Engage Large Groups Effortlessly with Managed Book Clubs

Professional Book Clubs to Engage, Connect, and Grow

We cultivate deeply connected and engaged communities through lifelong learning and professional development experiences. Offer your people development and discussion opportunities that are fun, enriching, and fit into their lifestyles seamlessly. Professional book club managers facilitate and customize each group to your goals.

The best part? We guarantee results. Pay by group size and if your participation goals aren’t met, pay nothing. That’s how much we believe in the power of bringing people together around topics that matter.

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PBC Guru Managed Book Clubs

We manage book club programs for people at organizations of all shapes and sizes.

Northwestern University
DPR Construction
University of Cambridge
Kansas City Public Library
University Of Virginia
University of Washington
State Library of Western Australia
Delta Dental
Oklahoma State University

Why Work with Professional Book Club Guru?

Engage Your Community and Level-Up Your People on Auto-Pilot

We're on a mission to connect and empower communities through lifelong learning experiences. Deepen your peoples’ sense of meaning and wonder while they have fun with peers and grow personally and professionally.

Fully and Professionally Managed

Chances are high that you don't have time to manage professional book clubs for hundreds or thousands of members of your community. Our one-of-a-kind platform and team of professional book club managers take care of ALL of the heavy lifting. Engage your community with only a few hours of staff time per year.

Engage Hundreds or Thousands

When you have dozens or more people who'd be interested in a book club program, it's not practical to get them all in a room or into giant online meetings together. Our asynchronous online community platform lets thousands participate and network in a shared book club community from anywhere in the world, at whatever time is convenient for them.

Broaden Your Reach

Book clubs bring people together. And online book clubs bring together different people than in-person programs and events. Across all of the organizations we support, we consistently see different segments of employees, alumni, library patrons, or other communities engaging in an online book club.

Minimum Participants Guarantee

Afraid no one will join and participate? We won’t run a program that’s not valuable for your organization. If we don't reach a minimum number of participants, we don't start the program and there is no cost. But it’s unlikely you’ll need the guarantee. More than 99% of our communities exceed their participation goal.

150K+

Active Book Club Participants

60+

Top 100 US Universities on Our Service

1M+

Books Read

Don’t Take Our Word For It

Listen to what our happy customers and program participants say about the results we deliver.

"We’ve appreciated working with PBC Guru on our social justice movie club as it has allowed us to create a unique experience for our university and alumni. PBC Guru provides the program framework and staffing which has given us capacity to create additional opportunities for engagement and connection."

Elizabeth Wheeler
Director, Alumni Programs Operations, Michigan State University

"We have seen a notable increase in engagement amongst members of our association who are a part of the book club. We highly recommend PBC Guru as they provide professionally moderated book club discussion groups in a turnkey fashion, allowing us to provide a great benefit to our members with minimal day to day oversight."

Abeer Sajjad
Member Engagement Associate, Advocis

"The team at PBC Guru are thoughtful, accessible problem solvers who are interested in our goals. It’s like having another dedicated colleague on our staff thinking about virtual engagement strategies full-time!"

Joe Keniston
St. Lawrence University

"PBC Guru has provided a professional, flawless and dependable service to the members of the NC Medical Society with its book club program. This program has allowed us to offer a member engagement resource to our members in North Carolina without being “experts” in executing a formal book club."

Ashley Newton
Vice President, Member Services, North Carolina Medical Society

"We have been able to engage over 500 alumni in one year in a new and interesting way. With a small staff, being able to rely on PBC to manage the program has been an easy and efficient way to add value to what we offer our alumni."

Nicole Bush
Director Alumni Career Services, Tulane University

"The PBC Guru program consistently aligns with DPR’s core values (Integrity, Enjoyment, Uniqueness and Ever Forward) and provides creative collaboration. The addition of PBC Guru to our existing reading program has exceeded our expectations; the level of customizability and their customer service is impeccable!"

Esther Lajano
Learning Systems Coordinator, DPR Construction

"We’ve been able to engage a larger population of alumni with the ALC platform . . . The white label content really helps us bulk out our engagement offerings without taking up staff time or resources. We love that everything is built for us, including marketing images and copy to assist with promotion."

Amber Medenhall
Event Coordinator, Washington State University

"The webinars and resources offered to our alumni, friends, and students have been a terrific complement to our program. We can showcase interesting speakers and topics through our partnership with ALC, further increasing the benefits to our McMaster alumni community."

Karen McQuigge
Director, Alumni Engagement, McMaster University
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What We Offer

Fully Managed Online Book Clubs, Discussion Groups, and Professional Development Experiences

PBC Guru's online learning programs help you connect with your community in whole new ways while engaging hundreds that have never engaged before. Each virtual book club or other program runs within your own private online forum, integrated with email, and is actively managed by professionals to maximize engagement.

Managed Online Book Clubs

We support book club programs for a huge range of organizations with the goal of engaging people around lifelong learning. From professional books clubs for companies to clubs to connect fellow alumni with each other and their alma mater, we’ll get your people excited about conversations with you and your community.

