The Leaderboard: How Rankings Work and How to Climb

The Golden Connects leaderboard ranks all members in your chapter by their Give Score — a cumulative credit total that reflects your history of giving activity on the platform.

Navigate to the leaderboard by clicking "View all →" on the dashboard sidebar, or by selecting "Leaderboard" from the left navigation.

The full leaderboard page shows every active chapter member ranked by credits, with their name, business, tier badge, credit total, and the number of Gives they have posted. The top three positions are highlighted with gold, silver, and bronze medals.

Your leaderboard rank is determined entirely by your Give Score credits. Credits accumulate through:

1. Posting active Gives — 10 credits each 2. Approving introduction requests — 15 credits each 3. Confirmed deal outcomes — additional credits per confirmed deal 4. Milestone bonuses — awarded automatically at specific achievement thresholds

And decline when:

1. You archive a Give — credit deduction on deactivation 2. Karma Coin balance is not relevant to Give Score — karma coins are tracked separately and do not affect your leaderboard rank directly

The most direct path to a higher ranking is a combination of consistent Gives and consistently approving introduction requests. Posting Gives without approving requests, or approving requests without posting Gives, is less efficient than doing both.

1. Post quality Gives consistently Each active Give earns you 10 credits. Three high-quality Gives posted this month means 30 credits before you have approved a single introduction. More importantly, quality Gives attract introduction requests — and approved requests are worth 15 credits each.

2. Respond to introduction requests promptly Every pending introduction request is 15 credits waiting for you to collect. Members who let requests sit unanswered for days or weeks are leaving credits on the table and frustrating the people who requested introductions.

3. Go for deal outcome confirmations When an introduction you made leads to a deal or a confirmed business outcome, mark it in the system. This earns additional credits and contributes to trophy badges. Deal outcomes require both parties to acknowledge the outcome — encourage the people you have introduced to report back when something comes of the connection.

4. Do not archive unnecessarily Archiving a Give reduces your credits. Review your Gives before archiving — if a Give is still valid, keep it active. Only archive when a Give is genuinely no longer facilitable.

The leaderboard is a reflection of sustained giving behaviour over time. New members start at the bottom, not because the system is biased against them, but because they have not yet had the time to accumulate credits.

Do not be discouraged by a low initial ranking. The members at the top of your chapter's leaderboard have typically been active for months or years. They got there by posting Gives regularly and approving introductions consistently — not by doing anything clever or unusual.

The most common reason members plateau in the middle of the leaderboard is inconsistency. They post a few Gives, approve a few requests, and then become inactive. Then they return, post a few more, and go quiet again. This pattern produces slow progress.

The members who climb fastest have a simple habit: they review their Gives once a month, post at least one new Give per quarter, and treat incoming introduction requests as a priority rather than an afterthought.

Beyond credits and tiers, a high leaderboard rank carries social weight in your chapter. Members who are consistently in the top five are perceived as the chapter's most generous and connected individuals. This perception is self-reinforcing:

• Other members are more likely to post Gives for high-ranking members
• Introduction requests made by top-ranked members get approved at higher rates
• Chapter admins and new members look to top-ranked members as examples
• Businesses that chapter members want to refer tend to go to the members they trust most — and trust is signalled, in part, by contribution history

Climb the leaderboard not to collect a badge, but because the behaviour required to climb — giving generously and following through on introductions — is what builds a genuinely valuable professional network.