mnartists.orgÍs 10 Tips for Building Online Communities

mnartists.org is an online resource of and for Minnesota artists from all disciplines - visual arts, performing arts, media arts, literary arts, and design and architecture - giving them a central gathering place on the Web, and ultimately, a community hub. Developed through a partnership of The McKnight Foundation (http://www.mcknight.org) and the Walker Art Center (http://www.walkerart.org) , over 3,100 artists have registered with mnartists.org since the site launched in July 2001. In December 2002, mnartists.org launched a new version of the Web site that provides a range of services, including expanded news and feature articles, online forums, and streamed broadcasts of members' work - a Minnesota arts channel - with corresponding "off-line" events. This paper discusses the development of mnartists.org in the form of 10 Tips for building online community.