More About Managed Book Clubs
Managed Online Book Clubs

Alumni Learning Consortium

ALC is a partnership of alumni associations managed by PBC Guru, which works together to create more and better online programs for their communities. Participating members enjoy benefits like live talks with famous authors and thought leaders, hosted on your own branded livestream portal, plus access to a network of fellow alumni associations sharing ideas to help each other succeed.

Core Values Book Clubs

Core values book clubs help develop your staff and strengthen your culture. Get your team members more deeply involved with your mission. Having them regularly read books that reinforce what matters most to your organization and connect with fellow employees to discuss will help them realize the real-world (and real work) application of your values.

How We Do It

Fully Managed. Customized. Scalable.

We believe reading and discussing books is one of the highest leverage activities anyone can undertake to develop themselves personally and professionally. We strive to make it as easy as possible for people to engage in book club programs at scale. Offer virtual book clubs that engage members of your organization in meaningful learning no matter where they are located.

Managed Book Clubs - Participate Anywhere at Anytime

Participate Anywhere at Any Time

Our programs allow book club members to join in discussions from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. And the online community is on 24/7 so people can engage regardless of time zone, lunch hour, or school pickup time. No matter what’s happening in life and work, there’s always a moment to join discussions about meaningful content with other people.

Professionally Moderated

Our experienced virtual book club managers help you define your community guidelines and moderate your book club accordingly. Along with our minimum participation level guarantee, you’ll have the ability to track engagement and evaluate the success of your program with ease. We help focus and guide discussions to not only maintain engagement but foster growth in the areas that matter to you.

Professionally Moderated Book Clubs
Branded Platform

Your Own Branded Platform

Your book club’s online website portal will be branded with your name, logo, colors, and more. Offer your participants a private online forum that they will see as tailor-made for your community. They’ll have a great experience that builds pride in your organization and a desire to engage more deeply with your mission.

Customized Book Selection

There's no set list of books to choose from. We can work with you to facilitate the hottest best-sellers, specific business titles for professional development, or books written by members of your community. We curate books and other content around topics your community will find valuable and be excited to read and discuss every time.

Customized Book Selection
Live Author Talks and Q&A

Live Author Talks and Q&A

How much more exciting might a book club be when your group actually gets to hear from and ask questions of the author? Included in our service are live Question & Answer talks with best-selling authors. Author talks cover the hottest novels, business reads, memoirs, and other book genres.

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Let's Empower Your People
Our Story: A History of Powering Organizational Growth

Personal and Professional Development Book Clubs

PBC Guru is the brainchild of two avid readers of business and personal development literature. Tasked to help develop employees of their former engineering firm, a company book club was the natural solution. The idea was a huge success: popular among employees and loved by managers who saw skills improve, engagement increase, and productivity rise. Friends at other companies asked the pair how to replicate the fantastic results. And a light bulb came on.

There were many long nights, false starts, iterations, and ditched ideas to build the service and platform we run today. Our original idea for a virtual book club that provided participants the same book one month at a time soon morphed into PBC Guru: a solution that produces lasting organizational and personal impact, so reliably that we guarantee it.

Personal and Professional Development Book Clubs
About Us and Our Team

Learn How Professional Books Clubs Can Empower Your People

We put this power in the hands of organizations like yours.

Love From Our Learners

We love our customers and participants. And they love us! Here’s what some of them have to say about what we do.

“Offering the virtual book club helped us discover a whole new segment of alumni that had not been previously engaged--especially for those alums that can't or don't visit or engage with campus regularly. ”
Carrie Combs
James Madison University
“Our team has really enjoyed PBC Guru! We have found that it's a great way to facilitate professional growth within our employees.“
Heather L. Johnson
Senior Vice President, Jovian Concepts
“PBC Guru has provided another avenue for us to engage our OU alumni across the world reaching people that we normally wouldn’t be able to engage. ”
Jennifer Dooley
University of Oklahoma
“Ever since we started partnering with PBC Guru for our online book clubs we have found them to be knowledgeable and supportive. They manage all the details of the book clubs, are very open to collaboration, helpful with data analysis and generally great to work with.”
Jean Chisser
Boston College
“PBC Guru has been an extremely valuable tool for us to expand engagement with a new cohort of alumni we hadn’t been interacting with, gain insights into who they are and provide them with a meaningful opportunity to connect with each other through stimulating discussions.”
Jess Cronin
Head, Alumni Relations,
Australian National University
“WMU has enrolled over 800 alumni in the book club program within the first year. The book club has engaged many alumni that otherwise will not be involved in any other way in the life of the University. ”
Hardy Figueroa
Director Alumni Relations, Western Michigan University
“The staff at PBC Guru is knowledgeable, professional, and responsive. And we've seen a tremendous response to the program, enrolling more than 3,000 alums within the first year.”
Mary Giles
Associate Director of Advancement Communications Smith College
“Working with the team at PBC Guru is like having your own personal concierge to handle all of the important details and planning. They are clearly the experts in what they do, and keep you on track for success with your program.”
Beth Szczerowski
Director of Alumni & Family Engagement, Hope College

Let’s Talk

Request a demo and explore how our book clubs or other managed programs can help engage your community in lifelong learning.

Request a Demo
Let's Empower Your People