At PC World & Macworld, I belong to the Editorial group. I report to the Editors in Chief of both brands. However, I really do work with everyone -- Engineering, Sales, Business Development, etc. For us, it doesn't really matter which group I really "belong to", because I work with everyone. I think that's how it should be -- community is integrated across all departments.

Hi Mike,

At EMC, we fall under Marketing, but more specifically web marketing. I report to our Director of Web Strategy. It works very well because we have a nice mix of marketing and web knowledge and experience.

Best,

Jamie

I'm workign on a project for a membership organisation and face the same question. the Web is traditionally seen as part fo marketing, but they have a membership department that looks after people once they have joined.

I think the community management needs to match the primaruy purpose of the community - is it to attract new business or service exisitng business?

No matter where you put it though, you'll inevitably need a dotted line to the department you didn't put it in.

Regards

Sam

ClearBox Consulting Ltd.

Inherently a cross-functional role, and we at Jive work with Community Managers in Marketing, Marcom/Corporate Communications, Client/Customer Support and sometimes HR and IT (although in the latter case it's usually via an outgrowth of a role such as Intranet Mgr).  Increasingly, the Community Manager starts off in one place, but quickly gets dotted-lined to other groups.

At Pets.com, I am in strategic marketing but work with many cross-functional groups at PetSmart--Corp. Comm., Merchandising, editoral group for PetSmart.com, PetSmart Services, Charities, etc.