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Changemakers
Hi, my name is Gavin Ty. I'm the founder and CEO of Six Eyes. We're building the Changemakers podcast to try to bring to light some of the great work community leaders are doing out in the world. It seems like we are more lonely than ever. And what my goal is of this podcast is to bring to light some of the great work that communities are doing or businesses or charities are doing out there in the world and maybe make them a bit more visible to help others connect or get inspiration to have an impact in their community.
Gavin Tye:This first guest is Nic Marchesi. He is one of the founders of orange sky and arguably his journey that he's taking the business on has been amazing. It started out as just a laundry service for the homeless, but it's turned into so much more, way more than he could have ever, ever have hoped for. And I hope that comes through in the interview. So thank you for listening.
Gavin Tye:And if I could ask you to please do one thing is potentially give it a rating on wherever you're listening and also share it with your network and if we can help strengthen our community and do our part for tackling loneliness. Thank you very much. Nic Marchesi, welcome to the Changemakers podcast.
Nic Marchesi:Thanks for having us.
Gavin Tye:Boots on the ground tackling loneliness in Australia and New Zealand. So from behalf of everyone, thank you. But I've got some interesting stats about it. Like one in three Australians experienced loneliness at some points of their lives. And it's estimated loneliness costs an estimated $2,700,000,000 annually with increased health service, services and lost productivity.
Gavin Tye:I'm sure you're seeing that firsthand.
Nic Marchesi:Absolutely. You know, when we started up Orange Sky in 2014, we we wanted to do one thing, which was simply provide free laundry to people experiencing homelessness or hardship. And once we got the van to actually work, what we realized is that Orange Sky wasn't really about a technical challenge of getting washing machines to work and providing laundry. It was actually a people opportunity to bring people together because what we realized after we put the washing in the machine is that we had nothing to do except sit down and have a chat. And those conversations reminded us that there are people in our own backyard that were continually ignored, lonely, isolated, and disconnected from the community.
Nic Marchesi:So Orange Sky's mission when we started was to improve hygiene standards. But after about a month, we rewrote that mission to positively connecting communities. And what we believe is that as communities, you know, we get sick alone and we heal together, and an opportunity for all of us to come together and connect is vital to human life.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. And I feel like even today, like with the rise of AI, not just homelessness, but everyone is it's easy to become disconnected.
Nic Marchesi:Absolutely. You know? And specifically in an orange sky lens, one in two hundred people are out there in the community who are homeless and disconnected. And though what we also have realized is that the orange the whole orange sky community isn't immune to to loneliness and and isolation. Orange Sky now has over four and a half thousand volunteers out each and every week.
Nic Marchesi:And those volunteers too experience loneliness and isolation, and a big part of their week is going out and volunteering in the community. So, you know, we have volunteers. I was out on shift in Sydney on Sunday, and we had a volunteer who lost their partner over twenty years ago and lost their son a fortnight ago, but was back out on shift. And I sort of said to, you know, this lady, I said, why why are you volunteering when you're going through such difficult time? And she said, you know, what else would I be doing?
Nic Marchesi:I'd be home alone and, you know, probably crying on the couch. And so it was a reminder that, you know, for her, those other volunteers and those friends that she experiences, or gets to connect with on shift are a massive part of her life, and it's the same with our donors. You know, we have, everyone from school kids, to big corporates, to philanthropists funding Orange Sky. And, you know, one of one of the stories I always think about with the supporters of Orange Sky is that only quite recently, you know, twelve years into our operation have we launched a service in Mount Isa in Queensland. But probably for the last ten years, we've had a donor giving us a dollar a week from her pension up in Mount Isa.
Nic Marchesi:And that dollar is quite insignificant in the totality of our Inge Sky's finances, but it's incredibly significant that there's somewhere out someone out there who wants to give us a dollar a week to be a part of this Orange Sky community. Yeah.
Gavin Tye:Sounds like there's always unintended consequences that come out from just a simple idea and it's permeated out into so much more that you could never have imagined back in the day.
