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How to Create a Community

Posted in: Community, Culture- Jun 14, 2009 10 Comments

The gift is to the giver… it can­not fail. –Walt Whitman

Lewis Hyde’s book The Gift has taught me a lot; for one thing, it explains how gifts are the cur­rency of com­mu­nity. The les­son: if you want to make some­one a part of your com­mu­nity, be gen­er­ous to them. If they accept your kind­ness (and espe­cially if they are gen­er­ous in return) they are sig­nalling to you that they want to be in your group as well. In this way gift-giving binds us together. We become increas­ingly in each oth­ers’ debt. 

Early Euro­pean set­tlers to Pacific North Amer­ica noticed a lot of the native peo­ple apply­ing this idea through rituals:

When some­one in one of these tribes was mis­tak­enly insulted, his response, rather than turn­ing to a libel lawyer, was to give a gift to the man who had insulted him; if indeed the insult was mis­taken, the man would make a return gift, adding a lit­tle extra to demon­strate his good will, a sequence that has the same struc­ture (back and forth with increase) as the pot­latch itself. When a gift passes from hand to hand in this spirit, it becomes the binder of many wills (Page 36).

Hyde explains that this kind of response would do far more than make for a healthy, happy com­mu­nity, it would cre­ate a spir­i­tus mundi (a unan­i­mous heart) within the tribe. They were show­ing that they con­sid­ered their strength to be in each other, rather than in their own mate­r­ial gain.

Apply­ing this idea

We all like to feel we have strong, sup­port­ive rela­tion­ships. But how, in these rushed times, with friends

around the world and so many demands on our time, can we apply this kind of wis­dom? Here are a few ideas you can try:

  1. Say it with art. We all appre­ci­ate get­ting a hand­made card with a poem in it. Any kind of artistry forces us to be con­sid­er­ate and orig­i­nal and peo­ple always love it when you make that kind of effort –whether you’re a nat­ural artist or not. It’s a bit like try­ing to speak to a local in their own lan­guage –they’ll love you for trying.
  2. Don’t let them pay. The Gift tells a story of a daugher in Min­nesapo­lis who agreed to donate a life-saving kid­ney to her mother, but only if her mother would buy her an expen­sive fur coat. The mom felt betrayed and held-hostage. The daugh­ter saw the gift as a trans­ac­tion, so traded what could have been a stronger bond with her mother, for a coat.
  3. Just as with birth­day presents, it’s not so much what is given, but the mean­ing behind it that mat­ters most. So…
  4. Say some­thing sappy. Don’t just give a present and leave it at that. Say some­thing nice to add mean­ing to the gift, to let them know WHY you’re giv­ing it.
  5. Be on the look-out. Do you have a coworker who stops by your desk every day just to say hi?  If you look for the signs, you might be sur­prised to find that a lot of peo­ple around you are try­ing to cre­ate bonds with you as well.
  6. And finally (the most obvi­ous of all) look for ways to give your time.

Want more?

If this inter­ests you, you might enjoy reading:

  • Guy Kowasaki’s The Art of Cre­at­ing a Com­mu­nity (a blog post) offers some prac­ti­cal advice for using tech­nol­ogy and ideas to grow a com­mu­nity. Or,
  • Seth Godin’s book on “Tribes,” which totally applies here. In fact, one of the rea­sons I’m writ­ing this blog (besides try­ing to give some­thing mean­ing­ful to the peo­ple I care about: a gift :-) is because I want to cre­ate a group of peo­ple who col­lab­o­rate to help each other improve their qual­ity of life. I want to develop a strong Qual­ity of Life Tribe. I want to belong to a group of peo­ple who gen­er­ously sup­port each other in their efforts to improve their qual­i­tuy of life. Here are some tips on devel­op­ing a tribe.
  • A great new post from Liz Strauss The Only Way to Attract a Vibrant, High-Trust Com­mu­nity online. An online com­mu­nity isn’t built or befriended, it’s con­nected by offer­ing and accept­ing. Com­mu­nity is affin­ity, iden­tity, and kin­ship that make room for ideas, thoughts, and solutions.

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  • http://www.missional.ca/ Jamie Arpin-Ricci

    Excel­lent post. This has been a crit­i­cal dynamic in the inner city neigh­bour­hood we live in. Gen­eros­ity is a pow­er­ful expres­sion, espe­cially among the poor.

    As an inter­est­ing side note, in Green­land, instead of the birth­day cel­e­brant receiv­ing gifts, they give them to their guests. As a result, gift-giving & receiv­ing is a sig­nif­i­cant part of the daily culture.

