| 2003 HILL FELLOW, JOSEPH K. SELVAGGIO
 The first Hill Fellow is activist, organizer, and advocate for the poor Joseph K. Selvaggio.
Born to an Italian-American family in 1937, Selvaggio grew up in an apartment above his dad's awning store on Chicago's Division Street. He graduated from Fenwick High School, majored in math at Marquette University, and then devoted himself to eight years of seminary training, eventually earning a B.A. in Philosophy from Aquinas University. He was ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Dominican Order in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1965.
As a priest, Selvaggio went to work in the civil rights movement. After making several stops in the South, he later landed at Holy Rosary Church in the Phillips Community, where he served as parish priest. Selvaggio left the priesthood in 1968 to apply the gospel more practically and directly to issues of peace and civil rights.
During those years, he also helped organize Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers. There also were a few more conventional positions as an IDS mutual fund salesman (in 1969) and as the founder of Advocate Services, Inc. (from 1970 to 1972).
Selvaggio founded Project for Pride in Living (PPL) in 1972. PPL's motto, "give me a fish and I eat for a day; teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime," expresses its - and Selvaggio's - commitment to the values of a strong work ethic, personal accountability and responsibility, and the participation of the disenfranchised in their own growth toward self-sufficiency. In his 26 years as executive director, Selvaggio was responsible for a $7.4 million annual budget for 13 programs, and completed a $4.5 million capital campaign in 1996. He retired in 1996.
More recently, Selvaggio founded the One Percent Club, Inc., a membership-based philanthropic organization based in the Twin Cities. The 350 members of means each pledge to give at least one percent of their net assets to charities annually. In 2000, he organized the first Give Back Day to encourage "everyday" philanthropy.
© Joseph K. Selvaggio photo by Rick Spaulding
To download a copy of the paper written by the 2003 Hill Fellow, click on the paper: "Philanthropists, Philanthropoids, and Philanthropests: How We Can Work Together for a Better Community". |