Nic Marchesi:That's right. And, you know, I think that, Orange Sky has been out to grow and evolve and be shaped into this beautiful tree that, you know, now has got so many bands and volunteers and friends that trust us. But if we actually think about Orange Sky, all we did is we got a washing machine that had been around for a long period of time, a van that had been around for a long period of time. We put them together, and we took them to people who, as like all of us, should have access to really basic human rights of of cleanliness and and hygiene. But if we actually look at, you know, the arc of laundry is that laundry used to be something that was incredibly communal.
Nic Marchesi:People used to go down to streams or baths and and wash clothes, and we used to hang out. And, you know, this amazing invention being the automatic washing machine, created, freedom for some people, in particular women that were washing clothes that was back breaking work and it was their key job. And so, you know, the washing machine enabled people not have to spend hours washing dry clothes. But now we've got these, you know, very expensive, quite unreliable gadgets that sit in our things, and we don't even, you know, see our own undies, let alone our neighbors' undies. And so, you know, as has, you know, the power of something like a mobile phone or a computer, has some really amazing opportunities to make us more efficient or more productive and, you know, not have to mean that we're spending hours washing clothes.
Nic Marchesi:It also has that unintended consequence where, you know, we might not go and see our neighbor down at the stream and wash clothes together. And I think that's a really beautiful thing at Orange Sky's Summit is we've sort of created a communal opportunity for people to come together and hang out while they're washing stuff.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. It's such a, taken for granted thing in our lives. Like I was high when I was when I was younger, we were homeless for a period of time and just having dirty clothes is just a, it was terrible. So it's one of the, you know, dignified dignity is gives people back dignity is what I'm trying to say, would imagine.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. For sure. And, like, you know, what we, have learnt about homelessness, you know, growing up in Brisbane is that my stereotype of homelessness was predominantly a male, middle aged, sleeping in a park, and struggling with an addiction. But homelessness is in Australia, there's over a 100,000 people. They experience homelessness or hardship, and only six percent of that population is sleeping rough.
Nic Marchesi:A lot of people potentially were in your situation where you're in transit or transition, housing affordability, or housing access or struggling with housing access. And so, you know, the the hope for homelessness in the future is that it's rare, brief, and nonrecurring. And so, you know, Orange Sky now operates in schools and in drop in centres and motels where, you know, potentially parents who are living in their car with their kids might be working one or two jobs and they come and access our our service. And that's the, you know, real reminder is that there are people in our own backyard who we may not even, generalize or judge to be experiencing hardship, but they are. And I think it's a real opportunity that, you know, I'm always interested in that question where people are talking about, like, tell us the impact of having clean clothes.
Nic Marchesi:And it's like, well, everyone really knows the importance of having clean clothes, and most people have had, access or been subjected to that at some part of their life, but then, through circumstance, most likely not of their own doing, that access has taken away.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. It's like a broken toe, right, don't think about it till you don't till you have a broken toe and then it's horrendous. Yeah.
Nic Marchesi:So,
Gavin Tye:speaking of schools, we've got a Yama work experience, student with us today, Mitch. Mitchell, how are you?
Nic Marchesi:I'm good. Thank you.
Gavin Tye:It's your first podcast I'm going to guess. Yeah. And so Mitchell's part of the orange sky community where you're giving back as well. So Mitchell's coming down and you come and look at the vans and stuff like that.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah, definitely. I'm very excited to see all of it.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. And you're learning what you want to learn about the engineering side?
Nic Marchesi:Particularly the engineering side, mainly automotive, just to see how it's all made.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Well, that's interesting. What a great experience to be here as well. Mate, so orange guide, take us back. 2014, you've got over, I was sort on a board down at 87 services around the country in Australia and New Zealand.
Gavin Tye:You did have orange chairs, but there's a funny story with that. Yeah. Give us a give us a snapshot for the people who don't know too much about Orange Sky, which I find that hard to believe. But
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. So, at Boiney, back even prior to 2014, Lucas and I went to school together and it's actually the same school that Mitch is at at the moment. And so that school had a food van that went out and provided mainly food to the community. And I remember, like, being in grade eight or nine and my dad being down in Sydney for work and my brother being at swimming training and mom sort of saying, hey. We have to go on this school food van.
