Community
The Local Voluntary Association values real community. Relationships based on trust lead to free markets and voluntary exchange. We hold events regularly and everyone is encouraged to participate, make new friends and foster new relationships.
Creativity
There are a lot of problems that we face which can be solved using the power of creativity. We aim to foster the use of creativity when building relationships and solving problems together.
Economy
The local economy is the heart of the community. People are always in need of the products, skills and talents of others, and their skills and talents are needed by others in the community. By bringing people together with all different talents, tools, skill sets, backgrounds and so on, the local economy can thrive. We seek to build a local economy that is as free as possible from influence of non-local economies and governments, so that if the local economy is ever isolated from the extra-local economy, or if our governments fail us, the Local Voluntary community can still survive and flourish. And we seek to facilitate this in as many local economies as possible.
Agorism
Agorism is a form of economy which strives to free itself from the dependence on parasitic corporations and regulatory and confiscatory bureaucracy of governments. All exchanges are completely voluntary and there is no regulation. While this presents certain risks, it also provides many benefits. We seek to educate the community on both the risks and benefits so that people can make sound decisions when participating in the emerging free marketplace.
Charity
Caring for those in need is something we should do because it is honorable and compassionate. A cornerstone of our association is to be able to have ways to provide and care for the greater community as a whole, even if they do not participate in the emerging local voluntary economy.
Awareness
Members of The Local Voluntary make a personal commitment to themselves – to be on a path of obtaining increased awareness and increasing their understanding of objective truth – for, because it is only with awareness of the important events around us that we can take properly considered action. Some of us like to share important articles that we find or even write articles ourselves. Members of the Local Voluntary may submit news and blog posts to share their thoughts with the public and also the Local Voluntary community at large, simply by joining and requesting authorship status. We are very much looking for new writers all over the country who want to get their voices heard.
Activism
Building relationships locally that lead to voluntary exchange in a free marketplace is just one way we are working to change a broken world. We hold regular meetings whose purposes are to identify other societal problems and brainstorm on practical solutions to those problems. There are a lot of problems that, when we put our minds together, we can actually solve! Contrary to popular belief, it is not hopeless! Creative problem solving combined with inspired action is capable of changing the world. And we do it every day.