disjointed experience, one that could turn them off from RSVPing.

That’s why we are not going back. But our work on this is not done. Our plan in the months ahead is to provide more and better structure for Meetup group and event pages so that your members don’t miss important information.

The What’s New feed

We are exploring ways to better expose new activity, but we don’t have an immediate fix for this. One thing we can share is that the What’s New feed is something that was visible on the desktop version of Meetup, but has not been accessible on mobile web for years. Remember, over 60% of members experience Meetup on mobile devices.

Our commitment to you

We’re listening, and we’re here to support you through this transition. Here are some additional resources that might be helpful:

Want to learn how to make the most out of the new design?
Check out our tips to make your Meetup look great.

Want to hear from our leaders directly?
Tune in for a live video session on Friday, December, 15 from 12:00 pm — 12:30 pm EST with our COO, Fiona Spruill, and VP Brand & Community, Carolyn Manning.

Meetup’s Web Redesign Explained was originally published in Meetup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Q: What is WeWork?
A: WeWork provides space, community, and services to members around the globe to help them connect, collaborate and do what they love.

Q: Why did Meetup and WeWork decide to join forces?
A: For years, organizers have told us how hard it is to find great spaces for their Meetups. WeWork has beautiful spaces and a commitment to use them to create community. Last year, we noticed way more Meetups scheduled at WeWork locations (to the tune of 100,000+ RSVPs in 2017). We got to talking, realized how we could unlock possibilities for each other, and one thing led to another…

Q: Will anything change for Meetup members or organizers as a result of the acquisition?
A: The most honest answer we can give is that there are no plans for immediate changes. And of course Meetup will keep evolving, just as it has for the past 15 years.

Q: What about Meetup Pro?
A: Same! Nothing is changing for Meetup Pro customers in the short term. As we work more closely with the WeWork team, you’ll have an easier time than ever expanding to new cities, hosting professional Meetups at beautiful WeWork spaces, and attracting more members and RSVPs to your network.

Q: Now that Meetup & WeWork are coming together, can I use WeWork spaces for my Meetups?
A: As a first step, let us know if you’re interested. Please go to meetup.com/about/hostatwework and complete the short form. We’ll get back to you as WeWork locations become available for hosting Meetups.

WeWork offices around the world will become great options for hosting your Meetups. We’re working out the details to make sure it’s easy and smooth for Meetup organizers to reserve space for their Meetups. We’ll be making buildings available starting in late 2017, and throughout 2018. WeWork Community Managers will help facilitate that process, and then later in 2018, it’ll be possible to reserve online.

Q: Is there a WeWork near me?
A: WeWork has 170+ locations in 58 cities and 15 countries around the world. You can find your nearest WeWork location on the WeWork website here: wework.com/locations.

Q: I’m an organizer. Do I have to host my Meetup at WeWork now?
A: No, you can keep hosting your Meetups wherever you like.

Q: The Meetup website looks different. Is that a result of the acquisition
A: No, the new Meetup pages introduce a clean, modern design to help people find the right Meetups for them. The redesign started long before our talks with WeWork.

Q: What were the terms of the deal?
A: We won’t be disclosing the details.

Meetup × WeWork FAQs was originally published in Meetup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 2027, the ritual of real community is the norm — and it uplifts society.

It’s November 28, 2027.

Life has become, in many ways, a lot harder over the past decade. It wasn’t so clear that we would survive. Jobs were lost to automation, and populations were uprooted by increasing wealth disparity, distrust, division and climate change, depleting people of opportunity and dignity, corrupting our institutions and hope, and leaving people feeling powerless. Something had to happen. Because powerlessness is not sustainable.

It only took ten years, from 2007 to 2017, for smartphones to go from nonexistent to essential. But there was still something missing. You could make a car appear in minutes, but you couldn’t make a community show up for you. You could share a photo with vast global communities, but you weren’t sharing the kind of life-giving connection that only comes from being together, in person, in real life. The time we virtually spent with others felt increasingly empty and addictive as humans were losing the skills and patience of IRL interaction. Would the worst in us get the best of us? We were more connected than ever, but we also felt more alone.

A meetup is how a person becomes more human. Inevitably, when life gets harder, people turn toward each other. Sometimes hardship pushes people to turn on each other, but the dual nature of tribalism bends more toward our supportive instincts for community than our warring ones. Simply put, when in need, people tend to help each other, teach each other, lean on each other. When people meetup, they start businesses, start bands, and have babies. In the last ten years, people turned toward each other because they felt powerless, needed opportunity in their lives, and had little else to turn to. Over the course of human history, people have done atrocious things when they come together, but it is also true, and more frequently the case, that when people meetup, they achieve the best things humanity is capable of.

