On June 20, 2026, our ceo and founder Julie Hemels-Hoff has written this article for Frankwatching. This is the English translation. You can find the article in Dutch on the Frankwatching website.
The effects are tangible. Loneliness is growing, polarization is increasing, and the sense of belonging is becoming harder to find. According to Mathieu Steijn, an urban economics researcher at VU Amsterdam, the disappearance of third places directly reduces equality of opportunity. The question is: can organizations fill that void?
In the nineties, the Netherlands had thousands of neighborhood centers, club houses, and reading rooms, places where people ran into each other, not because they were buying something, but because they belonged there. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg called this concept the third place: the space between home and work where community forms organically. Those places are disappearing fast. Research by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research shows that active membership in neighborhood associations and local clubs fell by more than a quarter between 2000 and 2020. Rising rents, commercialization, and individualism are the main culprits.
Can brands replace third places?
Honestly? Not automatically. You could even argue that a brand can never truly be a third place, because there’s always a commercial interest at play. A neighborhood center is neutral ground; a community hosted by an organization, by definition, is not. Organizations that don’t recognize this often end up building something that looks like a community on the surface but functions as a marketing channel in practice.
That said, there is room for a legitimate role, if organizations approach it with humility. They can create the right conditions: a place to meet, structure, connection. Not as a replacement for third places, but as a partial alternative for people who are missing them. It all comes down to intent: are you building for the people, or are you building for the organization?
This is a fine line, and many community initiatives stumble over it. Members feel like spectators rather than participants. They disengage as soon as things get too promotional, or once it becomes clear that participation depends on a purchase. Here are five ways to make the difference:
Tip 1. Start with common ground
Every lasting community is built around a shared value. Not: “we’re all customers of the same brand.” But rather: “we’re all wrestling with the same challenge” or “we share the same values.”
Define that common ground before you organize an event or create a group. The more specific, the stronger. A community for “sustainable entrepreneurs” can be too broad without a clear focus. A community for entrepreneurs who believe that profitability and social impact can reinforce each other.
What happens without that common ground plays out in countless failed community initiatives: a lively launch event, followed by a silent Slack or LinkedIn group. People don’t know why they’re there, so they wait.
Tip 2. Make space for in-person connection
An online-only community has real limitations. The actual value of a community lives in the encounter: the conversation that happens off-script, the connection that forms when someone sees themselves in someone else.
Patagonia does this well. Their community isn’t built around the brand, but a shared conviction: that nature deserves protection. That shows up as collective action, cleanup events, and gatherings that attract people who have never bought a Patagonia jacket. The physical activity brings people together; the brand is the facilitator, not the focal point.
That doesn’t mean online channels don’t have a role, especially since not everyone, whether due to accessibility or other reasons, can attend in-person events. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. Use online communication to maintain connection between in-person moments.
Tip 3. Be non-transactional
This is where many organizations go wrong. The moment membership in a community is (even implicitly) tied to a purchase, you risk coming across as inauthentic. People can tell when they’re being treated as leads rather than as people.
A genuine community is open to anyone who shares the common ground, whether they’re a customer, a future customer, or someone who will never buy a thing from you. The value you create as an organization by bringing people together comes back to you in other ways: through trust, visibility, and word-of-mouth you can’t pay for.
Tip 4. Watch the power dynamics
The more you as an organization control the program entirely, the less the community actually belongs to its members. That’s worth paying attention to, because ownership is exactly what keeps people coming back.
Talk to participants about what they need, and give those conversations structure. Consider a community council: a small group of members who help shape themes, formats, and new initiatives. Or work with ambassadors who organize their own subgroups or events. At On Running, runners in cities around the world organize their own group runs under the brand’s name, without the brand dictating every step. The result: a community that thrives because members invest in it themselves.
Allow the community to go in directions you didn’t fully plan for. That feels uncomfortable for organizations used to being in control, but it’s exactly what separates a programming series from a living, breathing community.
Tip 5. Build so the community can exist without you
This is the ultimate test. If your organization disappeared tomorrow, would people still stay in touch? Would they organize something on their own? Or would it go quiet?
If the answer is quiet, you’ve built an audience, not a community. Actively invest in connections between members, not just between participants and your organization, but between participants and each other. Encourage knowledge sharing, introduce people to one another, and celebrate when things happen beyond your involvement. That’s the best compliment you can receive. It means the community is genuinely valuable to the people in it.
Communities are invaluable
The third place isn’t disappearing because people have less need for community, quite the opposite. It’s disappearing because the space for it keeps shrinking, squeezed out by short-term budget cuts. Organizations that genuinely make that space available, in an honest and sincere way, build something worth far more than brand awareness: they build trust. And that lasts.