"When you're thinking about measuring a community, usually what you measure is what you effect," said Wesley Faulkner, Senior Community Manager at Amazon’s AWS. "So, if you're not measuring the success of the people who are in the community, if that's not part of the measurements, then you're really not going to be tracking that. Thus, you may lose sight of what makes your community good."
Wesley talked with Andy MacMillan, UserTesting's CEO, and Janelle Estes, UserTesting's Chief Insights Officer, in this episode of the Human Insight Podcast. 
Wesley is a first-generation American, public speaker, and podcaster. He is a founding member of the government transparency group Open Austin and a staunch supporter of racial justice, workplace equity, and neurodiversity. His professional experience spans technology from AMD, Atlassian, and Dell among others. Wesley is currently .
He also co-hosts the developer relations focused podcast Community Pulse and serves on the board for SXSW.
He said measuring what makes a sponsored community successful can be complicated. Ask the sales team and they want to know how many leads are coming from the community. Ask customer service and they want to know how many tickets are being diverted to and answered in the community. 
"But if I had to boil it down to anything," Faulkner said, "it is what does the community itself say its worth?"
Listen to the episode to hear Faulkner's tips for putting metrics to that measurement. 
Additionally, they discuss: 

What do Faulkner mean when he says community shapes us? 

What are the benefits of a community to those within the community, and what are the benefits to the sponsoring organization? 

How do you authentically build an audience, especially as everything seems to shift to more digital, more remote, and more global?