7 - Networking Principles and Practices

Summary

To understand is, as ever, to put choice in place of chance.

Charles Handy, Understanding voluntary organisations, 1988, p 113

Networking involves the creation, maintenance and use of links and relationships between individuals and/or organisations. Networking itself is a neutral tool: it can be used for a variety of purposes – selfish, political, altruistic – or simply to get things done. Networking for community development is obviously influenced by key values around equality, empowerment and participation. It may also seem a popular, albeit mildly manipulative, means of gaining personal and political advancement.

The evidence used in this and the following chapters was mainly gathered from my doctoral research, which included a case study of the coordination of the Bristol Festival Against Racism (Gilchrist, 1994) and a Panel Study involving 11 community workers. Over a two-year period in the later 1990s they were asked about their involvement in networks and encouraged to reflect on their own experience. In particular, the enquiry aimed to unpack the principles and processes of networking to examine how this contributed to their work and what made them ‘good’ networkers. The initials after each quote refer to the panellists, all of whom were happy to have their identity revealed in the acknowledgements. (For details of research methodology, see Gilchrist, 2001.) This evidence is supplemented in this edition with observations and insights from my own practice and more recent research in this field, notably projects investigating the habits, profiles and practices of ‘change-makers’ (Social Change Project, 2018) and smart urban intermediaries (Durose et al, 2016; www.smart-urbanintermediaries. com).

Networking is something that most people do in their everyday lives, mostly without consciously thinking about their behaviour or motives. It encompasses the processes of developing and nurturing links with a selection of people through work, volunteering and in the course of neighbourly, social or leisure activities. Since this book is about community development, it is not primarily concerned with the relationships that constitute our family and friendship networks, although of course there is some overlap. The focus, rather, is on connections with colleagues, neighbours and the people we know through a variety of activities and whom we regard as members of our different communities.