People assume an invitation to a private dinner is about status. Title, company, net worth. It is not, at least not for the rooms I run.

The community I built, Open Future Forum, is based on a simple idea from Adam Grant’s book Give and Take: the people who give the most to a room create more value over time than the people who take from it. So the question I ask before inviting anyone is not how senior they are. It is whether they make the room better.

I watch for it at our open events. Who asks the sharp question without turning it into a pitch. Who makes an introduction for someone else without being asked. Who stays after to help a founder they just met. Those are the people who get the quiet note a few weeks later.

The opposite is just as easy to spot. The person working the room collecting cards. The one who only speaks when it helps them. They are not bad people. They are takers, and one taker changes how everyone else behaves.

This is why our open gatherings and our private dinners are connected. The events are where I meet people. The dinners are where the givers end up. If you want to be considered for the private room, the most reliable path is to show up to an open one and behave like someone who already belongs.

You can read how that works on the Forum Select page, or come to a Forum Event and see for yourself.

Murray Newlands is the founder of Open Future Forum, a Silicon Valley executive community, and a Partner at IA Seed Ventures.