A New Trend of Community-Led Development inspired by The Joyful Activist.

Francis DellaVecchia is an activist, organizer, and movement maker responsible for creating “The Joyful Activist” and championing a new approach to community-led development. 

His unique approach inspired the founders of thrdPlace.com to build a solution to help non-profits, for-profits, and citizens to join together to drive community improvement projects across the country.

ThrdPlace sat down with Francis to learn how the Joyful Activist movement started and how his model changes the way good works get done.

Tell us about the Joyful Activist and how it got it start?

The Joyful Activist is a local movement of civically engaged citizens who enjoy getting together to drive real-deal grassroots change here in Los Angeles.   Joyful Activist was born out of my campaign for Mayor of Los Angeles in 2000 where we created a campaign trying to understand from the ground up what needed to change. We spoke to bus drivers about how to improve the bus system, we talked to cops on the beat, and firefighters, people who worked in city hall, as well as teachers, you name it.  While I didn’t become mayor, I did build a solid group of volunteers and backers who found a new way to get civically engaged.  Out of that grew The Joyful Activist.

In it’s earliest manifestation, The Joyful Activist was just an email list.  People would send in ideas and actions where the group could come together to help out, get engaged, and do some good. The dynamics of Joyful Activist started to evolve three years ago when Whole Foods approached me here in Venice and said, “We really want to get involved with the community.  What do you think we can we do, how can we partner?”

We came up with a very simple plan where community groups could come to us with a very specific project that they want to accomplish in one day.  If we think it’s a good fit, we’ll show up with all the volunteers necessary to pull off larger projects that community organizations couldn’t normally have done on their own. We’ve done projects anywhere from 20 – 100 volunteers, and it’s been very successful. That’s how we’ve gotten to where we are today.

Share a real world example of a Joyful Activist Project?

The Joyful Activist was recently approached by the Venice Boys and Girls Club to help them build a community garden and paint a mural in an unused space at the center.  With support from the community and Whole Foods, and mainly the work of the Boys and Girls Club, we had supplies donated: soil, planters, shovels, paint – everything we needed.  30 members of The Joyful Activist showed up to pull it off and we finished the entire build in half a day.

What is it about Joyful Activist that makes it work?

It’s very easy for me to lead a live action with 20, 50, 100 people because it’s energizing to be around all those other people behind a common purpose.  An individual can walk down the beach past all kinds of trash and not pick it up because they don’t want to be the only sucker cleaning up the beach.  But if they are one of fifty people, and everyone’s picking something up, they can see real impact and they want to get involved and be a part of something.  I’ve seen times when people who have nothing to do with a beach clean, suddenly want to help out.

How does Joyful activist change the way community organizations think about their mission?

If you are a non-profit, really by definition in the U.S., you are underfunded and understaffed.  You never have enough time, money, energy, and volunteers.  So right now community organizers must balance what is real and what is possible with limited resources against their grander vision.  Many of these same organizers are thinking – “Wow if someone could just help me my grander vision, I could pull it off”.

I think that is what The Joyful Activist is geared up to do and on a broader scale that is what thrdPlace does. We help the larger vision come into place by giving organizer the tools and support they need to pull it off.  There is a way to get more volunteers, to get more supplies, to get money in, to find tools,  any of the above.

The Joyful Activist was a major influence in the creation of thrdPlace.com.  How do you see the spirit of Joyful Activist translated to thrdPlace?

thrdPlace takes the model that’s worked for Joyful Activist to a much larger scale.  Take the Venice Boys and Girls Club project for example. I knew where to find the muralist, and the supplies, and the volunteers. thrdPlace put together the technology platform so that there are a bunch of me’s running around. It takes what I do (basically knowing everybody and making phone calls to pull it all together) and scales it out.

So now you don’t have to find me to make your project happen, you can make it happen.  It’s going to find you – who is the muralist in your crowd, who can come up with the supplies, who can come up with the money, who is gong to bring the volunteers?

Who are the players in community-led development? Who do you see getting involved?

For your normal everyday citizen it can be anyone who has the notion of a project but doesn’t know if he or she could pull it off.  Anyone with the inkling that something should be better in his or her community, something that can be improved or built.

For community organizations that want to go beyond their materials and small cadre of volunteers, thrdPlace allows them to go out in a much bigger risk free way. They can reach for a project that requires more funds, more volunteers, more time.

On an organizational level, I think it really starts to become fun is when you’ve got 10, 20, 50, 100 locations across the region or country.  These organizations can start thinking about how they can coordinate their efforts and use the power of thrdPlace across the internet to attract national brand partners who can provide support in all locations.

Any last words?

I fully believe that the a key to large-scale evolution in our society is overcoming the feeling of isolation that people have.  Trust that you are not the only one with great ideas and the will to bring them into reality.  The more you act, the more you act, and the sooner you can do it, the better off we all shall be.

For more information contact:
Woody Moore
Sherwood@thrdplace.com