THE POWER OF SELF-ORGANIZED GROUPS

Last year we figured out what Meetup is all about.

That may seem strange for a company that was almost five years old at the time.
Actually, we knew that Meeting Up was about many things. Having seen what Meetup Groups were doing over those years, having talked to thousands of members and organizers, we knew that meeting up in groups was changing lives in big and small ways. That it was bringing community back to a society that had lost touch with itself. That meeting up enabled people to exchange knowledge, support each other, make new friends and pursue their passions with people who loved doing the same things.

We realized that what all these things amounted to is that real face-to-face groups are powerful. When people organize themselves into groups, they do things that are very hard, even impossible to do on their own.

Look at this Writer's Meetup Group in Colorado that the Greeley Tribune featured. Mark Shelton, a writer said:
"I was looking for an opportunity to meet with other people that might be going through the same things that I am-- writers block or just need other ideas ... that type of thing," said Shelton, a resident of Fort Collins. "And she (her editor) said, 'Why don't you go on Meetup?'".

The article continues: 'Yet, according to Ben Ward, who started the group, the purpose for meeting is not simply to critique writing. Instead, Ward sees the group as a way for people to get out and meet people in a novel way -- face to face. "You always see people on MySpace with a thousand friends or something, but you never know how many of them they've ever met," Ward said. "And a lot of people are using that to replace traditional friendships too, since they just kind of communicate their own lines.
"So this was a good way to bring people together."
And Meetup Groups like this are not just about improving their members' lives in ways big and small. Thousands of groups have been established to change the world.

So, this is what we believe at Meetup HQ:

"We believe in the power of self-organized groups to improve lives and change the world".

Everything we do is designed to make Meetup Groups more powerful so that they are there to help people teach, share, learn, cope, support, motivate and have fun.

They're there to enable people to belong, feel purpose, have meaning and be confident enough to be themselves. And they're there to help people to unite, activate, mobilize, advocate, agitate, lobby, endorse, create democracy and change things.