A meetup forms when people yearn for something better in their lives. A meetup is simply a group of people with a shared purpose who get together IRL regularly. From language-learning meetups and health-support meetups, to career-development meetups and running meetups, here in 2027, almost half of the world’s population goes to a monthly meetup. It’s just normal. At any given hour across the planet, millions of people are meeting up with a circle of people they have come to care about and who have come to care about them. In these meetups, people come to root for each other, learn together, search for opportunity, and help each other find it. The need to be seen, to be heard, to be understood by a circle of people who depend on each other is fundamental to what makes us human.

A lot can happen in a decade. Society has changed, slowly, quietly, yet deliberately. As people chose to turn toward each other, the meetup went from a niche phenomenon to a widespread cultural norm, and the things that typically divided us — politics, race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, class, nationality — started to become secondary and surmountable. And as the ritual of real community reached a tipping point, a collective sense of hope emerged.

2027 is a different world, not just because of advances in technology itself, but because of how technology is giving people real access to each other.

It’s 8 p.m. in Nairobi on Monday, November 29, 2027.

The kids are finally asleep, so she tiptoes down the hallway. She pulls her running clothes from her dresser drawer. She’d always wanted to start running, but after dropping the kids off at school, rushing to and from work, evenings are the only time she has available. Most people at her office warn it’s not safe to run alone outside at night in Nairobi. But she knows she’s safer in a group.

A few months ago, she connected with a meetup of women located near her home who wanted to run a similar pace and distance, and they all wanted to run at night. At the first meetup, she hustled to the entrance of Uhuru Park, just around the corner from her apartment building, and saw the group. There were five women wearing headlamps and flashing bracelets. One woman had a neon halo, another wore glow-in-the-dark socks. It was hard to miss them; they looked like they were ready for a parade. While they ran that first night, they made up chants, little songs to keep them going. They cheered at cars, and sometimes the cars honked back.

The need to be seen, to be heard, to be understood by a circle of people who depend on each other is fundamental to what makes us human.

As the weeks passed, they continued to pressure each other to get off the couch and go, one mile at first, then eventually two. She feels safe with them — a group leaves no one behind — and they’ve become close. She has had moments of doubt. But one evening, when she thought she’d skip a run, the group met her at her house, glowing and cheering.

Tonight was special: they were going to attempt five miles down the long, flat thoroughfare of Mombasa Road. It was going to be hard, but these women have grown to be there for each other, and the pack’s energy is infectious. She slips on her running shoes and skips out the door.

It’s 9 a.m. in Berlin on Tuesday, November 30, 2027.

Ten women sit at a meetup space in Kreuzberg. In 2027, knowledge worker jobs are often done remotely, but “remote” is a misnomer. Free to live wherever they want, people from all over the world flock to neighborhoods like this because of the kinds of people who live there.

Four of the women in the meetup are new — all live within just a few blocks; two of them think they may have seen each other in passing. One of the women is an engineering leader at one of the great companies that exist in 2027 and despite her busy schedule, her AI assistant senses it’s her favorite time of the week and always blocks out this hour. She looks forward to meeting new members, as she gets to wonder and anticipate how they might change her life, or how she could change their lives.

Ten years earlier, this woman wasn’t a programmer. She was one of the millions of refugees who arrived in Germany in search of opportunity. She had a Syrian college degree in finance and considered herself lucky when she landed a job in her field after she arrived in Berlin. Frustrated with the lack of mentorship for young women at her firm, she started attending tech meetups just like this one for women learning to code. She found a community where she could share triumphs and frustrations, where they laughed and supported each other.

She remembers what it felt like to be helped, to be listened to. She remembers that moment when she could finally stop moving from border to border and rest in an apartment that was her own. She knew her creativity and ambition could stretch out once more. She just needed a group of people to share them with.

She looks at the new arrivals and smiles. They make small talk in English, with snippets of German, but code is universal. Some are further along than others in their careers, but they all share the same drive she’d had to change her career and her life. She’d found her mentor in a group like this ten years ago. Maybe it was time for her to take on someone to mentor.

It’s 2 p.m. in Karachi on Wednesday, December 1, 2027.

A man waiting for a liver transplant sits on the steps of the indoor atrium at the Lucky One Mall. People gather in groups of threes and fours to watch a performer dance with a small robotic monkey. He feels nervous but relieved to be meeting people who will know what he’s thinking, what he’s going through.

