How Citizen-Led Coworking Keeps Members Coming Back

LinkedIn Show Notes #33 from the Coworking Values Podcast Bullpen.

🎙️ Listen to these stories and hundreds of others on the Coworking Values Podcast.

Refugees. Social capital. Citizens. Three answers to the same question—people stay when they’re citizens, not consumers.

At yesterday’s Unreasonable Connection, we asked: “What keeps your members coming back when they could work from home for free?”

Most answers were real, human, and straightforward.

No one said the flying trapeze, ice bath, helicopter pad or free beer.

Jeannine van der Linden has been running De Kamer, Inc. in Oosterhout, Netherlands, for 15 years. When we talked on the podcast, she didn’t mention WiFi speed.

She didn’t mention coffee quality.

She talked about refugees rebuilding their lives.

That answer might seem disconnected from the question.

But it’s the most honest answer I’ve heard.

Because what keeps people coming back isn’t the amenities list or the Instagram-worthy design. It’s not the app, the “curated community,” or the brand partnerships that promise to “enhance member experience.”

It’s the feeling that you’re part of something that matters.

Three people:

Each person answered that question differently.

But they’re all saying the same thing.

People stay when they’re citizens of something, not consumers of it.

Connection to something bigger brought Jeannine face-to-face with councils and refugees

Jeannine didn’t set out to work with refugees.

She set out to solve her own problem.

She immigrated to the Netherlands from the US as a trained lawyer.

Credentials. Experience.
A CV that should have opened doors.

Instead, she found herself “excluded from the employment market.”

So she did what the women in her family always did when doors closed.

She built her own.

She founded De Kamer in 2010, creating the infrastructure she needed to survive.

Fifteen years later, she’s a partner in nine coworking spaces across the Netherlands. And she’s learned something crucial.

The same barriers she faced are the same barriers facing skilled migrants arriving in Europe every day.

That realisation connected her to RES-MOVE.

RES-MOVE Project is an EU-funded project working with 11 partners across 10 countries to turn coworking spaces into integration hubs for refugees.

Jeannine works on this project through her role as Director of the European Coworking Assembly is one of those 11 partners.

“The migrants entering Europe are resources to Europe,” she told me. “The notion behind the project is that coworking spaces can act as integration hubs.”

This isn’t charity.

It’s not a feel-good side project.

It’s a strategic economic infrastructure.

Skilled people arrive with education, experience, and drive. Coworking spaces exist to support exactly those people.

But there’s a wall between them.

Bureaucracy. Funding applications. Municipal departments nobody knows how to navigate.

Operators speak ‘entrepreneur.’ Councils speak ‘civic planner.’

Jeannine’s been navigating that wall for years through the European Coworking Assembly’s work on RES-MOVE.

And she’s learned the language gap that blocks most operators from accessing public funding.

“I was working with some small coworking spaces in Europe, and they had a project. They wanted their municipality to fund it,” she said. “So they put together a presentation about how this project would cover its costs and turn a profit.”

Municipalities do not care about that at all.

“They literally never had that thought. Their concern is, what is going to be the impact of what you’re doing? How is it going to affect this municipality?”

That disconnect is everything.

Coworking operators pitch revenue, costs, and sustainability.

Municipalities want impact, community benefit, and integration.

The solution? Partner with NGOs that already speak that language.

They know who to talk to. They have the relationships. They know what funders actually care about.

RES-MOVE Project isn’t handing out money to coworking spaces. It’s building capacity—helping spaces run events, connect with migrants, and become genuine integration hubs.

One of the spaces working with the RES-MOVE project didn’t even know they were a “coworking space.”

They just knew they were helping people.

That’s the point.

People stay when they’re part of something bigger than themselves. When the space isn’t just where they work—it’s where they rebuild their lives.

That answer raises another question.

Why does “being part of something bigger” actually work?

The invisible work nobody measures is what actually keeps people coming back

Tilley Harris started as a photographer.

