Igniting Downtown

John Sedlar

Sparks founder Jason Jaggard is making risk-taking a cultural trend, in Downtown and beyond

By Jennifer Hadely

[With Sparks] you're not there to kick each others' asses. You're kicking your own ass

Jason Jaggard is out of his ever-loving mind, and I should know. I’ve interviewed loads of entrepreneurs over the years, and Jaggard is the first to tell me, “I am super grateful that my business didn’t take off immediately.”
We’re talking about Sparks, Jaggard’s brainchild which became a bona fide L.L.C. just last spring, but which originated in 2008 at Pepperdine University. Jaggard, a longtime resident of Koreatown was asked to speak to students at a conference about discovering their passion.  “I don’t know a lot about discovering your passion necessarily, but I know you don’t discover it by listening to someone speak about it,” he says. “The way that I define passion is not just something that gives you pleasure, but what you’re willing to suffer for.”

He invited students to meet with him for an experiment. “For the next four weeks we’re going to meet somewhere on campus, and every week we’re going to pick something that challenges us, that stretches us, that is uncomfortable.” Initially, ten people signed up, but as the first meeting approached, cancellations via text message began pouring in. Jaggard admits he was bummed but decided to host the group for those who didn’t cancel anyway. 

When he arrived at the dorm, he was met with a “ruckus” and feared he was competing with a party. Instead, he found that those who showed up had invited friends, and the dormitory room was jammed with twenty students. He asked them simply, “What’s one thing you can do this week to challenge yourself? What’s one risk you can take?” The foundation for Sparks was officially set, though it was simply called a “risk group” at the time.  

Over the next several years Jaggard would finesse his “risk groups,” defining their ethos as, “5 weeks. 4 risks. 1 question. What is one thing you can do this week to make yourself a better person or the world a better place?”

Sparks differs in several ways from standard idea-sharing forums, which take place on college campuses across the globe. First, the group is self led, meaning that it is run by its participants, as opposed to having a defined leader or instructor. Secondly, with Sparks, the only person you’re competing against, in a manner of speaking, is yourself. 

Each week, members of the group remind each other of what their individual risk was for the week, why it was a risk for them and whether or not they were successful in completing it. Each member then selects a new risk for the following week, and shares their intention with their peers.

Jaggard insists that even if a member doesn’t fulfill their risk for the week, there will be no condemnation from anyone in the group. If you succeed in completing your risk for the week, the group cheers for you. If you don’t complete your risk, the group still gives you encouragement. Guilt has no place in Sparks groups. Individuals set their own risk for the week, and are accountable only to themselves.

Soon enough, Sparks groups began springing up Downtown, Santa Monica and Hollywood, spread only by word of mouth. But why did this idea catch fire so quickly?  Why were so many people interested in being a part of a group?
“Sparks is not manipulative. It is a guilt free zone,” says Jaggard when I question him about Sparks’ similarity to the practice of having an accountability partner. “Accountability groups are a neat idea. But they almost never work. What does work is having people cheer for you. And the more you cheer for somebody, the more access you have to challenging them. But you have to earn it. Very few people have earned the right to challenge people. [With Sparks] you’re not there to kick each others’ asses. You’re kicking your own ass.”

And to be sure, Downtown L.A. has been the beneficiary of numerous people kicking their own asses. Jennifer Kenning, who participated in a Sparks group in January 2010, was motivated to launch a non-profit as her way of taking a risk to make the world a better place. She’d recently seen the movie The Blindside and was distraught over the fact that someone could go through life never having slept in a bed. She wanted to make a difference. Her first “spark” was to file the paperwork to form a non-profit organization to provide clean mattresses and bedding for the homeless. Week after week, her challenge for the week would include meeting with homeless shelters in Downtown and forming A Good Night’s Sleep (AGNS), a 501 (3) c corporation. In December, together with her partner, Josh Helland, 79 beds and bedding sets were delivered to the Los Angeles Downtown Women’s Center. Twenty-five double mattresses were delivered to People Assisting The Homeless (PATH).    

