In every community, there is more value than meets the eye. Knowledge, tools, templates, member expertise, event archives, guides, support channels — all these exist, yet often remain scattered, siloed or underutilised.
Resource mapping is the strategic process of identifying, organising and making sense of these community assets. It helps unlock the full potential of what already exists, improves discoverability, and ensures that members can access the right resources at the right time — without friction.
Rather than constantly creating more, resource mapping invites community builders to ask: What do we already have? Where does it live? How do we make it more useful and visible to everyone?
What is resource mapping?
Resource mapping refers to the practice of cataloguing, categorising and structuring all the resources available within a community. It often includes:
Internal documentation (guidelines, FAQs, onboarding material)
Educational assets (how-to guides, toolkits, learning modules)
Events and recordings
Platforms and tools used for communication or collaboration
Member-generated content or knowledge bases
Key people or knowledge holders
The process goes beyond simple listing. It involves understanding relationships between resources, identifying gaps, surfacing duplicates and organising for clarity and action.
In short, resource mapping answers: What exists, where is it, who owns it, and how can we optimise its use?
Why resource mapping matters in community building
Communities tend to grow organically. Over time, this often leads to information sprawl — with valuable resources buried in old threads, lost in shared drives, or remembered only by long-standing members.
Resource mapping brings order to the chaos. Its benefits include:
Improved accessibility: Members can find what they need without asking or searching endlessly.
Faster onboarding: New members can be guided through a curated path of essential resources.
Reduced duplication: Prevents wasted time recreating materials that already exist.
Empowered self-service: Frees up moderators and leaders by enabling members to navigate the ecosystem independently.
Strategic visibility: Highlights underused assets and promotes high-impact content.
Better content decisions: Mapping reveals what’s missing or outdated, guiding new resource creation.
Ultimately, resource mapping is about visibility and intentionality — helping your community use what it already has more effectively.
The core components of a resource map
A strong resource map is not just a spreadsheet or folder list. It’s a structured, intentional system with the following components:
Categorisation
Group resources by function, theme, or user journey. Categories might include:
Getting started
Technical support
Events and replays
Tools and templates
Member-generated content
Advanced learning or use cases
Clear taxonomy makes navigation intuitive.
Ownership and authorship
Each resource should have a point of contact — whether that’s a community manager, content creator or trusted member. This ensures accountability and updates.
Location and format
Track where each resource lives — be it a Notion page, PDF, embedded tool, forum thread or external platform. Provide direct links and access instructions if needed.
Metadata
Add tags, keywords, descriptions, update dates and relevance notes. This enables better filtering and search functionality over time.
Member pathways
Connect the dots across resources to form logical flows: onboarding sequences, topic tracks, or role-based pathways. Maps should support progression, not just access.
How to approach resource mapping in your community
Whether you’re starting from scratch or cleaning up years of accumulated content, the process can be broken into four key stages:
1. Audit existing resources
Inventory everything that currently exists across all channels and formats.
Use a centralised spreadsheet or platform to log content titles, locations, formats and owners.
Don’t worry about perfection — the goal is visibility.
2. Organise and categorise
Create a taxonomy or tagging system that reflects how members navigate the community.
Group resources by member goals, journey stages or themes.
Identify which resources are outdated, redundant or missing.
3. Visualise or centralise
Build a centralised resource hub, dashboard or knowledge base.
Use tools like Notion, Airtable, Google Drive, or your community platform’s native CMS.
Ensure navigation is clean, mobile-friendly, and aligned with how members naturally search or browse.
4. Maintain and evolve
Establish routines for reviewing and updating the resource map.
Assign ownership and maintenance responsibilities.
Invite members to suggest additions, flag outdated content or share their own resources.
Treat resource mapping as a living system, not a one-time task.
Common challenges in resource mapping
Even with good intentions, mapping can go wrong if not handled thoughtfully:
Over-categorisation: Too many tags or nested folders can confuse more than clarify.
Lack of search functionality: Members may not browse; they may search. Index your resources with that in mind.
Assuming members know what to look for: Sometimes, people don’t know what they need. Curated paths and featured content help guide them.
Neglecting member-generated value: Don’t only map official content. Some of the best resources come from peer contributions.
No ownership: Unmaintained maps become outdated quickly. Keep responsibilities clear and sustainable.
Done well, resource mapping enhances discoverability. Done poorly, it adds another layer of noise.
Final thoughts
Resource mapping isn’t glamorous — but it’s transformative. It brings structure to the rich, often chaotic ecosystems that communities become over time. More importantly, it sends a message to members: We see what you’ve created. We value it. And we want to help others find it.
When knowledge is visible, it’s usable.
When it’s organised, it’s empowering.
And when communities learn to map what they have, they unlock what they can become.
FAQs: Resource mapping
What is the difference between resource mapping and content curation?
Content curation involves selecting and sharing relevant content, often from external sources. Resource mapping, on the other hand, focuses on identifying and organising existing internal resources within a community or organisation to optimise their accessibility and use.
Can resource mapping be automated?
Parts of the process can be automated using tagging systems, AI-powered search, or document management tools. However, human oversight is still needed for contextual organisation, relevance checking and ensuring the resource map reflects user needs.
What are the best tools for community resource mapping?
Popular tools include Notion, Airtable, Trello, Confluence, Google Sheets, and custom CMS features within community platforms. The best tool depends on the scale, structure and interactivity your community needs.
How often should a community resource map be updated?
Ideally, resource maps should be reviewed quarterly. Frequent updates ensure the content remains accurate, new resources are added, and outdated or unused materials are archived or removed.
Who should be responsible for maintaining a resource map?
Maintenance can be owned by community managers, knowledge leads or content teams. In distributed or peer-led communities, shared responsibility models — with moderators or trusted members — can help ensure sustainability and accuracy over time.
