The Space Between Us
There is a form of infrastructure in our network that doesn’t appear on a balance sheet.
It’s built when one SVP leader calls another who has already faced the same challenge. When an idea developed in one community travels across the network and is adapted — not replicated — in another. When a partner’s commitment deepens because of a relationship with a nonprofit or community leader. Or when someone can pick up the phone and ask for help because trust was built long before it was needed.
I’ve been reflecting on these moments and what they tell us about the value of being part of our network. I believe these connections are one of the best parts of belonging to SVP. And they are. But they are more than a benefit: Relationships are infrastructure.
Infrastructure creates pathways through which something valuable can move. Roads carry people and goods. Electrical grids deliver energy. Digital networks transmit information. Our relationships allow knowledge, trust, ideas, opportunity, resources, and action to flow. I think of this as relational infrastructure: the relationships and connective tissue that allow us to learn from one another, bridge differences, share what we know, and achieve together what would be harder to accomplish alone.
I witnessed the infrastructure of relationships last December in Goa, at the SVP India Partner & NGO Summit. In the days before it began, an unexpected wave of complications made it difficult for partners to gather. And yet more than 200 partners from eight cities made their way there. When one person got stuck, five others jumped in with new flight options, shared buses, and train routes. Partners shared meals while they waited and cheered each other on over WhatsApp as every flight boarded. The plans fell apart. The relationships didn’t. That is what relational infrastructure looks like when it’s tested.
The more I think about our future, the more convinced I am that this is one of our greatest assets as a network.
Our power does not come from making communities the same. It comes from connecting them.
Across nearly 30 SVP communities, we hold an extraordinary amount of experience, knowledge, relationships, and local wisdom. Each community is deeply rooted in its own place, challenges, and opportunities. When something learned in India informs work in the United States or Canada, when a CEO facing a difficult challenge can call someone who has already navigated it, or when a conversation at a Global Summit becomes a collaboration or friendship that continues years later, the value created in one part of our network begins to benefit another.
Scale doesn’t have to mean one solution replicated in more places. Networks offer something else: locally rooted people and organizations that become stronger because they are connected to one another. An insight can travel without becoming a prescription. A solution can be adapted without ignoring local context. And no one person has to possess all the knowledge, relationships, or answers, because we can draw on what exists across the network.
A network only becomes powerful when we use it.
Simply being connected does not create relational infrastructure. We build it when we reach out and ask for help, share what worked (and what didn’t), make an introduction without knowing exactly where it will lead, show up for one another, and remain curious about what someone in another community might have to teach us. Every one of those interactions strengthens the pathways between us and makes it easier for the next idea, resource, relationship, or opportunity to travel.
This is how a collection of organizations becomes a network. And it is why I believe some of SVP’s greatest potential doesn’t live within any single affiliate, program, leader, or country. It lives in the space between us.
We have already built some of the infrastructure that helps make those connections possible. Our Global Summit brings people together across communities and countries. Our virtual convenings create opportunities to learn from one another throughout the year. And our Resource Hub is making it easier for knowledge developed in one community to reach people well beyond those who created it. These are important pathways for connection — but they are not the finish line.
How do we deepen the space between us?
A stronger network is something we build together. Take a moment to ask yourself these questions: Where have relationships across the network made a difference for you? How could we make it easier to find one another, or help knowledge travel further?
Strengthening what happens between us is every bit as important as strengthening what happens within each of our communities. This is the infrastructure we are building together.
