So what's the Deal with the Incremental Development Alliance (IncDev)?

IncDev folks in a familiar setting, (a bar after one of Invest Atlanta’s Community Builder classes).

I have been getting a fair number of inquiries about recent changes at IncDev, so this is probably as good a time as any to put up a blog post on the topic. The Incremental Development Alliance was started back in 2015 as an educational nonprofit dedicated to teaching folks how to do small scale incremental development projects in their neighborhood. The expressed goal at the time was to cultivate 1,000 new developers who could do the modest scale projects their communities need.

Over the past 6 years, IncDev faculty, staff, and board members created and refined a curriculum for seminars and for two day boot camps. We traveled all over the US delivering the the workshops, seminars, and boot camps. In 2020 we ended travel and in person training and worked with folks in virtual session on Zoom.

Starting a non-profit while holding down a day job is tough. It certainly has been an adventure. A healthy organization has to be focused upon its mission and the people who do the work and guide the organization should support that mission. The founding members of IncDev, Gracen Johnson, Jim Kumon, Monte Anderson, and myself, have all moved on, one at at time to focus upon other work. I think that is a sign of a healthy nonprofit.

A national nonprofit doing important work should stay well clear of becoming a cult of personality. (That can be a challenge because everyone involved in the early days of IncDev has a pretty big personality and strong opinions).

The IncDev board will be selecting a new Executive Director soon. The pool of applicants was genuinely impressive. I think that either one of the two final candidates will do an excellent job leading the organization. (seriously).

As me, I need to stay close to home for a host of reasons. I am focusing on our local projects and helping to build a local small developer cohort here in the Atlanta Region. I think that there is plenty of room for improving the collaboration between small developers after they get some initial training. The Atlanta crew is serious about building a local support system which could be useful to folks in other parts of the country. I enjoy the teaching and coaching work and engaging at this local scale feels like the right thing.