The Augmented Community Model is a maturity model that community-based teams, nested inside a larger institution, use to assess their team's maturity across three pillars: Community, Development, and Alignment. Each pillar is assessed on its own, and every pillar keeps a human-centered approach even as it adopts AI.
ACM is descriptive, not prescriptive. It shows a team where it stands. A team can be strong in one pillar and nonexistent in another, and that is the model working as intended, not a bug to fix.
What the team is actually building. Each pillar breaks into sub-pillars, seven in total.
How intentionally a team uses AI within each pillar. A team can sit at different stages in different pillars at the same time.
AI automation is not the finish line, intentional AI use is. Reaching Augmented means using AI to strip away administrative drag, so leaders and members spend their time on each other instead of on logistics.
A team that automates its newsletter with AI but forgets to check on a struggling member has not matured. A team that uses AI to free up two hours a week for 1:1 conversations has.
For each sub-pillar, pick the stage that best matches the team today. You will see what applies now, what the next stage looks like, and the steps to get there. The goal is the stage that fits the team's needs, risk tolerance, and resources, not the highest stage available.