Jaggard is quick to point out that he doesn’t deserve credit for the donation to Downtown. But Kenning sees it differently. In the inaugural issue of the Sparks Zine she writes, “There are a lot of good ideas in the world. Sparks creates a platform for you to accomplish them, one step at a time.”

Children throughout Downtown Los Angeles have also become recipients of the good that is being born from Sparks groups. When Mosaic, a non-denominational spiritual community that meets at the Mayan nightclub on Sunday evenings, decided to open Sparks to its gatherers, more than 500 people took part in the groups. Anthony and Mandy Inchaustegui decided to make Sparks a family event, and asked their five-year-old son Xander how he’d like to make the world a better place. It was near the start of the school year and Xander wanted to collect book bags and school supplies for children who needed them. His goal was to collect 100 book bags to donate to charity. Within three weeks, the family—working together with Mosaic—was able to deliver 156 backpacks with school supplies to School on Wheels in Downtown.

Jaggard, however, notes that Sparks wasn’t designed to focus on charitable work. In fact, when he formalized his company in the spring of 2010, it was created as a for-profit. His vision was to take the concept to businesses, universities and churches, and, frankly, to sell it. He set up meetings with prestigious universities, businesses and mega churches. They expressed interest, and...it all fell through. What’s more, he’d already quit his full-time job to focus exclusively on Sparks. 

It was less than six months after launching the company as an L.L.C. that Jaggard took stock of the situation and realized something that would ultimately change the structure of Sparks. “I asked myself: ‘Are you doing this to help people, or are you doing this to make money?’” It was then that he realized that he wanted to help people who couldn’t afford to pay for it. This realization brought him Downtown once again, although he was now living on the Westside. 

“There are two sides of urban living. There are up and coming entrepreneurial people who are going to be running the country in ten years, they are just too young to be doing it now. That’s why Sparks works so well. No matter how fast you’re running, you can always run faster. Whether you’re making six or seven figures, there are still ideas that you need help pulling the trigger on.

“On the flip side, there are the people who are victims of systemic disadvantages. That’s another reason Sparks works so well. Sparks is inherently non-victim oriented. It is very empowering. Everyone wants to be empowered, both groups.”

To that end, Jaggard decided he wanted to take Sparks to those who were systemically disadvantaged. These people fell into three groups: the homeless, inner city kids and the elderly.  In September of 2010, having previously served on a committee at the Bresee Foundation (an after school program that works to keep inner city kids out of gangs) Jaggard set up a meeting to discuss launching a Sparks group. By October, the group was in full swing with fifteen teens participating in the group. The result was phenomenal, and another Sparks session is slated tentatively for March. 

Jaggard next approached PATH with the idea for hosting three Sparks groups for families, for women and for men. The groups ran from November into December. The result was the same. People living in the shelter came away from the groups feeling inspired and empowered to challenge themselves. The experience was rewarding, so much so that Jaggard is now grateful that his company didn’t take off as a for-profit from the get-go. “This allowed me to do something that matters to me.”

And it’s something he plans to continue doing. “It’s weird being a for profit company that is essentially offering a social service, so we’re now in conversation of creating a non-profit to subsidize that, which would pay for Sparks at places like Bresee, PATH and nursing homes.”

As for the future of Sparks, Jaggard has a lot on his plate. Over the next few months he hopes to launch a Sparks group at Miguel Contreras Learning Center. Conversations that had fallen through last year have been reignited. He’ll also be flying to Canada, Colorado and Indiana to pitch Sparks to various organizations.

But for now he’s just happy with the fact that Sparks is spreading by word of mouth and has already reached across the nation and as far afield as China, Australia and Ireland.  “My dream is to make personal responsibility and healthy risk taking a cultural trend,” he says. I suppose that doesn’t sound all that crazy after all.

 

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