By Pat Grosse, The Community Entrepreneur®
We’ve all been to networking events where we walk away with a handful of business cards, some pleasant conversations, and maybe—just maybe—a new lead. However, what if I told you that networking is just the first step in a much more powerful journey?
If you truly want to grow your business network not only exponentially but also sustainably, then it’s time to start thinking like a community developer
Over the years, I’ve built communities of practice and developed bi-generational networks. Through these experiences, I learned that successful business ecosystems grow from more than mingling. In fact, they rely on strategies shaped by five core principles from the community development space.
- Climbing the Networking Continuum
Adapted from Himmelman’s Collaboration for a Change, this model charts the journey from casual contact to deep collaboration. Step by step, it demonstrates how simple connections can evolve into meaningful partnerships:
- Networking: Establish initial contact and identify shared interests. That’s all a networking event is. Work the room, hand out cards or put your details into the chat box. Then, follow up with a meaningful 1:1 conversation outside the meeting.
- Coordination: Align efforts to avoid overlap—think scheduling events or sharing updates. Not all connections are B: B, or B:C sales. Instead, coordinate with similar businesses to share a bigger slice of the pie. Think about high streets and online power teams – businesses coordinating to attract and service customers.
- Cooperation: Work together on shared projects, pooling resources and ideas.
- Collaboration: Integrate your efforts for long-term goals—this is where transformation happens. This is the arena of big picture thinking and coalitions.
2. Build a Community of Practice
A community of practice brings together people with a shared concern or passion who learn and evolve together. From potential, to coalescing, active, dispersed and memorable, the core of success is around community and shared practice.
It’s quite likely that some networks evolve into communities of practice, especially where there is a lack of new opportunities to develop fresh relationships. Trust and familiarity replace meetings looking for new businesses to ones that, share commonalities, problems and solutions. People may leave, but there is a core that keep the group alive until it comes to a natural end. Recognising this change from networking to a community enables group members to adapt and make the most of developing deeper business relationships. In 2013 I joined a large face-to-face network, meeting regular faces I became familiar with right up until 2020 when the world changed and the group dispersed. Today whenever I come across these people or their names, my memory takes me to the memorable phase of our community (of practice). These people will always get my priority attention.
By sharing experiences, developing best practices, and learning through action, communities of practice strengthen both individual expertise and collective capability.
3. Bonding vs. Bridging: What Kind of Connections Do You Need?
Have you attended face-to-face networking meetings where people are huddled into groups, and you feel like an outsider? How about meetings where everyone in the room is sharing the same experiences from two years earlier and nothing much has changed?
Or is there a master networker out there your envy? The one who works the room, starts conversations with strangers and walks away with new connections and business opportunities?
Meet the concepts of bridging and bonding – two forms of social capital that describe how people connect with each other in social networks. Both are important, yet service different purposes.
Bonding connects you with those who are similar—your immediate family or tribe. Inward-looking, there is a high level of trust and a safety net in times of personal crisis, yet can be insular and resistant to outsiders, open to group think and possibly reinforce social divides. If you are looking for new ideas, a bonding network may not be the most effective approach.
Bridging, on the other hand, links you to new perspectives, industries, or regions. It links across social, cultural, or economic lines. This approach is outward-looking and inclusive, encourages access to new resources, ideas or opportunities, and builds broader identities and reciprocity. Bridging promotes innovation and learning, facilities access to jobs, services, and power structures, and builds tolerance. There is also less emotional commitment to bridging than to bonding,
Both are vital. But bridging is where innovation sparks. Ask yourself if you are only reinforcing your circle, or are you reaching beyond it?
4. Practice the Six Degrees of Separation
You are no more than five connections away from virtually anyone. Engage intentionally with second- and third-degree contacts. Follow up on introductions. The world is more connected than you think—and opportunities often lie just one brave message away. Using your LinkedIn contacts to introduce you is a no brainer, along with your family and friends. You will be surprised who knows who.
I was at a conference when the new CEO of a local TAFE was announced that morning. They were from the other side of the country. It took two connections through someone in the room to find out more about this person.
5. Create a Collaboration Chart
A practical and underused tool: map your current relationships. Who’s in your business orbit? What strength of relationship do you have with them? The depth of relationship will be reflected in the line connecting your business with them (no line, no connection). Then look at who has connections with others. Develop a plan to start or strengthen relationships, using existing linkages to connect with new opportunities, if possible. Then repeat the mapping exercise six months later. You will be amazed.
Adding Community Development to Your Business Toolkit
Too often, business growth strategies focus on the transactional. But long-term resilience comes from relational depth and strategic collaboration. By integrating community development principles, you move from being just another participant in the marketplace to becoming a connector, a builder, a catalyst for change and growth.
The Community Entrepreneur
We are at the interface between business and community development, helping to put business principles into charities and community groups, and helping businesses better understand the social nuances of working with not-for-profits.
