Joe Selvaggio

A building complex has been named in his honor. A play about him was performed at the Great American History Theatre. Logging tireless hours of volunteer work, Joe Selvaggio hobnobs with some of the wealthiest people, but lives in central Minneapolis. He stretches a hand toward either end of the continuum—his slogan for that is “In the Streets . . . In the Suites,” and he’s coauthored a book with that name.

Selvaggio is a former priest who left the clergy after his “peacenik” protests generated ire within religious ranks, and after he had fallen in love and wanted to marry. He’s best known for founding Project for Pride in Living, a thirty-three-year-old nonprofit empowering the disenfranchised to work toward betterment—a monster with nearly 900 volunteers who logged 32,000 hours in the last year. It offers not a handout, but a “hand up,” says Selvaggio, whose mantra is “Give me a fish, I eat for a day. Teach me to fish, and I eat for a lifetime.” The phrases are the bedrock of PPL, which he started as a volunteer. He was paid (though meagerly, by choice) to serve as executive director. Now he’s volunteering again.

“It’s psychic income,” he says. “It’s a good feeling, and a sense of obligation to make the world a better place. I get fun out of it. Some people can do dancing and art and get joy out of it, some people love business. I love social change and activism. I’m kind of crazy like Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but I have fun and laugh.”

Selvaggio also started The 1% Club, an organization with the mission of increasing philanthropy by getting people to annually commit to donating to charity 1 percent of their net worth or 5 percent of their annual income, whichever is greater. With more than 800 members, it’s estimated that The 1% Club has increased the cumulative total giving in the Twin Cities by more than $70 million.

“I’m much more realistic today than I once was,” he says of his seemingly boundless hope. “Sometimes if you say ‘screw hope’ it gives you energy too, like when you see the tsunami or Iraq. Maybe the world would blow itself up whether it was man-made or not. You just do the best you can. It seems that the human race is killing less people than they have throughout history. Maybe we’re getting better or maybe not. But we can make it better when we’re here.”