2. Welcome
Agenda
Define and explore reciprocity
Introduce Ideal Reciprocity
Practical application in organizations
3. Goals
Understand how and why we engage in
reciprocal relationships and the purpose this
serves for us individually and collectively
Identify factors that influence reciprocity
Discuss the outcomes of reciprocity
Discover how reciprocity influences
fundraising, community organizing,
leadership, and advocacy
What are your goals?
4. Defining Reciprocity
“the practice of exchanging things with others for
mutual benefit” Oxford English Dictionary
“behaviour in which two people or groups of
people give each other help and advantages”
Cambridge Dictionary
“means of social exchange that uses economic
and/or symbolic currency to maintain social
equilibrium” (Dreistadt, 2012, p. 2)
“where altruistic and egotistical needs combine”
(Kets de Vries, 2011, p. 268)
5. Defining Reciprocity
What: resources, feelings
When: spontaneous or intentional
Who: individuals, groups, organizations,
communities, countries
Why:
Equilibrium (Leifer, 1988)
Social capital (Glanville & Bienenstock, 2009)
Meet needs: individual, interpersonal, communal
Social change (Dreistadt, 2012; Shuman, 2000)
6. “Every action has an equal
and opposite reaction”
Newton’s Third Law of Physics
8. Comparison
Newtonian Physics Karmic Yoga
Scientific Spiritual
Control Freedom
Transactional Transformational
Function Purpose
There is order to the universe
We can influence outcomes through our
actions
10. Political Science and Economics
Opportunities and choices influence
decisions (Binmore, 2004)
Game theory (Befu, 1977; Dubreuil, 2008;
Keysar, Converse, Wang, & Epley, 2008;
Leon, 2012)
14. Receiving
“One has to help people to be more
generous. By receiving from others, by
letting them help you, you really aid them to
become bigger, more generous, more
magnanimous. You do them a service.”
Henry Miller in The Diary of Anais Nin, vol. 3
16. Social Reciprocity
A+B=A+B+C
Zero Sum Positive Sum
Cynicism or Realism Idealism
Commensal symbiosis Mutual symbiosis
Paternalism or dependency Generative creativity
Individual or competitive Prosocial
Social maintenance Social change
Self-preservation or advancement Personal and communal
advancement
Hierarchical, dyadic, exchange, Egalitarian relationships, creative
expectations generation, becoming
17. Social Reciprocity
Communal social reciprocity
Self-understanding: collective or cosmos
Goal: Transcendence
Social norms and intentions externally
defined
Existential social reciprocity
Self-understanding: Intersubjective
Goal: Becoming
Social norms and intentions co-created
(Bianchin, 2003)
26. Summary
Reciprocity serves individual, relational, and
social functions
Reciprocity can be understood through the
lens of political science, economics,
neurology, psychology, sociology,
anthropology, and philosophy
Understanding reciprocity can help us be
more effective fundraisers, leaders,
organizers, and advocates
Reciprocity can have a generative impact