Creating belonging in retirement communities: A Guide

We all know what a sense of belonging feels like.

We can all name a time in our lives when we felt a really strong sense of connection to a group of people in a community. Maybe it was your peer group at school, or a mum’s group you belonged to when your kids were little? Maybe you were lucky enough to love coming to work every day because your work mates were so good to hang out with? For others, it might be a sporting team where they felt so united, so dependent on each other because of what they achieved that year as a team. You will be able to sift through your memories to find that moment, that thought where you can feel that sense of belonging.

In a retirement community our residents have that same opportunity to develop an incredible sense of belonging. Why is this important? Well, a community where its members feel a sense of belonging are much more welcoming, have a stronger sense of ownership, loyalty, feel more committed, they feel safer and a level of pride. All of these characteristics are like gold when it comes to selling more apartments. The most likely next sale will come from a friend of someone who already lives in the building. If existing residents feel a strong sense of belonging, they will tell all their friends about how great it is to live here. They will be your best advocates when apartments come up for sale.

“Everyone is so welcoming. So many people said hello to me when I first arrived. One lady even brought over dinner to share whilst we were moving in. I do the same now for new residents. I love it here.”

If you want to create a sense of belonging, you need to work at it.

Creating a sense of belonging in a retirement community takes some work. It doesn’t just happen. To create a sense of belonging, community members need to understand what ‘membership’ to the community means:

“They need to have a defined sense of boundaries and clarity around community norms. In a community with a high sense of belonging, residents know what it means to belong to the community, how to interact with others and that they can feel psychologically safe within the community norms.”

This concept is easy to take for granted. Do you have a set of community principles or code of conduct or values statement? It is worth checking in with your residents on their understanding of shared community values.  Here are some strategies on building a sense of belonging. 

1. Onboard new residents into community values. Take the time to involve new members in understanding community norms and expectations by reading through the community principles.

2. Create community values. If you don’t have a community values framework then take the time to write one and involve you residents in its creation.

3. Encourage residents to hold each other accountable to the community code. Ensure the community values are visible around the community.

4. Reference the community values in meetings. Take time to break residents into small groups to check in with each other on how they think the values are being lived out and what could be improved. Get their ideas on how they can reinforce it.

5. In community meetings, encourage residents to take a moment to think about how they are feeling in terms of their sense of belonging to the community. What was a moment in the last week that they felt they belonged? What did that feel like? What made them feel that way. What could they do to help others feel that sense of belonging?

6. Conduct a pulse survey or live poll with the tools in your community app to rate residents’ sense of belonging? Ask some follow up questions about what caused them to choose that number and what would need to change to increase the number?

7. Write a news post about what it means to belong, and ways residents can create a sense of neighborhood on their floor, block, or street. Invite comments from residents on what they could do to help.

8. Write a news post once a week that encourage residents to share interesting facts about themselves to help residents get to know each other. Make sure you allow comments with this post. You could use questions like, What is a favourite memory from school holidays when they were a child? What’s your favourite thing to eat at Christmas time? What do you love about the month of …? What was your first job?

9. Interview a new resident each week using some standard questions to help people get to know each other. The answers give existing residents a conversation starter with the new residents.

I’m sure there are many more ideas you have that could be shared on how to create a sense of belonging. We would love to share your ideas with everyone. If you would like some help in building a stronger sense of community, we can supply you with a workshop outline that you can use with your staff and residents, or we can run it with you.

Please get in touch to find out more: team@plusscommunities.com