Three others are supposed to arrive: two of them have had the surgery and the other is still waiting, just like he is. In 2027, waiting lists for transplants have gotten shorter now that it’s possible to grow a liver in a lab. A decade ago, a liver transplant would have meant traveling thousands of miles to Bangkok for surgery and recuperating there for weeks. But even as the surgeries become more common, the scars are still invisible to the people you pass on the street. And imagining a laser cutting into your body is still just as terrifying.

A man walks up, checks his app, looks around, and finally sees the man on the steps. He says hello and gives the man a hug. He tells him it had been two years since his own operation. This monthly meetup was the first place he could look someone in the eye and hear that person say, “I went through it. And I’m fine.”

Then two other people arrive, and they instinctively hug each other, too. It didn’t matter if they had been through the surgery or were just starting to think about it. One man shows the others his scars. It had been six months and they were still healing, but he looks healthy and happy. Soon they are talking not of hospitals, but of the vacations they want to take, the places they want to see.

“That wasn’t so bad,” the man thinks when he gets home. “It is going to be OK.”

It’s 2 p.m. in Shenzhen on Thursday, December 2, 2027.

As she does every month, the factory worker brings her paper and pencils to the meetup space located around the corner from her tiny apartment in a giant apartment block. Now that most goods are delivered to homes by drones, storefronts are becoming meetup spaces. When they see her, the other regulars wave her over to join them, pushing an extra table over for her so she can lay out her art supplies.

City life is better than what came before, but it is also a struggle. She had been drawn to this cacophonous, disorienting megapolis by the prospect of earning money to send back to her mother and father. But ever since her parents gave her her first set of crayons, her dream had been to use her creativity, if not as a part of her job, then at least as a part of her life. She spends her days at the factory on the assembly line carefully wiping sleek, paper-thin screens with a special solvent. After work, on her own phone — older, sturdier, and boxier than the ones she handles every day — she likes to browse through art posted online by illustrators the world over.

One day, she received a message: Would you like to go to a drawing meetup this Thursday at 2 p.m.? This particular meetup didn’t actually exist yet. But after drawing meetups like it had taken off across Europe and then Asia, the network began seeking out the kinds of people who were enjoying them and then showed them how to start drawing meetups of their own. The machines were bringing people together.

China has suffered economically this past decade, and her work is grueling. But she never misses her Thursday drawing meetup. It is her place to be the person she wants to be. She can relax, have fun. Sometimes she and a few of the regulars who also work at her factory go out for bubble tea afterward. They talk about their hopes and dreams beyond their jobs, and often conversation turns back to the factory and how they could stand up to make it a better place to work. But at the meetup, they all sit quietly and draw, feeling a connection.

Each week has a theme. This week’s is “animal self-portrait.” She searches on her phone for a reference image to draw. Maybe a rabbit, or a fox? She settles on a kit fox, with its enormous ears and curious eyes. She shows the fox to the man sitting next to her and he laughs. He says he can see the resemblance. It makes her feel happy; it makes her feel seen.

It’s 6 p.m. in Houston on Friday, December 3, 2027.

Five women enter a beautifully designed community space and each is greeted at the entrance: Which meetup are you here for? They lay claim to their long table for the seven new members they’re expecting this week. This always happens the weeks after an election or a major scandal: a new cohort of women, inspired by the recent victories of women elected to school boards and city councils across Texas, are fired up to run for office.

The community space is located in an old automotive parts store in a desolate strip mall. After the city flooded a decade ago, the area was ultimately repurposed into a bustling, walkable neighborhood. New zoning laws, the first of their kind in the city, tore up parking lots and concrete barriers to reestablish floodplains, making housing and retail denser and residents more aware of their neighbors. Much of that change happened because of the leadership of one of these five women, who was now mayor of Houston, the youngest in the city’s history.

As people chose to turn toward each other, the meetup went from a niche phenomenon to a widespread cultural norm.

When she attended her first meetup more than a decade ago, the mayor didn’t even consider getting into politics. She’d felt excited and scared sitting in a room and telling this group of women she wanted to change her life. The first meetup she started showing up at was a political discussion meetup that met once a week at the meetup space in her apartment complex. Each Sunday, they’d gather over coffee and vent about the endless stream of outrages in their news feeds. She looked forward to seeing the neighbors she got to know there — some of whom started planning semiannual camping trips together — but instead of just letting off steam, the meetups made her angrier. Then one day, she got a message: There are eight women nearby who might be up for running for local office. Would you like to meet on Sunday?

