- The Basics
- Become a Member
- Resources and Services
- Your Profile
- Communicating With Other Members
- Search
- Community
- Notifications
- Miscellaneous
GovLoop is the premier online community connecting over 270,000 government innovators from federal, state, and local government. GovLoop’s mission is to “connect government to improve government.” We provide articles, research guides, online trainings, and on-demand courses to help you do your job better. The community is a great resource for all people in and around government, whether they are looking to connect with peers, collaborate on projects or discover career-building opportunities. GovLoop is the place to be for today’s government leaders.
Is GovLoop run by the government?
GovLoop has been developed by and for the government community, but does not receive funding or formal support from the U.S. Government. We see ourselves as a social business that seeks to bring value to community members through sustainable, revenue-generating partnerships with organizations that want to honor and highlight the great work of public sector employees. The content of this site does not reflect the official views or policies of the U.S. Government, nor does mention of any publications, trade names, commercial products or organizations imply endorsement by GovLoop, an agency of the U.S. Government or its employee.
GovLoop provides dozens of ways to connect with government colleagues, learn about the latest in technology and management, and ultimately advance your public service career. Here are a few ways to get started:
- Sign up for our Daily Awesome newsletter
- Read today’s top posts on our home page
- Download any of our resources
- Sign-up for upcoming and archived free trainings
- Take an on-demand course at GovLoop Academy
And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. Reach out to us at [email protected] to get more direct help in launching your GovLoop experience.
- Who can join GovLoop?
- I joined but it says my profile must be approved. How long will that take?
- I’m new. How do I get started?
- How do I invite my friends to join GovLoop?
Becoming a member of GovLoop is a free and easy process. You can fill out your member information here. Within 24 hours, we will review your membership and approve your profile.
GovLoop is open to all members of the government community. We especially love government employees from federal, state, and local government. We also welcome students and individuals interested in government service, as well as government contractors. GovLoop does ask government contractors to refrain from explicit business development and marketing. If you are interested in sponsorship opportunities, contact Doug Mashkuri.
I joined but it says my profile must be approved. How long will that take?
GovLoop moderates new members to ensure that we keep spammers off the site. In general, your profile will be approved within 24 hours. Email [email protected] if you have any questions or think your request might have been missed.
Once my profile is approved, what do I do next?
Once your profile is approved, you can comment on articles and engage directly with other government employees. Here are a few ways to get started and make the most of your new account on GovLoop:
- Fill out your profile and add photo of yourself.
- Say hi and introduce yourself to the community.
- Check out the most popular blogs and discussions on GovLoop. Feel free to join in on the conversation or post your own blog or discussion.
- Search for friends and colleagues. You can find people by location or organization.
- Consider joining a few of our most popular groups to connect with like-minded individuals.
- Does GovLoop provide training ?
- Can I request that GovLoop speak at my conference/agency/event?
- Are there sponsorship or advertising opportunities with GovLoop?
Does GovLoop provide training?
Yes! GovLoop provides a range of training opportunities for folks in government.
We host over 30+ free online trainings a year. You can find upcoming and archived trainings at our training page. Last year, over 20,000+ government individuals took our free training. Some of our trainings offer CPEs upon completion.
At GovLoop Academy, we also provide on-demand, interactive courses on a variety of topics. Your GovLoop account will work on GovLoop Academy, so you can get started learning today!
Can I request that GovLoop speak at my conference/agency/event?
Yes! GovLoop employees from our content team have spoken at 200+ conferences/events over the last few years on topics ranging from innovation in government, social media virtual learning, and more. More information can be found on our Press Kit.
Are there sponsorship or advertising opportunities with GovLoop?
Yes, there are areas of the site set aside for advertising and sponsorship. Please read our guidelines for advertising here, as the primary purpose of the site is to share knowledge, solve problems, and make connections. If you are interested in participating in GovLoop’s Partner Program, contact Doug Mashkuri.
How do I update my profile picture?
You can change your photo by going to your profile in the top right, hit profiles on left, and hit change avatar.
How do I control what information I share with the community?
GovLoop lets you control who sees your profile, blogs, photos, and videos, and allows you to moderate comments and what appears in the Latest Activity feed. To change your privacy settings, click on your profile, settings, profile and change visibility.
Communicating With Other Members
- How do I accept or decline a friend request?
- How do I message another member?
- Why can’t I message a particular member?
How do I accept or decline a friend request?
Your friend requests are displayed by going to your profile and under the friends and notification tab.
Back to Communicating With Other Members
How do I message another member?
You can message someone by visiting their profile and clicking on the two options (public message or private message) to send a message. Public message appears on their profile page for everyone to see. A private message goes to their GovLoop inbox.
Back to Communicating With Other Members
Why can’t I message a particular member?
A member needs to be your friend if you want to send them a message. You can either request another user to be your friend or leave a message on their profile wall.
Back to Communicating With Other Members
- How do I search for a specific person?
- How do I find other GovLoop members who work at my organization?
- How do I find blogs and resources on a particular topic?
- How do I find groups?
- How do I find past online trainings?
- What is tagging and why is it important?
How do I search for a specific person?
Click on the Members tab on the navigation bar, then type any part of their name or demographic information into the search box. The search is based on what people self-report, so you may need to search for both full names and acronyms (e.g., “EPA” and “Environmental Protection Agency”). Bio information is all hyperlinked so you can click a title in one person’s profile “Program Analyst” and it will pull a list of all folks with that title.
How do I find other GovLoop members who work at my organization?
You can use the search function to search by location, agency, or any other profile question. The search is based on what people self-report, so you may need to search for both full names and acronyms (e.g., “EPA” and “Environmental Protection Agency”). Bio information is all hyperlinked so you can click an agency title in one person’s profile “EPA” and it will pull a list of all folks with that title.