She co-founded The Depot in Clapton, Hackney—a derelict tram depot that she and her co-founder renovated by hand for nine months in 2012.

Brutal, hands-on work. Pulling out soundproofing. Replacing the roof. Sorting wiring and plumbing.

All to create affordable studios, a gallery, and a community space.

But she hit a wall.

She realised that photographs could capture the story of community, but they couldn’t prove its value to the people who controlled the money.

“Photographs only take you so far in conversations about resource allocation,” she told me.

So she pivoted.

She founded Akou to measure what she calls “social capital”—the invisible currencies that actually make communities work.

What is social capital?

It’s the trust between neighbours.

The creative exchange that happens over coffee.

The emotional support someone offers when your project tanks.

The knowledge-sharing that doesn’t come with an invoice.

“For a thriving ecosystem, you need diversity,” Tilley said. “Monoculture forests are part of climate change issues. You really need diversity and the messiness that comes with that.”

That messiness is the point.

A coworking space isn’t a product you optimise. It’s an ecosystem you nurture.

The currencies circulating in a healthy space aren’t just financial.

They’re relational. Creative. Emotional.

Tilley’s work is about making those invisible currencies visible—not to commodify them, but to prove they exist.

To show councils, funders, and developers that this stuff matters.

Because when you measure social capital, you realise something crucial.

The things that keep people coming back don’t show up on a balance sheet.

People don’t stay for the ping-pong table.

They stay because someone in that space believed in their idea when no one else did.

They stay because they met someone who became a collaborator, a friend, a lifeline when freelancing felt unbearably lonely.

They stay because of trust. Connection. Shared struggle.

The feeling that you’re not doing this alone.

“Ecosystem winning is really about working as a collective to access more opportunities together,” Tilley said. “Rather than you’re on your own trying to solve these problems.”

That’s what people come back for.

Not the space itself—the other people in it.

If this invisible work is what keeps people coming back, we need to understand what we’re really building.

And why it matters urgently right now.

Your coworking space is already political—you just need to see it

Jon Alexander used to work in advertising.

He was a brand strategist at places like Fallon London, crafting the consumer story—the narrative that our primary identity is as shoppers, that our role is to choose between fixed options based on self-interest.

Then he walked away.

He co-founded the New Citizenship Project and wrote Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us.

His message to coworking operators right now is urgent.

“It really matters to do what you’re doing and actually to see yourselves as political actors.”

We’re staring down the barrel of the collapse of the Labour Government and the potential rise of a far-right national government in the UK, he told me.

The temptation is to tune out.

To think this isn’t relevant to running a coworking space.

But it is.

“These spaces are where increasingly, they’re critical civic infrastructure,” Jon said. “They’re what I think of as civic catalysts. They are where people meet one another, and with a bit of engagement and facilitation, where people can be encouraged to face into the challenges facing their local communities and actually start to do stuff together.”

This is the shift from consumer to citizen.

In the consumer story, you’re a passive recipient.

You pay for a service, you receive it, you move on. Your only power is choosing between options someone else created.

In the citizen story, you’re an active participant.

You co-create the space. You shape its culture. You don’t just use the community—you build it.

Jon’s not saying you should pick a political party.

He’s saying the work you’re doing is already political with a small “p”—it’s about power, participation, and who gets to shape the future.

“Coworking spaces are spaces for that to happen,” he said. “Step up and acknowledge that. Start hosting events that are about celebrating the best of what your local area is and naming the challenges, and convene people to come up with shared initiatives.”

His framework is simple: purpose, platform, prototype.

Purpose: What are you really trying to do here? What’s so big you need people to help you do it rather than doing it for them?

Platform: What structures and opportunities do you create to make it meaningful and joyful for people to participate?

Prototype: How do you spot where someone has energy for something and build from there?

This is how you turn renters into citizens.

This is how your space becomes infrastructure, not just a service.

Three people. Three perspectives. One answer.

