Cloud Native Community Groups
Program description
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation supports the worldwide community of Cloud Native Community Groups (CNCGs) - community.cncf.io.
CNCF is currently working on expanding the Cloud Native community worldwide, and we are happy to accept any new local communities to join our network.
If you are interested in joining the list of official CNCF Community Groups, please review the information below.
As of 2021, Cloud Native Community Groups program is powered by the Bevy platform, and managed by the CNCF staff.
Benefits of joining the CNCF Community Groups Program
For all Cloud Native Community Groups, CNCF offers the following benefits:
- One-time complimentary swag coupon of $100 USD to the CNCF Store provided to each community group (not to each organizer), is available after hosting 2 successful in-person events per chapter within 3 months or 90 days. NOTE: Registration must happen within the Bevy platform for this coupon to be earned. Requesting your voucher - write to community-groups@cncf.io with a link to your past Bevy event pages. We will make an excepion for virtual events, if your event has over 100 attendees.
- Joining the CNCF organizer-exclusive Slack channel for collaboration
- Boosting the visibility of your community group and events. See below under the “Communication” section for more details.
- 25% discount to Linux Foundation training exams for CKAD and KCNA.
- Cost coverage for the hosted community platform, Bevy
- This includes support from CNCF (Audra Montenegro and Katie Greenley).
- And quarterly tips and tricks session hosted by Bevy expert Maia Walshe
- Office hours hosted once per week in differernt time zones. See what works best for you, and bring your questions about anything related to CNCF community groups.
- Credly badges for organizers! We would like to recognize your efforts for helping make Cloud Native ubiquitous. To qualify, each December we will see if you have been an organizer for the duration of the year, and your chapter has hosted at least 1 in-person meetup every 90 days (4 times a year) with no deactivations. Registrations must be via CNCF's community platform (community.cncf.io).
✒️ NOTE: With over 180 active global chapters, we cannot monetarily support your community group with sponsorships outside what is listed above, but we are always looking into adding more incentives.
Best Practices
Please check out our best_practices.
How to apply?
Applications are on hold for the month of April. We will have a new, transparent form ready by May 2024.
Once a GitHub issue will be filled, there will be a 30-day grace period. If you do not hear back after that amount of time has passed, please reach out to community-groups@cncf.io.
Bevy Training
Bevy is the platform that backs community.cncf.io. With over 190 ACTIVE chapters (as of 2024), Bevy allows for in-person and virtual meetups, co-hosting, emailing your attendees, transparent analytics for organizers, and a microsite (small website) that can feature sponsors, speakers, and more!
Support
- If you have any technical difficulties with the platform itself, please reach out to the [Bevy platform support by clicking the purple question mark in the bottom right corner of your Bevy chapter dashboard.
- Troubleshooting: The troubleshooting guide by Bevy is available here: help.bevylabs.com/article/499-troubleshooting
- Last resort, you can reach out to Audra Montenegro in the CNCF Slack workspace to help you, especially if it is time senstive.
Naming your chapter
Please use "Cloud Native CITY NAME" when naming your chapter. We ask that you avoid using "CNCF" in the naming convention, as it can misslead people into think CNCF has employees in that location. You may, however, use a tag line that states something similar to, "An official CNCF community group (or chapter)."
"CNCG" is an internal acronym we currenyly use at CNCF and among organizers, but it has not yet gained traction. So we encourage people to avoid using it in the names of their chapters, as of 2023.
Communication
We strive to keep all organizers as up to date as possible when it comes to program updates and changes. Here are a few ways you can stay in the loop:
- Subscribe to our global organizer newsletter by going to your community profile and then "updates". There you can opt-in by marking the "Global" checkbox under the "Receive general communications from" header.
- Please reach out to us on the #communitygroups channel on the CNCF slack. Please avoid using direct messages unless strictly necessary as doing so both has the potential of overwhelming project maintainers and others with similar questions lose the benefit of public discussion.
- It's best if you use a public communication channel whenever possible; however, if you need to communicate in private, please feel free to send the program admins a note via community-groups@cncf.io (please use the public channels for any program-related discussion).
Social Media Best Practices and Resources
We encourage each chapter to create their own social media accounts on the platforms that are most relevant in their local area, in addition to LinkedIn so CNCF can properly help amplify your announcements.
CNCF is present on Twitter (X) and LinkedIn with over 100,000 followers on each. If you are a CNCF chapter promoting your community on community.cncf.io, then CNCF will be happy to help you promote your meetups on social media. Simply join the #sociamedia channel in the CNCF Slack workspace, and tag Jessie Adams-Shore asking her to re-share your post. Each CNCG is limited to one post amplification per week. NOTE: In the spirit of vendor nuetrality, CNCF will not amplify sponsor posts.
IMPORTANT: Every LinkedIn page created should be created as a company page, and must add CNCF's core community program manager, Audra Montenegro as an admin.
Common things to promote in your meetups
- Speakers and their content! This is the most attractive thing to your audience
- The details! Tell people when, where, and the location of your meetup
- Food and beverage! What refreshmenets will you will be providing
- Promote your sponsors! They will appreciate the shout out. You do this by thanking them for sponsoring your event and showcasing their logo. They also appreciate you linking to their website or their open source resource or insights (more attractive to this audience)
- Giveaways! Not everyone will have this opportunity, over time you will generate sponsors for this, or earn a voucher from us.
Do you need samples of promotional graphics? Here we have some templates in Canva that will at least help you with sizing and placement of key content:
Community Group Inactivity
If your group has more than 90 days of inactivity in the number of events/meetups being heald, then you will be deemed an “Inactive” group via the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and removed from community.cncf.io. There are many ways to keep your chapter active outside of regular in-person, speaker-to-audience meetups. Examples are:
- Co-hosting a meetup with a neighboring chapter. Learn about the Co-Host feature in Bevy.
- Host a study group for one of the many Kubernetes certifications
- Use Bevy's virtual feature to host a virtual meetup or study group
Should a community group violate vendor neutrality, a CNCF core value, the following path towards deactivation will ocur.
- 1st offense = a written violation via email
- 2nd offense = a community meeting with organizers for final warning
- 3rd offense = disabling your chapter
Code of Conduct
Cloud Native Community Groups follow the CNCF Code of Conduct.