    Peace,
    Jamie

  • http://twitter.com/Bibliopet Bib­liopet

    I love this post, thank you Tim. I also love what Deepak Chopra has to say about a gift not being a gift at all if given with an expec­ta­tion of some kind of return. Also, Napoleon Hill talks a lot about giv­ing to peo­ple what you would like to receive, but puts the notion in a more inter­est­ing way than I just did!
    Love,
    Peta

  • danielchris­ta­doss

    Tim,
    Your arti­cle touched me. I agree it is won­der­ful to be able to give. Giv­ing gives the giver hap­pi­ness and joy.
    We meet so many peo­ple dur­ing our day to day exchange. It doe not take much to have a gen­uine appre­ci­a­tion for oth­ers and give in the form of gifts, appre­ci­a­tion and even a gen­uine smile.
    I will con­tinue to read the inter­est­ing blogs you have.
    Take care
    Daniel

  • danielchris­ta­doss

    Tim,
    Your arti­cle touched me. I agree it is won­der­ful to be able to give. Giv­ing gives the giver hap­pi­ness and joy.
    We meet so many peo­ple dur­ing our day to day exchange. It doe not take much to have a gen­uine appre­ci­a­tion for oth­ers and give in the form of gifts, appre­ci­a­tion and even a gen­uine smile.
    I will con­tinue to read the inter­est­ing blogs you have.
    Take care
    Daniel

  • http://www.timwoods.org tim­woods

    Thank you!

    That’s inter­est­ing, that Deepak Chopra say­ing you men­tioned. Some­times I wish, dur­ing Christ­mas time, that we could avoid the whole gift-giving rou­tine –because it so often seems (or feels) more of an oblig­a­tion than a gen­uine show of gen­eros­ity. That’s what con­vinced me to do Kiva gift cer­tifi­cates at Christ­mas time, so peo­ple know I’m think­ing of them, but the gift goes to some­one who really needs it. Then, dur­ing the year, if I find some­thing that’s per­fect for the per­son I can give them that as well.

    I haven’t found the Napoleon Hill quote you men­tion, but I found another good one on his web­site, that relates:

    “Give to those whom you love; give to those who love you; give to the for­tu­nate; give to the unfor­tu­nate; yes—give espe­cially to those to whom you don’t want to give.

    Your most pre­cious, val­ued pos­ses­sions and your great­est pow­ers are invis­i­ble and intan­gi­ble. No one can take them. You, and you alone, can give them. You will receive abun­dance for your giv­ing. The more you give—the more you will have!” (W. Clement Stone)

  • http://www.timwoods.org tim­woods

    Thank you for say­ing that. I agree com­pletely. This idea has really trans­formed how I think about things, in ways you wouldn’t expect. If some­one, on the other hand, doesn’t smile at me I think, “Okay, that’s fine. That guy has just let me know he’s not inter­ested in being part of my com­mu­nity.” I just go on and look for peo­ple who are more will­ing to con­nect. It’s hard to explain, but think­ing this way has made me feel less rejected when peo­ple don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate. Also some­times I’m not that inter­ested in being in other people’s com­mu­nity, so I fig­ure there’s no point send­ing them the wrong mes­sage. :-)

  • http://www.timwoods.org/ Tim Woods

    Thank you!

    That’s inter­est­ing, that Deepak Chopra say­ing you men­tioned. Some­times I wish, dur­ing Christ­mas time, that we could avoid the whole gift-giving rou­tine –because it so often seems (or feels) more of an oblig­a­tion than a gen­uine show of gen­eros­ity. That’s what con­vinced me to do Kiva gift cer­tifi­cates at Christ­mas time, so peo­ple know I’m think­ing of them, but the gift goes to some­one who really needs it. Then, dur­ing the year, if I find some­thing that’s per­fect for the per­son I can give them that as well.

    I haven’t found the Napoleon Hill quote you men­tion, but I found another good one on his web­site, that relates:

    “Give to those whom you love; give to those who love you; give to the for­tu­nate; give to the unfor­tu­nate; yes—give espe­cially to those to whom you don’t want to give.

    Your most pre­cious, val­ued pos­ses­sions and your great­est pow­ers are invis­i­ble and intan­gi­ble. No one can take them. You, and you alone, can give them. You will receive abun­dance for your giv­ing. The more you give—the more you will have!” (W. Clement Stone)

  • http://www.timwoods.org/ Tim Woods

    Thank you for say­ing that. I agree com­pletely. This idea has really trans­formed how I think about things, in ways you wouldn’t expect. If some­one, on the other hand, doesn’t smile at me I think, “Okay, that’s fine. That guy has just let me know he’s not inter­ested in being part of my com­mu­nity.” I just go on and look for peo­ple who are more will­ing to con­nect. It’s hard to explain, but think­ing this way has made me feel less rejected when peo­ple don’t rec­i­p­ro­cate. Also some­times I’m not that inter­ested in being in other people’s com­mu­nity, so I fig­ure there’s no point send­ing them the wrong mes­sage. :-)

  • http://www.register-domainname.in Domain reg­is­tra­tion

    I feel that, say it with art and don’t let them pay are the best idea which you pro­vided. You described very well. Nice article.

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