Jeannine saw that migrants and coworking spaces were separated by bureaucracy.

So through her work at the European Coworking Assembly on RES-MOVE, she’s building bridges and teaching operators to speak the language of councils.

Tilley saw that the invisible work of trust and connection was being ignored.

So she built tools to measure and prove social capital exists.

Jon saw that people were being treated as consumers rather than citizens.

So he built a framework for participation and co-creation.

But they’re all saying the same thing.

Jeannine says: People stay when they’re connected to a purpose bigger than themselves—like helping refugees rebuild lives.

Tilley says: People stay because of social capital—trust, creative exchange, emotional support you can’t get at home.

Jon says: People stay when they’re citizens building something together, not consumers renting a desk.

All three of these perspectives converge in a straightforward action.

None of this shows up on your amenities list.

You can’t buy it with brand partnerships.
You can’t fake it with an Instagram aesthetic.
You build it by creating space for people to be citizens, not consumers.
You build it by nurturing the invisible currencies of trust and connection.
You build it by connecting to meaningful work in your community.

Here’s how you start this conversation in your space

🔴 https://youtu.be/BUa2PBy0wog 🔴

Host a screening of ACTionism in your space.

ACTionism is a 25-minute documentary about Ellie Meredith, a young woman who was paralysed by climate anxiety.

She read Jon’s book Citizens, got in touch, and he connected her to a Gavin Fernie-Jones and Heather Davies and the Re-Action Collective in the French Alps.

That space became the seed of a movement. Independent outdoor retailers are shifting from sale to repair and reuse. Community hubs are built around fixing what’s broken instead of buying what’s new.

The film follows Ellie’s journey from anxiety to action.

It’s about finding others who share your passion and building something together.

This week, Jon Alexander, Ellie Meredith, and Caroline Lucas—former co-leader and leader of the Green Party—gathered at The Conduit in London for a live conversation about this exact work. Watch it here.

That’s the social proof. That’s the endorsement.

This isn’t some fringe project—this is the work.

And here’s the beautiful thing: you can bring this conversation into your space.

Request a screening at actionism.space/request-a-screening. They send you the Vimeo link and a toolkit. You screen the 25-minute film. Then you have a conversation.

What does this mean for us?

What can we repair instead of replace?

What can we build together?

These conversations spark small actions.

Small actions build into movements.

Movements change communities.

One of the first spaces hosting a screening in London is Urban MBA near Old Street. Follow them to hear when the date is published.

This isn’t another event.

It’s a catalyst for the shift from consumer to citizen that Jeannine, Tilley, and Jon are all talking about.

Who this story is for

There’s a version of the coworking story that’s about scale, enterprise clients, and global office portfolios.

That world exists. It employs thousands of people. It solves real problems for corporations.

But that’s not the only story.

And it’s not the story that most independent operators are living.

If you’re running a space with under 150 members, you’re not trying to “disrupt the office business model on a global scale.”

You’re trying to keep the lights on, pay your staff fairly, and create something that matters to your local community.

The Jeannine, Tilley, and Jon approach isn’t a stepping stone to something bigger.

It’s not the “small time” version of coworking that you outgrow when you get serious.

It’s a completely different thing.

You’re not building a product that scales. You’re building civic infrastructure that roots.

You’re not optimising for enterprise sales. You’re creating economic access for people who need it.

You’re not a platform. You’re a place.

And here’s what nobody tells you: you don’t have to want the other thing.

You don’t have to feel like you’ve failed because you’re not chasing venture capital or signing enterprise contracts.

You don’t have to treat the community as a “value exchange” or bring in “brand partnerships” to prove your worth.

The work you’re doing—creating spaces where freelancers can afford to belong, where local makers can access tools, where refugees can rebuild lives, where community managers are valued and supported—that’s not the practice round.

That’s the work.

This newsletter is for those who do that work. The people who see coworking as something you build with your community, not something you sell to them.

If that’s you, you’re not alone.

And you don’t need permission to keep building.