It felt like a chance to make a real impact on people’s lives. At the first meetup, they talked about what it would mean to get involved, what it might feel like to run. How do you make a speech about what you believe in? How do you make others believe in you? One woman decided to run for school board; another ran for her town council. Some won, most lost, and some didn’t run at all. But they still show up every Tuesday.

Sitting down at the head of the long table, she knows she must look like a seasoned politician. But she lost the first time she ran seven years ago, and it was only with the support of the women in her meetup that she was able to regroup and run again. And when she entered city hall as mayor, she worked hard to pass the zoning reform whose effects she is starting to see now, ten years since she walked into her first meetup.

All of these stories existed in bits and pieces back in 2017. But looking back, that year was a fork in the road for humankind. We were either going to devolve into an isolated, impersonal, virtual everything species, glued to our devices, experiencing the world apart from each other and watching helplessly as poverty, intolerance, violence, and climate change made the world increasingly uninhabitable — or we were going to come together. People were going to meetup or not.

It’s not that people were hankering for an old notion of community. What emerged was a new form of community, sparked by technology to create new constellations of people — and push them offline. Machines helped bring people together to be more human. There’s something in our DNA pushing us to find each other. Grouping up makes us more resilient as a species. It gives us a safety net. In a meetup, people form bonds around a common interest, engendering empathy and trust. Within these groups, conversation flows, relationships blossom, members collaborate, and opportunities arise. The simple act of coming together creates a community with capacity; it creates a swell of support. That community holds its members accountable to one another, to act, to mentor. In 2027, people come together for the interests they share, and stay together for the joys and challenges that are universal. We celebrate a new job, mourn a dying parent, cope with divorce, coo over a new baby. We come for the benefit and stay for community.

When a billion people started to turn more toward each other, it didn’t just change their own lives. That coming together changed everyone’s lives: our towns and cities, our health and our wealth. When people everywhere can find the just right group to hike with, to bike with, to meditate with, and to experience the personal bonds that come with making community part of their routines, we embrace and maintain a healthier life. When people get connected within their line of work, they can help each other learn new skills and find new opportunities. They meet and hire the best talent, and they find the right jobs. It means “who you know” can be about showing up rather than pedigree, which creates a more level playing field and a widespread sense of fairness and trust.

Most importantly a contagion of resiliency and powerfulness emerged. In 2027 a billion people meetup regularly — in new connected spaces that form a new commons — with a circle of people they care for and who care for them. People show up for each other, businesses are born, bands are born, babies are born, and a new world emerges.

Who would have thought, just a decade ago, that life on this planet would, so quickly, become so much in bloom? But it has.

What Happens When a Billion People Meetup was originally published in Meetup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Q: What is WeWork?
A: WeWork is a community company that operates a global network of spaces to help people connect, collaborate, and do what they love.

Q: Why did Meetup and WeWork decide to join forces?
A: For years, organizers have told us how hard it is to find great spaces for their Meetups. WeWork has beautiful spaces and a commitment to use them to create community. Last year, we noticed way more Meetups scheduled at WeWork locations (to the tune of 100,000+ RSVPs in 2017). We got to talking, realized how we could unlock possibilities for each other, and one thing led to another…

Q: Will anything change for Meetup members or organizers as a result of the acquisition?
A: The most honest answer we can give is that there are no plans for immediate changes. And of course Meetup will keep evolving, just as it has for the past 15 years.

Q: What about Meetup Pro?
A: Same! Nothing is changing for Meetup Pro customers in the short term. As we work more closely with the WeWork team, you’ll have an easier time than ever expanding to new cities, hosting professional Meetups at beautiful WeWork spaces, and attracting more members and RSVPs to your network.

Q: I’m an organizer and I’d like to host my Meetup at a WeWork space. How can I arrange that?
A: We’re not set up to book reservations yet, but you can sign up here for updates.

Q: I’m an organizer. Do I have to host my Meetup at WeWork now?
A: No, you can keep hosting your Meetups wherever you like.

Q: The Meetup website looks different. Is that a result of the acquisition?A: No, the new Meetup pages introduce a clean, modern design to help people find the right Meetups for them. The redesign started long before our talks with WeWork.

Q: What were the terms of the deal?
A: We won’t be disclosing the details.

FAQs was originally published in Meetup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We have news.

It’s great news! To better realize our mission of bringing people together IRL, Meetup will become part of WeWork, one of the fastest growing companies in the world. WeWork provides space, community, and services to members around the globe to help them connect, collaborate, and do what they love.

