Your Guide to Council Connect!
Council Connect is an online member community designed for Council members. This platform allows you to connect, learn and share with colleagues like never before. We’ve put together this guide to help you get the most out of your new member benefit.
Welcome! It’s easy to get started.
You can access Council Connect by visiting www.community.pac.org. Just log in using your Council username and password. To create an account or obtain your username or password, follow the instructions listed on the log in page or contact councilconnect@pac.org or 202.787.5950.
And because Council Connect is integrated with our member database, you don’t have to remember more than one login or password.
Profile. Tell us about yourself.
We’ve used information from our membership database to complete the basic parts of your new profile, including your name, organization and professional designations.
Now make it yours by filling out interest areas to help other members find you and get conversations started. Don’t forget to upload a picture. This strengthens the community and lets others get to know you.
Don’t want everybody to see everything? No problem. Just click “Privacy Settings” in the navigation pane under “My Account” to adjust your security.
Peer Search. Make new friends and find old ones.
Look for other members by name, company or email address by using the “Directory” link in the upper navigation. Or dig deeper by using the “Advanced Search” function to sort by community type, location and more. You can view profiles, send direct messages or add a person as a contact directly from the search results page.
Communities. Go ahead and look around!
Use the “Communities” menu option to see all the groups available for you to join. By default, the platform will show you the communities you already participate in (likely from already being part of a Council network). You can change this to “Communities I can join” using the filter options near the top of the page.
Join Communities. Subscribe and personalize your experience.
By clicking “Communities” in the upper navigation pane, you can explore the public communities in Council Connect. You can also create your own by clicking “Create a New Community”.
Once you’ve looked around, subscribe to the communities that interest you by clicking on the “Join” button. You’ll be prompted to specify how you want messages from the community’s discussion group to be delivered:
- Real time: sends an email for each community post
- Daily digest: sends an email once a day with the previous day’s posts
- No emails: read and reply to posts through the community without email notification
If you don’t see a “Join” button on a community, you either already belong or the community is private.
Communicate. Participate in the discussion.
All communities feature integrated online discussion boards and email forums. Use the links next to posts to:
- Reply to Discussion: sends your response to the entire group
- Reply to Sender: sends a private response to the author of the post
- View Thread: see all the posts in a particular discussion in chronological order
- Post Message: starts a new discussion thread
- My Subscriptions: change your delivery options, subscribe to additional communities or unsubscribe.
Discuss. Start a conversation and share your thoughts.
To start a new discussion in one of your communities you can use the “Post a Message” link under “Communities”.
Want to include an attachment?
- Click the “Attach” button
- Name your document
- Browse and select the file to add
- Click “Upload”
Resource Libraries. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
When you’re in need of sample annual reports, issue briefs, PAC solicitations and more, visit the “Resource Libraries” included in many of the communities instead of starting from scratch. The Council may already have resources covering exactly what you’re looking for. You can reference, download, customize and edit to fit your needs.
Return the favor by uploading documents of your own, either directly to a community library or by including them in an attachment to your post. They all end up in the same place.