How do I find blogs and resources on a particular topic?
Use our search box. There is a search box in the upper right hand corner of each page where you can type in your search. There are also topic categories in the navigation. For resources, use our resources page and filter by topic on the left.
You can search for a groups by going to the groups page and typing in a keyword.
How do I find past webinar trainings?
We post past trainings on our Resources page.
What is tagging and why is it important?
Tags help us organize the content on GovLoop and make it easier for members to find things. Imagine someone searching for your blog or forum on a search engine like Google or Bing or Yahoo! What words would they use to find it? Those are the words or phrases that you want to use as tags on GovLoop. If you are going to use multiple words, be sure to place quotation marks around the words so that they “stick” together. In other words, social media becomes “social media” and open government should be listed as “open government.” Here’s a blog post with more details.
- What’s the difference between blogs and forums?
- How do I post a blog?
- How do I post a forum discussion?
- How do tags work?
- How do I post a job listing?
- How do I find and join a group?
- How do I create a group?
What’s the difference between blogs and forums?
A blog post is insight or information that you would like to share with the community. Every member can start their own blog and control the privacy settings so either only they can see it, only their friends, or the whole community. The forums are a place to ask questions and solicit opinions or assistance. Forum posts are public to the entire community and are meant to be interactive discussions. The most popular forums and blogs that are open to the community are featured on the front page.
You can create a new blog entry by clicking on Community/Blogs in the navigation bar and then selecting Add a Blog Post at the top.
Post on your site and 100,000+ people see it on GovLoop (bonus points if you add a great photo for it and make sure to tag it). Remember: a blog post is insight or information that you would like to share with the community. It isn’t really the right place to make event announcements (use forums for that) or advertise for a specific company or product (contact our sales team for that).
How do I post a forum discussion?
The forum posts work differently than the blogs. Every time there is a new answer, it brings the question back to the top of the Forums page. That means that before you create a new forum post, it’s a good idea to see if someone already has created a related topic that you can jump in on and add on. This keeps discussions building and growing instead of fragmenting.
You can create a new discussion by clicking on Forums in the navigation bar and then selecting Add a Discussion at the bottom. Forums are viewable by the entire community. Be sure to select a category and tag your discussion so other members can easily search for it on the site.
Imagine someone searching for your blog or forum on a search engine like Google or Bing or Yahoo! What words would they use to find it? Those are the words or phrases that you want to use as tags on GovLoop. If you are going to use multiple words, be sure to place quotation marks around the words so that they “stick” together. In other words, social media becomes “social media” and open government should be listed as “open government.” Here’s a blog post with more details.
How do I find and join a group?
The groups are a great place for niche questions that you think only a small subset of the GovLoop population would be interested in, or to work on specific problems with a targeted group instead of the crowd. You can search for a group on the groups tab using the search and type in a keyword, location, agency, or topic.
GovLoop has tons of groups, so make sure to do a search first so you don’t duplicate a pre-existing group. To create a new group, click on the Groups tab in the navigation bar and select Add a Group. This page will walk you through all the steps needed to create your group page and invite other members to join.
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- How do I turn off email updates for a group that I joined?
- How do I turn off email updates for a blog/forum that I commented on?
- I want to know when someone replies to a certain blog or forum. How do I turn on email updates?
- How do I update my email preferences? How do I stop receiving the Daily Awesome email?
How do I turn off email updates for a group that I joined?
Unfortunately, there is not way to turn off notifications for individual groups that you join. There are really only two options (that we don’t necessarily recommend):
- You can leave the group.
- You can turn off notifications for all groups.
Like we said, we wouldn’t encourage you to take either of these steps – a better option might be to use folders and filters in your email client. But if you still want to turn off notifications for all groups you are a member of, click on the Settings link, located in the upper right below your name. Click on the Email tab on the left side of the screen to control what events trigger an email notification. You can uncheck groups at the bottom of the page.
How do I turn off email updates for a blog/forum that I commented on?
When you comment on a post, you will receive an email when a new person comments on the post. To turn off these notifications on an individual blog or forum, go to the blog/forum’s page and scroll down to the Reply to This box. Underneath the box is a link that says Stop Following. Click on this to stop receiving email updates. To turn off notifications for all posts that you comment on, click on the Settings link, located in the upper right below your name. Click on the Email tab on the left side of the screen to control what events trigger an email notification.
I want to know when someone replies to a certain blog or forum. How do I turn on email updates?
To turn on notifications on an individual blog or forum, go to the blog/forum’s page and scroll down to the Reply to This box. Underneath the box is a link that says Follow. Click on this to start receiving email updates.
How do I update my email preferences?
There are two quick ways to unsubscribe from the Daily Awesome newsletter, as well as other emails. Scroll to the bottom of the Daily Awesome email and find where it says “To unsubscribe from future emails or to update your e-mail preferences click here.”
Alternatively, just send an email [email protected] with your request.
- How do I report a technical problem with GovLoop?
- How do I report inappropriate member behavior?
- How do I get a GovLoop t-shirt/button/sticker/other swag?
- My question wasn’t answered here. Who can I contact?
How do I report a technical problem with GovLoop?
If you have any technical issues with GovLoop, please contact us at [email protected].
How do I report inappropriate member behavior?
GovLoop will not tolerate abuse, harassment, offensive material, or irrelevant spam. This will result in either a warning or instant removal from the network. GovLoop also reserves the right to remove members without notice or reason. If you notice inappropriate behavior, please email us at [email protected].
How do I get a GovLoop t-shirt/button/sticker/other swag?
Check out our GovLoop Training VIP page to learn how to win free t-shirts and more.
My question wasn’t answered here. Who can I contact?
Send us an email to [email protected].