Virtual and hybrid clubs are no longer experiments. They're mainstream. The pandemic proved that thousands of communities can thrive without physical presence. Some of the most engaged clubs today are fully remote. But virtual and hybrid clubs are not just in-person clubs moved online. They have different dynamics, different challenges, and different solutions. Get them right and you can reach people anywhere. Get them wrong and you create a lonely, disconnected experience.
This article walks through the unique challenges of virtual and hybrid clubs, the platforms that work, and the practices that keep distributed members feeling connected and engaged. Whether you're starting remote or converting your in-person club to hybrid, this framework will help you build something that works.
Virtual, Hybrid, and Blended: What's the Difference?
Virtual means everyone participates remotely. Everyone is on a Zoom call. Everyone accesses the community platform from their own device. Nobody is in a physical space together. Virtual is simple in some ways (no venue, no travel) and challenging in others (less serendipitous connection, requires tech).
Hybrid means some people are in-person and some are remote, all participating in the same event simultaneously. This is harder than either all-remote or all-in-person. You need good technology to make remote people feel included. You need the in-person experience to not suffer. Done poorly, remote people feel like second-class citizens watching from home while the "real" meeting happens in the room.
Blended is different. You have some events that are in-person only, some that are virtual only, and some that are hybrid. This gives people options. It's more logistically complex but it respects different preferences and geographic constraints.
For starting out: if you must choose one modality, go fully virtual. It's simpler and more inclusive than hybrid. Once you have a solid community and know your format, add in-person events. This often becomes blended. If you're converting from in-person to hybrid, go slowly. Don't try hybrid for everything immediately. Start with hybrid for one meeting per month while keeping others in-person.
Choosing a Virtual Community Platform
You need two things: a meeting platform (for live events) and a community platform (for async conversation). Don't try to do everything on Zoom. Zoom is for meetings, not community.
For meetings, Zoom is standard. It's reliable, affordable ($10-20/month), and everyone knows how to use it. Alternatives like Google Meet or Microsoft Teams work if your organization already uses them. The platform matters less than consistency. Pick one and get good at it.
For community (async conversation), you have options. Slack is great for active, daily engagement. It's real-time, it's conversational, and people already know it. But Slack can feel chaotic if channels aren't well-organized. Discord is similar to Slack but slightly more organized. Mighty Networks, Circle, or Mighty Networks are all-in-one platforms that combine community + event scheduling + sometimes courses. They're $200-500/month but they're purpose-built for communities. Notion or a simple website with discussion tools work if your community is small.
For a remote club starting out, I'd recommend: Zoom for meetings, Slack for community. This combo is affordable ($25-30/month total), everyone knows how to use it, and it separates the experience (meetings are in Zoom, daily chat is in Slack). As you grow and have budget, you might graduate to Circle or Mighty Networks which integrate everything.
Building Asynchronous Engagement
Live meetings are important, but they're not enough for remote community. You need robust async engagement so people connect between meetings. This is where most virtual clubs fail. They do a Zoom call every month and then nothing else. It feels empty.
Create daily prompts in your community platform. Monday: "What are you working on this week?" Tuesday: "Share something you learned recently." Wednesday: "Celebrate a win you had." Thursday: "What's your challenge this week?" Friday: "What are you looking forward to?" These prompts are low-friction—people respond with 1-2 sentences. They create consistent conversation and familiarity.
Do monthly deep discussions. Instead of chat prompts, do a structured discussion. "This month we're talking about [topic]. What's one insight you've had about this in your work?" Create a discussion thread where people respond over several days. This deepens conversation beyond surface-level chat.
Create working groups or cohorts around specific interests. "If you're interested in fundraising, join the fundraising working group." Working groups have a specific purpose (solve a problem, learn together, create something). They meet biweekly and have deeper engagement than the full community.
Create pathways for one-on-one connection. In your community platform, have a "mentorship" or "connections" channel where people can request introductions. You can manually match people. "Sarah, meet Jordan. Sarah is looking for a mentor in nonprofit tech and Jordan just did a career pivot to that space." These connections are where real relationship-building happens.
Running Effective Live Meetings in Virtual Format
Live Zoom meetings are the anchor of virtual clubs. Make them count. Most virtual meetings fail because they're just talking heads with no interaction.
