The Value of Belonging

Belonging is a fundamental human need. It sits right next to shelter and food on Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Human Needs. And whenever humans have a need, there is a business
opportunity. Property Managers are in an ideal spot to fill this need.
So what is belonging anyway? If we provide belonging, what exactly do we need to provide
so that people feel they belong.
Belonging is an emotional feeling that is triggered by experience. If we want to provide
belonging, we need to provide the right kind of experiences. Here are the 5 main elements
that researchers say people need to experience so they feel like they belong.
#1. Trust: When people are in a community of other people, they need to feel safe. They
need to ‘feel’ they can trust the other community members.
#2. Accepting. Not only do they need to trust others that they won’t cause them harm, they
need to experience acceptance and friendliness. This is often described by other
community members being approachable.
#3. Caring. Believing that other people care about you strengthens the feelings of
belonging. This opens the door for openness and authenticity.
#4 Supportive. Knowing that your fellow community members are there to help should you
need it puts icing on the cake.
#5. Commonality. What do we share in common that can bring us together into a belonging
community.
When people experience a sense of commonality, trust, acceptance, caring and support,
they ‘feel’ they belong. And property mangers are in the ideal position to offer this to their
tenants.
My experience in talking with property managers and developers, about 50% understand
the business value of providing a sense of belonging in their buildings. But wanting to
provide it and providing it are two different things.
Property managers provide commonality in that we all live in the same place. But how to
create trust, acceptance, caring and support amongst tenants. Although hosting events
helps in this process, it is often insufficient to develop a true sense of belonging in
community.
That is why we created the Good Neighbour Method. It is founded in science (Codeveloped with Bruce Dienes PhD. Community Psychology) and draws on all the critical
processes to shift people from a feeling of living in a nice place to feeling like they live in a
community where they belong. Not only does it develop trust, acceptance, caring and
support, it provides ways to psychologically motivate people to come together, it has
process to short circuit their fight or flight response and replace it with social engagement,
and it walks people through a process of shifting the culture from isolation to belonging.
At Happy Community Project, our goal is to make it normal for people to belong. So we
created the Good Neighbour Method so it is easy to implement at minimal cost and effort
to property owners.
Barry can be contacted at barry@happycommunityproject.com