We’re still Meetup — same mission, same leaders, same team. Meetup’s apps and website are here to stay. But together, we’ll spark even more real-world, face-to-face gatherings that allow people to explore, learn, create opportunity, and build relationships, making real community available to everyone.

Our work has only just begun. The world needs Meetup more than ever. And we’re ready to seize this new beginning.

Here’s the story.

WeWork has space for community, and Meetup needs space for community. Voila!

Meetup is 15,000+ Meetups each day (and growing) in 100+ countries — mostly weeknights and weekends;

WeWork is 10 million square feet of space in 17 countries (and growing) — mostly occupied on weekdays.

Over the past couple years, WeWork organically became the fastest growing choice for where Meetup organizers choose to host their Meetups.

In WeWork, we met our match. WeWork creates community, like us. If you think of WeWork as a desk rental company, you haven’t been to a WeWork space and felt the pulse of community there. And their vision for positive impact is big, like ours. See http://we.co. WeWork is also WeLive (co-living), Rise (fitness), WeGrow and Flatiron School (education). And now it’s Meetup, too.

So this fall, when we started talking, it became obvious we could unlock possibilities for each other. WeWork’s resources and fast-growing spirit could propel Meetup to innovate and expand much faster.

Bringing people together in ways that change their lives, and change the world, has been our motivation since the very beginning. This next step in our evolution means we’ll run harder and faster toward that vision than ever before.

What does this mean for Meetup members and organizers?

Over time, it means access to great space. We’ve learned that the right space is essential for bringing people together IRL. Many Meetup organizers already love WeWork. This year alone, 100,000 people have attended Meetups at beautiful WeWork spaces. Expect more of that in the future. If you’re an organizer in a city with a WeWork location and want to know more about hosting your Meetups at WeWork, sign up for updates.

Beyond that, you can count on us to do what we’ve always done — help bring people together IRL in pursuit of real community.

Our time is now.

When we started Meetup, we didn’t know how many members and organizers would take this journey with us (something that has humbled and inspired us everyday along the way). We certainly didn’t imagine joining forces with one of the fastest growing companies in the world. And we had no way of predicting how badly the world would need Meetup in 2017. It’s our time.

Read more about our news.

Meetup × WeWork was originally published in Meetup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I have been involved sparingly in Meetup for a few years now, but it wasn’t until September, 2016, that I started really getting involved in it.

It all began with my outdoor group in Melbourne, Australia, The Hiking Society; where we organise regular weekend hiking and camping trips.

After having being involved in another outdoor group, I decided I wanted to start my own as it would be a great way to contribute content to my hiking and camping blog of the same name.

Within a matter of days, the group was thriving and we had organised our first hike in the leafy outer-eastern town of Warburton.

As it stands, the group is now well over 3,000 members and plenty join by the day. We also have up to 30 other volunteer organisers who host trips as well.

My reason for creating this group was that I wanted it to be for any hiker or camper of any experience or fitness level.

From my experience, being a beginner hiker can be somewhat intimidating. There is so much information to digest that it can be sometimes a little overwhelming.

Furthermore, I believe there are many people in Victoria, and most likely in other parts of Australia, who want to get into the outdoors but have no idea where to go or they have no one to go with.

Therefore, I wanted my group to be the answer to the obstacles that those people were struggling with.

So far, I believe it to be working.

I have witnessed some incredible things occur between some members of our group.

For instance, there have been plenty of people who have turned up to a hike or a camping trip and didn’t know anyone.

They have begun chatting with others, have realised they have common interests outside of hiking, have caught up outside the Meetup group and are now good friends.

There have also been instances where both business and intimate relationships have been flourished.

The whole point of my outdoor blog The Hiking Society was to create a community both amongst the blog and via the social pages associated with it where everyone could contribute their thoughts and ideas around the outdoors.

This has filtered into the Meetup group where it is very much a community of like-minded people.

It’s great to hear others people’s thoughts and insights into everything related to the hiking and camping world.

I have never, and will never, profess to know everything about hiking and camping, and I always appreciate someone else’s perspective that makes me think a bit more.

I’m absolutely blown away at the fast pace at which this group has grown and am eternally grateful for the effort that the organisers put it and the level of interest that all the others put in.

However, hiking and camping trips are only scratching the surface of what we plan to include in our group activities.

Activities such as interstate and overseas trips, First Aid courses, shopping days, navigation and bushcraft activities, ‘glamping’ trips, pack carry hikes and more are just some of the activities we plan on hosting.

My Experience with Meetup was originally published in Meetup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.