Introducing Loomio to your group

Introduce Loomio through one useful piece of work. Prepare the group before inviting people, help everyone participate once, and complete the process through to an outcome.

Choose one useful starting point

Start with a real process that your group already needs. A good first use is small enough to complete soon, but relevant enough that people have a reason to participate.

For example:

• prepare the agenda for an upcoming meeting;
• review and approve meeting minutes;
• gather feedback on a draft document;
• decide a small operational question; or
• identify priorities for the next month.

Avoid moving every discussion and decision into Loomio at once. A repeatable process gives the group a clear reason to return and lets you improve the way you run it each time.

Prepare the group before inviting people

Give people a useful and recognizable place to arrive in:

• add the group's name, logo, cover image, purpose, and important links;
• check the group's privacy and permissions;
• add any category tags the group will use regularly;
• create the first real discussion, with the background information people need; and
• create a practice discussion if members would benefit from trying comments, reactions, and voting without consequences.

Use your own photo in your profile and the organization's logo for the group. This helps people recognize who invited them and which organization an email is about.

Decide where work belongs

Loomio can sit alongside tools your group already uses:

Link to documents and other systems from the group description or discussion context. Use chat integrations to bring important Loomio activity into a channel people already follow.

Tell members what you expect to happen in Loomio. A simple boundary such as “important discussions and decisions go in Loomio; quick coordination stays in chat” is easier to adopt than an unexplained new tool.

Decide how your group decides

Loomio does not require every group, or every decision, to use the same process. Some groups arrive with established rules. Others use Loomio while they develop a clearer decision-making practice together.

If your process is already established

Translate the group's existing requirements into Loomio. Before running a formal decision, make sure participants can tell:

• which kinds of decisions can be made in Loomio;
• who provides input and who has authority to decide;
• who is eligible to vote;
• whether a quorum is required;
• whether the decision requires a majority, supermajority, unanimous agreement, consent, or another vote share requirement;
• whether the decision takes effect when its outcome is published or must be ratified elsewhere; and
• who will record and carry out the outcome.

If your constitution, bylaws, policy, or local law governs electronic decisions, make sure the Loomio process follows those requirements. Configure delegated voters, proposal settings, and poll templates to make the agreed process easy to repeat.

If your group is still deciding

Start a discussion about how decisions should be made. Instead of beginning with a voting tool, ask the group to consider:

• What kinds of decisions do we make?
• Who is affected, who should be consulted, and who is responsible for deciding?
• Which decisions need advice, consent, consensus, a vote, or delegated authority?
• What level of participation or support makes a decision valid?
• How will we respond to objections, tied results, or insufficient participation?
• How will we communicate, record, review, and change a decision?

The answers may be different for an operational decision, a policy, an election, and a constitutional change. See Making decisions to compare several complete processes.

If the group is not ready to settle every rule, agree on a provisional process for one low-risk decision. State what the result will mean before asking people to participate, publish an outcome, then review how the process worked. Record what the group learns in its description, governance documents, or reusable templates.

Invite people

Invite people with a short personal message that explains:

• why the group is using Loomio;
• what you are asking them to do first;
• when you need their response; and
• where they can get help.

You can begin with a small group of people who will actively test the process, or invite the whole group when everyone needs to participate from the start. In either case, have a discussion ready for them rather than inviting people into an empty group.

Help everyone participate once

The first objective is for each person to cross the threshold from receiving an invitation to contributing something.

Ask people to:

1. sign in and add a profile photo;
2. open the welcome or practice discussion;
3. post a short comment or reaction; and
4. vote in a low-stakes proposal and, if useful, leave a reason.

Members do not need to create a password. They can sign in by email, and they can reply to eligible discussion emails without first navigating back to the thread.

Use notifications deliberately

Access to content and notification about it are separate. Group members can find discussions in their group even when they were not notified immediately.

When starting a discussion, notify the people whose input is needed at that stage. Use @mentions and replies when asking particular people to respond. When voting opens later, invite the eligible voters.

If you create a discussion and poll together only to capture a vote, avoid sending a discussion invitation immediately followed by a poll invitation. Either start the discussion without notifying people and invite them through the poll, or run a standalone poll.

Show members the Catch-up summary and notification settings, especially if they do not expect to visit Loomio every day.

Complete the first process

A first process should demonstrate the complete pattern:

1. Introduce the topic and provide context.
2. Invite discussion or questions when they are needed.
3. Start the appropriate proposal or poll.
4. Remind people who have not participated when necessary.
5. Publish an outcome stating what was decided and what happens next.

The outcome closes the loop and creates a record that members can return to later. Afterward, ask what worked, adjust the process, and choose the next recurring piece of work to run in Loomio.

For a facilitated sequence from discussion to decision, see Making decisions. For board-specific practices, see Introducing Loomio to your board.