Invitation to Join the Welcome Wagon!

Dear Listeners,

We are blown away by this diverse and high caliber group, committed to supporting women’s voices worldwide and help select the next class of global citizen journalists and women leaders. I was fortunate to be a Listener in the first Voices of Our Future program. It was a rewarding experience and the beginning of a powerful journey I have taken alongside a class of women who challenged my perception of what’s possible through a global, online community.

As the Online Community Manager at World Pulse, my role is to ensure that PulseWire remains a safe, supportive and collaborative community where women feel encouraged to speak for themselves, empowered to seek and secure the resources they need, and inspired to exchange experiences and innovative solutions with their global sisters.

One factor that makes our community unique and successful, is that each new member is welcomed and encouraged to contribute by at least one, and hopefully 2 or 3 other members in the community. What started as a small team of welcoming volunteers, is now evolving into an organic movement of women welcoming women and supporting each other to co-lead a community of changemakers.

With the recent announcement of Voices of Our Future 2010, we’ve seen a dramatic spike in new member registration over the past few days. Women are pouring into the community from Papua New Guinea to Togo, all with the common goal to speak for themselves, connect with women leaders worldwide, and apply to be in the next class of World Pulse Correspondents.

While the Listening Role doesn’t officially begin until mid-September, I’d like to offer you the opportunity to dive into the community now and get a sense of who is here, who is joining and who may be the next Voice of Our Future. I invite you to help welcome the applicants to PulseWire, so that they feel inspired to share their voice and experience the genuine warmth of our community. While only 30 people will be chosen to move on to the training, PulseWire will always serve as their sanctuary to connect worldwide, their platform to self-publish stories, and an informal classroom to learn from each other in the empowerment process.

Welcoming new members to PulseWire

The easiest way to find new members on PulseWire is to look through the Member Directory. Members are listed in chronological order, so the newest members are listed first.

There are several ways to welcome a new member:
- Comment on their introductory journal
- Send a friend request
- Send a private message

Commenting on introductory journals

Every time a new member joins our community and completes the "About me" portion of their profile, this information becomes their first journal. This gives us a chance to welcome them by writing a comment on their introductory journal.

I encourage you to create your own style for welcoming new members. It's great to personalize the message a bit for each new member, based on where they are from or what information they include in their profile. It's also important to guide new members through the site and point out groups or other areas of the community where they could contribute.

Sample welcome comments for members with profiles:

Sample 1

Hey there! Welcome to PulseWire!

It’s so exciting having you with us, I am sure you will have a fun time with your new online friends and you will find this to be a positive experience. I encourage you to take advantage of the numerous resources and features available through our vibrant online community.

Welcome again to our global community and I look forward to hearing more from you here on PulseWire!

Peace!
Fatima

Sample 2

Hi Noriah, I really love your passion, imagine if this is the passion of every human being, not forced passion but imbibed! You are welcome to pulsewire, this is our online community where we are free to flow as we love bearing in mind that other users have rights too....LOL

Thanks so much for joining us, you are always free to post to your journal and add comments to others posts too, this is where we can freely contribute for the betterment of women and children all over that world. Please feel free to browse through our group section and post to the groups you decided to join.....On worldpulse everything is free...just be yourself.

Welcome once again Noriah as I wait patiently to learn from you as you are leaning too.

Olutosin Oladosu Adebowale

Sample 3

Hello Mkanika,

Your project sounds exciting! Can you tell us more about it? There are a lot of microloan organizations out there, and it might be worth connecting with them. Another idea would be to contact Global Giving. You can nominate your project to receive loans and donations here: http://www.globalgiving.org/non-profits/join-globalgiving/interest.html. Good luck for your next steps!

Andrea

And don't stop there - feel free to explore the rest of the community and dive into the conversations! This opportunity to welcome before the Listener role begins, is of course purely optional, but also a fun way to meet grassroots women leaders worldwide and to get a sense of the community before Listening begins. I have also attached the PulseWire Getting Started Guide to learn more about how to utilize the site.

In gratitude,

Jade Frank
Online Community Manager, World Pulse