Create a group people can participate in, not another programme you have to carry.
The Community Building Lab is a six-week live practice field for coaches, facilitators, founders and group hosts who want to turn teaching, content and good intentions into an experience people can enter, shape and contribute to.
Bring the group you are building, or preparing to build, and work on the real invitations, rhythms, conversations and facilitation choices that will help it feel more alive, honest and sustainable.
Founding round
17 September to 22 October 2026
Thursdays at 17:00 Lisbon and BST | 12:00 ET
Six live 90-minute sessions | Maximum 12 people
Fit Call bookings close Monday 14 September 2026.
The Real Problem
You did not create a group so you could become its entire engine.
Perhaps you are already leading a programme, membership, circle, retreat or community.
Or perhaps you are shaping one now and want to build it differently from the beginning.
You want people to connect, contribute and learn with one another. Yet the experience can quietly start depending on you for everything.
- You teach into silence and wonder whether anything is landing.
- You initiate every conversation and keep finding new things to post.
- Members respond to you, but rarely connect with one another.
- You answer every question before the group has space to think together.
- You carry the energy of the room and feel responsible when participation drops.
- You keep adding content when what may be missing is a clearer way to enter and contribute.
A quiet group is not always a broken group.
Sometimes the invitation is too broad. The rhythm is hard to recognise. The first contribution feels too exposed. Or people have learned that the host will fill every silence.
The answer is not to force engagement.
It is to create clearer, safer and more meaningful ways for people to participate.
Who is the Lab for?
This is for you if you want to lead an experience, not simply deliver information.
The Community Building Lab is designed for coaches, facilitators, founders and group hosts who are already leading, relaunching or preparing:
- A group programme or cohort
- A membership or online community
- A mastermind, circle or peer-led space
- A retreat or recurring live experience
- A purpose-led community around a shared question, practice or mission
You do not need a large audience or a perfectly formed community.
You do need something real to work with. That may be an existing group, a developing offer, an invitation you are testing, or a community experience you are ready to shape.
The Lab will suit you if...
You want participation to feel more shared and less dependent on you.
You are willing to look honestly at what is happening in your room.
You want feedback on real language, structures and facilitation choices.
You learn through reflection, conversation and experimentation.
You can attend and participate in the live weekly sessions.
This may not be for you if…
You want a passive course to watch when convenient.
You are looking for a fixed formula that guarantees engagement.
You want more content without testing anything in a real group.
You cannot commit to participating live during the six weeks.
You do not want to reflect on your role as the host, facilitator, or space-holder.
This Lab is slower, more relational, and more practical than that.
It is for people who want to understand the living rhythm of their community and make thoughtful changes that feel aligned.
Community cannot be learned through information alone.
You learn to hold a room by being in one.
What the Community Building Lab is
A live practice field for the community you are actually building.
The Community Building Lab is not a vault of lessons to collect and forget.
It is a small, participatory room where your real community questions become the material.
Each week, you will bring something tangible into the Lab. An invitation. A session structure. A participation challenge. A moment of silence. A platform decision. A pattern you keep noticing.
Together, we will reflect, practise, test language, notice group dynamics and explore what may need to shift.
You will leave each session with one small experiment to try in your own group.
Then you return with evidence.
What happened?
What changed?
What surprised you?
What did the group show you that planning alone could not?
The Lab is designed around small, practical experiments, not overwhelming homework.
How will we work
Less performing. More practising.
The sessions will combine:
- Guided reflection to help you see what you may be carrying or assuming
- Short teaching to give language and context to the pattern we are exploring
- Live practice with invitations, questions and facilitation choices
- Role play and feedback so you can hear how something lands
- Breakout conversations that let you experience participation from inside the room
- Pattern spotting across different groups and leadership styles
- One focused experiment to test before the next session
You will not be expected to copy somebody else’s community model.
You will learn to notice what helps your people recognise themselves in the invitation, understand how to enter, feel safe enough to contribute and begin creating value with one another.
Sofia helped me shape the vision and implementation of my Global Networking Company, and she far exceeded my expectations. She brought value behind the scenes, interacted with my members, and supported the community as it came to life. I recommend Sofia without hesitation.
~ Dana Flanagan – Executive Authority & PR Strategist
THE SIX-WEEK JOURNEY
Week 1: Awareness
See the room you are actually holding.
