"Everything starts from a dot."

"Everything starts from a dot. "
- Wassily Kandinsky

Kandinsky, the famous early 20th century artist, believed in the spiritual power of his art. Even a single dot, he believed, has tremendous power. One dot, properly placed, can be the anchor point and beginning of a great work of art.

A single dot also has tremendous power to effect change on behalf of nonprofits. In the social network diagram at left, the single yellow dot represents one supporter of a nonprofit. Black dots are everyone he/she knows – family, friends, colleagues, neighbors. The closer the dots are to your supporter, the closer the relationship. And blue lines are the inter-relationships between your supporter and individuals in his/her social network.

The average individual personally knows a maximum of 150 people (although that number may be higher these days due to FaceBook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 social network sites). That's a lot of dots! Say your yellow dot (supporter) reaches out to his/her black dots (network) using an online social network fundraising site. And let's say merely 1 out of every 10 dots donate (actually, DonorPages averages an 11.7% conversion rate, nearly 4 times the average for nonprofit online conversion rates). Your single yellow dot can make your event or campaign results as valuable and impressive as one of Kandinsky's masterworks!

Now let's switch it up. Say the yellow dot is your nonprofit, and the black dots are supporters, donors, volunteers, board members and others in your database. When your black dots, – yellow dots in their own social networks – reach out to all their black dots, your results increase exponentially! Better yet, when supporter's black dots donate online, you get their contact info. So, they become your black dots as well!

Kandinsky was able to recognize the power of a single dot in his paintings. Hopefully, savvy development directors are connecting the dots as well!