I was recently fortunate to speak with Beth Kanter, who, in the process of putting her children to bed, ran through her extremely impressive career in the world of eAltrusim, social networks, platforms, and every other form of simply doing impressive stuff on the web. Her awe inspiring set of experiences goes back to when she was social networking for artists by way of list-serv in mid-80s by matching artists with like-interests. Kanter isn’t someone who is putting out untried and unproven pieces of hypothetical advice. Utilizing the very advice and observation that she makes available to her readers, she has used Internet to raise over hundreds of thousands of dollars for many different causes.

Kanter has written extensively on determining and understanding the social networking needs of a cause or organization, and we talked a bit about the following question: If social platforms were the buzz-concept of last year, what will we be focusing on in this year?

She suggested, as Eric Gundersen of Development Seed had touched upon a few weeks back, that observing the importance of reciprocity and community maintenance is a positive way to consider moving forward (reciprocity existing alongside relationship-building and rewards – the three Rs of fundraising).

Where last year was very much about the emergence of people understanding that we could stage our own campaigns if we could just get people to look at them, this year people will begin to understand that this process is an interactive one. You give a little here and you can more likely expect to get a little here. She gave examples in which she was able to offer aid, consultation and ad space to those in need in order to get donations for projects she was working on. While it seems simple, folks easily forget that by helping fundraise for someone today, you might get access to their several-thousand-strong email list tomorrow when you very desperately need it.

The point isn’t to be selfish, Kanter stressed, or to focus on helping today as a key to make your tomorrow easy. This movement is, however, a natural progression in developing and sustaining a community of giving. Networking does not end at joining a network, starting a campaign or authoring a blog the same way that participation in a community is not a given to one who moves to a neighborhood, simply buys a house and writes a newsletter they expect to come inside, unsolicited, to read. We must interact with the giving community in a meaningful way, especially when they are asking from us. In order to contribute to the construction of a community, we need to look at outreach as a reciprocal process. In doing so, we can feel more confident about the sustainability of our organizational and fundraising efforts.

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