Keep them shorter than in-person meetings. 45-60 minutes is ideal for virtual. More and you'll lose people to fatigue. The screen adds friction that sitting in a room doesn't have. People can zone out easily online. Shorter is better.
Use interactive formats. Don't have someone talk for 30 minutes. Instead: open discussion (10 min), small group breakouts (15 min where people discuss in groups of 3-4), report back from breakouts (10 min), closing (5 min). Breakouts change the energy. They create psychological safety (smaller groups feel safer than big group). They let everyone participate, not just the loud people.
Use the chat actively. While someone is presenting, encourage people to ask questions in chat. "Chat your thoughts or questions." This keeps people engaged. A silent meeting is a boring meeting. Having people type keeps them mentally active.
Record everything. Record the meeting and share the recording in your community platform within 24 hours. This allows people who can't make the live meeting (time zone, schedule conflict) to still participate. It also creates an archive. This is a huge advantage of virtual over in-person.
Have a pre-meeting social call 10 minutes early. "Hop on at 6:50pm if you want to chat and catch up before we start." This recreates the "arrive early and chat with people" experience that happens in-person. People who connect before the meeting start feel more engaged during the meeting.
Making Hybrid Events Work
Hybrid is hard because you need to serve two different experiences simultaneously. Do it wrong and remote people feel left out. The key: make being remote a first-class experience, not a second-class option.
Use good technology. A room camera that can see the whole room, good microphone that picks up questions from the audience, screen that people can see from home. Cheap equipment makes remote people feel neglected. Invest in quality AV. This alone makes a massive difference.
Have someone whose role is "remote host." While the in-person facilitator is leading the room, a remote host monitors the Zoom chat, reads questions, asks them to the speaker, and ensures remote people are included. Without this, remote questions get ignored. In-person conversation drowns out remote voices.
Schedule Zoom Q&A after in-person discussion. Don't just relay questions to the speaker. After the in-person group asks questions, explicitly say: "Now let's hear from our remote friends. What questions do you have?" This ensures remote people get direct airtime, not just observed input.
For working sessions: do breakout rooms with mixed in-person and remote people. Pair remote people with in-person buddies if you can. This creates intentional cross-pollination and prevents the in-person/remote divide.
Send hybrid attendees (people who come in-person sometimes and join remote other times) a survey: "Do you prefer remote or in-person? Is there anything we could do differently?" You might learn that the hybrid format itself is the problem. Sometimes it's better to give people choice (pick one or the other) rather than trying to serve both simultaneously.
Managing Time Zones
If your club spans time zones, you have a dilemma. You can't run meetings at times that work for everyone. You have to make a choice and support people in the other zones.
Option 1: Pick a time that works for your core audience. "We meet 8pm EST because most of our members are on the East Coast." Be transparent about this. Record everything so West Coast and international members can watch later. Accept that live attendance will be geographically skewed.
Option 2: Rotate meeting times. "January-March we meet 8pm EST (good for East Coast). April-June we meet 12pm PT (good for West Coast)." This shares the inconvenience. Everyone has a season where they can attend live.
Option 3: Do multiple sessions. "We're running this workshop at 8am EST, 12pm EST, and 4pm EST. Join whichever works for you." This is labor-intensive but ensures everyone can attend live. Only do this for major events, not for every meeting.
Option 4: Go fully async. No live meetings at fixed times. Instead, you have Slack discussion, recorded videos people watch on their own time, and asynchronous working documents. This is hardest in terms of community feel but it's the most inclusive for time zones.
Preventing Virtual Fatigue
Zoom fatigue is real. People get burned out on video calls. In-person meetings don't create the same fatigue because of the social energy. Virtual meetings require active cognitive engagement to stay focused.
Don't meet every week. Monthly core meetings + quarterly deep-dives is better than weekly Zooms. Async engagement fills the gap between meetings. People feel connected without the fatigue of constant video calls.
Vary your format. One month do a speaker (people listen and ask questions). Next month do small group discussions. Next month do working session. Format variation prevents the monotony of "talking head on screen."
Make cameras optional. "You don't have to have your camera on. We understand if you prefer audio only." This reduces self-consciousness and allows people to participate from less-ideal environments. A camera-on requirement creates more friction.
Offer hybrid as true alternative. Have some events that are virtual, some that are in-person (if you have local members). This gives people choice and prevents anyone from feeling locked into video calls.