Online Support Groups

Lesson 4: Managing an Online Support Group

Do You Need An Assistant?

As this course comes to an end, the last thing you need to consider once you have your group up and running with a few members is deciding at what point you might need an assistant to help you manage the group. You may want to have an assistant very early in developing your group that can help you with creating rules and their consequences, creating possible associations, and bringing members into the group. You may decide to wait until your group has gotten too big, either member or activity level wise, for you to manage on your own before finding an assistant.

The question now is, how do you find or decide on an assistant? It may seem simple enough, just pick a group member and promote them, right? Wrong! You don't want to just pick anyone, you want and need to put a lot of thought into who you are willing to share the group's management with.

First things first, you must trust this person. This person will be not only representing your group, but will be representing you when you are unavailable. Making a bad choice can reek havoc and cause you to not only lose members, but your group and everything you have worked so hard for. So create a list of members that you trust first as this will make the next steps easier.

Second, and almost as important as trust, is finding someone that wants to help manage the group. It does not matter how much you trust them, if they are not willing to do the job. Take your list, and put everyone in order from your 'most wanted' to 'least wanted' group assistant. I do not mean that you should list everyone in your group, but only those members that you trust; in the order of how much you trust them.

Now that you have your list, you need to contact the members in some way. Do not post a message with your list on it to the group. This will only cause problems and hurt feelings among the members not listed. Instead, you can do one of two things. You can post an announcement that you are looking for an assistant and that everyone interested should contact you privately, or you can email each person on the list.

If you decide to email them, contact each person one at a time. If you email them all at the same time, and several want to be your assistant, you will end up hurting someone's feeling because they can't all get the position. Starting at the top, email the person and tell them that you are looking for an assistant and why. Let them know that you considered them perfect for the job and want to know if they are interested. You should also let them know that they should not feel obligated to accept the position if they don't want it, or can't do it.

If posting an announcement is more to your liking, which gives the impression that anyone could become your assistant, wait for the replies to be sent to you. Each member that replies should be put on a separate list and compared to your 'wish list'. Pay attention to how quickly your wish list responds to your announcement as this will let you know how often they check the group's messages. Compare your lists once everyone has had enough time to respond, about a week should be enough. Now, chose the most trusted, most active, and friendliest person to be your assistant.

Be sure to confirm that the person really wants the position before making the announcement to the group. By going through this process, you should be able to find a great assistant that will help you not only to manage the group on a day to day basis, but will also help you to grow your group and make it as successful as possible.

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