We begin with what is happening now, not what you think should be happening.
- Notice where participation already exists
- Identify where the experience depends too heavily on you
- Separate evidence from the story you are telling yourself about silence
- Choose one pattern to observe before trying to fix it
Week 2: Release and Refine
Question what you are carrying and clarify what matters.
We explore the roles, assumptions and habits that can make community leadership heavier than it needs to be.
- Notice where you rescue, over-explain or fill the space
- Release activities or expectations that do not serve the experience
- Refine the purpose of the room and the change people are entering
- Create a more manageable focus for participation
Week 3: Platform, Journey and Invitation
Create a doorway people can recognise.
A platform can host a community. It cannot create participation on its own.
- Map how people arrive, orient themselves and take a first step
- Clarify what each space or touchpoint is for
- Practise invitations that make contribution specific and possible
- Reduce friction without adding more content
Week 4: Engagement and Conversation
Move from host-led response to shared participation.
We look at how conversations begin, deepen and become less dependent on the host.
- Use questions people can genuinely enter
- Create recognisable rhythms for contribution
- Support member-to-member connection
- Experiment with when to step in, when to wait and when to redirect
Week 5: Facilitation and Holding
Hold the conditions without carrying every person.
You will practise facilitation choices that support honesty, safety and collective intelligence.
- Read the energy and needs of the room
- Respond to silence without immediately rescuing it
- Make space for different voices and ways of participating
- Hold boundaries while keeping the room human
Week 6: Integration and the Next 30-Day Experiment
Turn what you have learned into a sustainable rhythm.
We gather the evidence from your experiments and decide what deserves to continue.
- Identify what created movement and what added unnecessary weight
- Choose what to keep, change, stop or test again
- Shape a focused 30-day community experiment
- Leave with a rhythm you can continue without relying on constant output
Sofia is a wonderful combination of heart and head. She took the abstract ideas I had for my group coaching program, along with the incredible amount of confusion and overwhelm that I felt, and made a wonderful masterpiece out of it.
~ Meera Remani, Leadership & Executive Coach
What is included
Everything inside the Lab exists to help you participate and practise.
- Six weekly 90-minute live Community Building Lab sessions
- A small founding group capped at 12 people
- Live reflection, facilitation practice, role play and peer feedback
- Small-group breakout conversations
- The 30 Day Community Activation Journal to capture patterns, experiments and learning
- A simple member area with session details, prompts and the resources used in the room
- Main-room recordings and concise session notes
- One practical community experiment each week
- A final 30-day experiment shaped from what your community has actually shown you
Breakout conversations will not be recorded. This protects the honesty and relational quality of those spaces.
Recordings support review, but they do not replace live participation.
WHAT YOU MAY LEAVE WITH
Not a perfect community. A clearer way to build one.
By the end of the six weeks, you may have:
A clearer purpose and experience for the group you are building
An invitation people can recognise themselves in
A more intentional journey from arrival to contribution
Simple rhythms that make participation easier to understand
More pathways for member-to-member connection
Greater confidence in how you respond to silence, uncertainty and different voices
Evidence from real experiments, rather than more theories to overthink
A more sustainable understanding of what is yours to hold and what the group can begin to share
A focused 30-day plan for your next stage of community building
The aim is not to make people participate.
The aim is to create conditions where contribution becomes clearer, safer and more meaningful.
Fit Call bookings close Monday 14 September 2026.
Building my group coaching program was a life-changing experience. Sofia is a wizard who can take your intangible ideas and turn them into beautiful offerings.
~ Koki, Life Coach
Why is this a founding round?
You will help shape the Lab by participating in it.
This is the founding round of the Community Building Lab.
The structure is clear, but the room will not be delivered as a rigid curriculum.
Your real questions, experiments and observations will help reveal which practices create the most movement, where more support is needed and what deserves to become part of future rounds.
You are not joining as a passive test audience.
You are joining as a thoughtful participant whose lived experience matters.
That means bringing your real work, speaking honestly about what is happening and being willing to experiment between sessions.
Practical Details...
