What are social impact communities?

Communities for changemakers, climate advocates, and sustainability-focused entrepreneurs. Covers nonprofit professionals, social entrepreneurs, and community organizers, with communities on Circle, Discord, and dedicated platforms for specific causes from climate action to global development.

Where do most social impact communities live?

Slack is the most common platform in this report (23% of 26 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

85% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical social impact community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 12K members and the median is 2K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.

What do these communities usually include?

Live Chat is the most common (65%). Others that show up often include online/offline events, forum, and newsletter.

How does Hive Index collect this data?

Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.

Where can I see the full list?

The full directory is on Hive Index's Social Impact topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Social Impact Communities Report: Stats, Platforms,...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 26 social impact communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: social impact communities are broad and fragmented, with many small groups and a few very large outliers.

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated periodically

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Communities: 26
Platforms: 11
Avg members: 12K
Median members: 2K

Where Social Impact Communities Are Hosted

Slack
6(23%)
Independent Platforms
6(23%)
Discord
4(15%)
Circle
3(12%)
LinkedIn
2(8%)
Nas.io
1(4%)
Reddit
1(4%)
Quora
1(4%)

Format mix

Chat communities
10(38%)
Forum / feed-based
9(35%)
Private membership
4(15%)
Other platforms
3(12%)

Chat communities is most common (38%), but forum / feed-based is also well represented (35%).

Slack leads, but Independent Platforms and Discord also represent meaningful shares.

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
0(0%)
Small
20-100 members
1(4%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
5(19%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
11(42%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
2(8%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
1(4%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
0(0%)

6 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (12K vs 2K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Social Impact Differs From Other Categories

Social Impact is smaller, more platform-diverse, and more chat-heavy, compared with typical Hive Index topics.

Metric	Social Impact	Hive Index average
Free to join	85%	84%
Median members	2K	25K
Average members	12K	672K
Paid or apply-to-join	15%	16%
Live chat	65%	41%
Discord share	15%	18%

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Live Chat
65%
Online/Offline Events
65%
Forum
50%
Newsletter
27%
Job Board
23%
Courses
15%
Pairing
15%

Niche Features

Paid Community
12%
Member Perks
8%
Requires Application
8%
Tools
8%

Live Chat appears on 65% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 61

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Slack	6	23%	10	16%
Independent Platforms	6	23%	5	8%
Discord	4	15%	19	31%
Circle	3	12%	11	18%
LinkedIn	2	8%	3	5%
Nas.io	1	4%	2	3%
WhatsApp	1	4%	11	18%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Discord gets 31% of clicks but only 15% of listings, so visitors click it more than you'd expect from supply alone.

Most-clicked formats

Chat communities
40(66%)
Private membership
11(18%)
Other platforms
5(8%)
Forum / feed-based
5(8%)

Most-clicked features

Live Chat
56(92%)
Online/Offline Events
55(90%)
Pairing
19(31%)
Newsletter
18(30%)
Forum
12(20%)
Job Board
12(20%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Large
29(48%)
Medium
18(30%)
Huge
7(11%)
Small
1(2%)

Top-clicked listings

RIVET Hub
11(18%)
Impact Connect
11(18%)
VINTAGE ™
6(10%)

Most clicks go to chat communities and private membership communities.

Trends

Founded year

Not enough founding-year data to chart yet.

Community Quality & Ratings

Only 1 community has ratings so far, so read this as a small sample.

5.0 average rating across 1 community.

Rated examples

The Nonprofit Hive
Independent Platforms · 5.0 stars · 2K members

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Social Impact. We exclude removed or suppressed listings. Member counts, traffic, features, reviews, and ratings may vary by source and are updated periodically.

•This is a smaller slice of Hive Index's database, so read trends as directional.

FAQ

: Communities for changemakers, climate advocates, and sustainability-focused entrepreneurs. Covers nonprofit professionals, social entrepreneurs, and community organizers, with communities on Circle, Discord, and dedicated platforms for specific causes from climate action to global development.
: Slack is the most common platform in this report (23% of 26 listings).
: 85% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 12K members and the median is 2K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Live Chat is the most common (65%). Others that show up often include online/offline events, forum, and newsletter.
: Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.
: The full directory is on Hive Index's Social Impact topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Keep exploring

Browse

All Social Impact communities

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