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Private Groups are the flexible, member-driven group type. Unlike Local Centers (geographic) or Role Groups (automatic), Private Groups are created by members, have manually controlled membership, and can serve any purpose — project teams, committees, interest communities, event planning, board governance. Browse groups page showing private groups They’re the closest thing to a Slack channel or Microsoft Teams group: create one, invite people, start collaborating.

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Do I need Private Groups?

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Creating a Private Group

Any member with permission can create a group. Click + New Group in the sidebar, or go to Groups → Create Group.
1

Name and description

Give the group a clear name that explains its purpose. “Q4 Marketing Campaign” is better than “Marketing Group”. Add a description so members know what to expect.
2

Choose visibility

Private — only members can see the group and its content. Joinable — any member can discover the group and join without an invitation.
3

Select a category (optional)

If your organization uses group categories, pick one: Working Group, Committee, Interest Group, Project Team, etc. This helps members find groups.
4

Enable features

Toggle on only what you need:
5

Save and invite members

Create the group, then add members from the Members tab.
Only enable the features you actually need. A board meeting group probably needs Discussions + Files. A hiking club needs Discussions + Events. A software project needs all four. Fewer features = less clutter.

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Private vs. joinable

This is the key decision when creating a group: You can change this setting later. Starting private and opening it up is safer than starting open and needing to restrict.

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Managing members

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Adding members

  1. Go to the group → Members tab
  2. Click Add Members
  3. Search by name and select people
  4. They’re added immediately

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Group roles

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Removing members

Go to Members tab → find the member → remove. Removed members lose access to all group content immediately.

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Issue tracking

Private Groups with Issues enabled become lightweight project management spaces. This is one of the most powerful features for teams that need to track work.

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Creating issues

Go to the group → Issues tab → Create Issue Each issue can have:

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Configure issue tracking

When enabling Issues on a group, you can toggle:
For simple groups (a committee tracking action items), enable Issues with just priorities. For project teams, enable everything — types, due dates, and statuses give you a mini project management tool.

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Controlling who can do what

For most project teams, leave everything open — everyone contributes. For boards and governance groups, restrict posting and file uploads to admins.

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Group lifecycle

Private Groups are often temporary. Here’s how to manage them through their lifecycle:
Always prefer archiving over deleting. Archived groups preserve institutional knowledge — meeting notes, decisions, files. You can always delete later, but you can’t un-delete.

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Common scenarios

Yes — this is exactly what joinable Private Groups are for. Members create the group, set it as joinable, and others discover and join on their own. You get organic community building with zero admin work. If you want some oversight, require a group category and review new groups occasionally.
Archive it. The group disappears from the sidebar but all content (discussions, files, issues) is preserved. If someone needs to reference old project files or decisions six months later, an admin can find the archived group.
No — they’re fundamentally different. Private Groups have manual membership; Role Groups have criteria-based automatic membership. If you realize the membership should be automatic (e.g., “all people with User Type = Board Member”), create a new Role Group and archive the Private Group.
Enable Group Categories to organize groups by type (Working Group, Committee, Interest Group, etc.). Also consider archiving inactive groups — a clean list is easier to navigate than a cluttered one.
A national admin can access any group and reassign ownership. Go to the group settings and promote another member to owner.
Create the group as joinable (so everyone can find and join it), then enable “Only admins can post”. This gives you a broadcast channel where admins share updates and members can read — similar to a Slack announcement channel.