Founding round dates
- Thursday 17 September 2026
- Thursday 24 September 2026
- Thursday 1 October 2026
- Thursday 8 October 2026
- Thursday 15 October 2026
- Thursday 22 October 2026
Time
17:00 to 18:30 Lisbon and BST
12:00 to 13:30 ET
Where
Live on Zoom, with a private MemberPress area for prompts, recordings and supporting resources.
Group size
Maximum 12 participants.
Live participation
The Lab is designed for people who genuinely want to attend and contribute during the six weeks.
Main-room sections will be recorded. Breakout rooms will not be recorded.
Applications
Fit Call bookings close Monday 14 September 2026.
The application includes four short questions. If the Lab appears to be a possible fit, we will have a 15-minute conversation before your place is confirmed.
Founding round investment
Fit Call bookings close Monday 14 September 2026.Investment: £497 paid in full, or 2 payments of £275.
- Your place is confirmed after your application, fit conversation and payment.
- This is not a pay-and-download programme.
- The value comes from entering the room, bringing your real work and participating in the practice.
About Sofia
I help people create rooms where others feel safe enough to show up, speak up and participate.
I am Sofia Reis, a relational leadership guide, community building mentor and Human Design coach.
My work sits at the meeting point of group dynamics, embodied leadership, participation and self-trust.
I believe community becomes alive when people stop being treated as an audience and begin recognising that their presence, perspective and contribution matter.
My role in the Lab is not to become the expert at the centre of every answer.
I will help you notice patterns, ask sharper questions, test what you are building and hear what the room is showing you.
I will hold the structure.
You will bring the living material.
Together, we will learn through participation.
“I see the patterns most hosts are too close to notice — and I know how much can shift when those patterns are named with care.”
EXPERIENTIAL OPEN ROOM
Would you like to experience the room before applying?
I am hosting free Experiential Open Rooms for people who lead groups and want to explore the shift from delivering content to facilitating participation.
These are not webinars.
You will bring a real community question, reflect with others and leave with one small experiment to try.
Open Room 2
Thursday 3 September 2026
17:00 Lisbon and BST | 12:00 ET
When the host is the whole engine: creating shared participation in your group
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need an existing community?
No. You can bring an existing group or a community experience you are actively preparing. You need something real enough to explore and test, rather than only a distant idea.
What kind of group can I bring?
You may be working with a programme, membership, mastermind, circle, retreat, online community or another recurring group experience. The structure can vary. What matters is that you want people to participate, connect and contribute rather than simply consume information.
What if my community is very small or quiet?
That is welcome material for the Lab. We will not judge the health of your community by noise alone. We will explore what the quiet may be showing you and test clearer ways for people to enter and contribute.
Will sessions be recorded?
The main-room sections will be recorded and added to the member area. Breakout conversations will not be recorded. The recordings support reflection, but they are not a substitute for the live experience.
What if I cannot attend every session?
This Lab depends on live participation. If you already know you will miss several sessions, this round is unlikely to be the right fit. If one unavoidable absence arises, the main-room recording will help you reconnect with the work.
The Lab is designed around small, practical experiments, not overwhelming homework. Each week, you’ll leave with one simple shift to try inside your community.
How much work is required between sessions?
You will choose one small experiment each week and use the Activation Journal to notice what happens. The Lab is designed around practical experimentation, not overwhelming homework.
Is this a Human Design programme?
No. My understanding of Human Design informs how I see leadership and different ways of participating, but the Lab is not a Human Design course. The focus is your community experience, invitations, rhythms, facilitation and shared participation.
Is this suitable if I want a step-by-step community formula?
No fixed formula can account for every group, purpose or person. You will receive structure, questions, practices and feedback, but you will be expected to test what fits your community rather than copy somebody else’s model.
What happens after I apply?
You will answer four short questions about the group you are building and what you want to explore. If the Lab appears to be a possible fit, we will have a 15-minute conversation. If we both agree it is the right room, you will receive the payment and welcome details.
You do not need to carry the whole room alone.
You can create a community where people know how to enter, feel that their contribution matters and begin making meaning with one another.
You do not need another pile of content to make that happen.
You need a place to bring the real work, practise what you are asking of others and learn from what unfolds.
If you are ready to build a group people can participate in, I invite you to apply for the founding round of the Community Building Lab.
Six live sessions | 17 September to 22 October 2026 | Maximum 12 people | £497 paid in full or two payments of £275
Fit Call bookings close Monday 14 September 2026.