BNI is the world's largest business organization, acting on the basis of mutual recommendation and referral. It has clubs in many countries. It was founded in 1985 by Dr. Ivan Misner, one of the world's best experts in the field of direct recommendation. While creating the BNI, Ivan Misner was a consultant. He advised companies to seek support in the area of strategic planning and organizational development. As an adviser he gained most of his contracts through recommendations and referral. Because at the time the existing networking groups didn’t fully satisfy him, he created his own solution endowed with a sound structure and was focused on generating orders and giving positive support to members.

Dr Ivan R. Misner

Below, we provide some additional information about the company:
Founder: Dr Ivan R. Misner (Claremont, California, USA)
Founded in 1985
Philosophy: Givers Gain – Giving strengthens
Mission: helping individuals in developing their companies by structured, positive and constructive marketing program based on recommendations and referrals
Unique feature: only one person from one business classification can belong to one chapter
Number of chapters: over 5588 (2009)
Membership: over 124,000 (2009)
Number of referrals : over 5.6 million (2008)
Number of chapters: over 5888 (2011)

Membership: over 132,000 (2011)

Total value of referrals: over 2.24 bn of dollars (2008)