Nic Marchesi:At that point in time, like, I didn't wanna wake up. I didn't wanna go to school. I definitely didn't wanna go out and help anyone. I definitely didn't really wanna hang out with random people in the morning. And I sort of reluctantly got in the car that morning and went out, to that school food van.
Nic Marchesi:And that morning really changed my life in realizing that there were people out there in my own backyard that didn't have access to things that I'd taken for granted my whole life. Things like a roof over my head, a place safe place to sleep, a place to to wash my clothes. And I met a guy by the name of Harry that morning that still comes out on our interest card services. And I remember sitting in class that day and thinking about Harry and how different his life was, but how also similar his life was in being simpler to my uncle or my my granddad. So, you know, Lucas and I were lucky enough to be leaders in high school.
Nic Marchesi:Lucas was at the top of the class. I was pretty close to the bottom of the class. And, we really enjoyed sort of this opportunity of giving back to the community. I went into what I thought was my dream job, and Lucas went in studying full time and, did a bit of a gap year skiing overseas. And Lucas came back from that gap year.
Nic Marchesi:We both had some free time, and we spoke about this idea of creating something that would just run on weekends to go out and and help people. And at that point in time, I was running a DJ hire, speaker hire business on the weekends out of this old van.
Gavin Tye:Is that your dream job?
Nic Marchesi:No. My dream job was getting paid to go to parties maybe. But this this, we had this van and we're like, why don't we just empty the van out during the week when it's, you know, not getting rented out and put washing machines in and go out and help people? You know, we found this company in Brisbane here that had really serious washing machines. We walked into their boardroom.
Nic Marchesi:We told them our dream. You know, we said we wanna build free mobile laundry. They said, no. Wanna wash and dry their clothes in a park, and you'll never get washing machines to work in a bathroom van. But for whatever reason, their managing director believed in this crazy idea.
Nic Marchesi:So a few weeks later, we drove the van out. We thought they were building us this mobile laundromat. They didn't wanna borrow, but they were like, take these machines. Like, go and solve this problem yourself. We, in my parents' garage, you know, built the first van over a few weekends and took it out alongside our old school food van.
Nic Marchesi:And Mhmm. You know, first morning, we set up the van. There's a tool we can buy from Bunnings that lets you steal water from the council. Now we had this massive generator we'd rented from Kennards, and we're ready to go. And it was my job to go find some washing, and I worked this guy up sleeping in a tent.
Nic Marchesi:And I said, you know, hey. I know this sounds really weird, but there's that van over there that can wash and dry your clothes. And a few minutes later, he came over with potentially the only his only possessions in his life. Yep. We put that washing in the machine, and we heard this massive bang.
Nic Marchesi:I'm like, fuck. I don't know if washing machine's meant to make that sound. Well, let's call out the washing machine and company and ask, and we called up the big boss, this angry technician by the name of Dan, and he was like, you've broken both machines. So we apologized to this guy. His name was Jordan.
Nic Marchesi:We went back. We swapped some other things around. We went back the next morning. Jordan was there waiting for us. We put Jordan's washing machine, and there was another massive bang.
Nic Marchesi:And we've broken both machines again. But what we realized that morning is that here is a person at potentially the toughest time of their life who was gonna trust these two idiots to potentially help him, and we felt a responsibility and a conviction to make it work. So we went back to the drawing board. We, you know, weren't converting the power correctly in our in our generator, so we're frying the circuit boards. We weren't regulating the water pressure enough, so we're blowing out the the valves.
Nic Marchesi:And we went out the third morning, same time, same park, and there was Jordan. And for whatever reason, he trusted us again to to try to wash his clothes. And we put Jordan's washing in a machine, started the the wash cycle, and everything worked perfectly. But then we realized that that moment of like, well, what do we do now? You know, Jordan's only possessions in his life were trapped in the machine.
Nic Marchesi:We couldn't drive away because we were standing ward from the council. So we were like, well, let's just get to know each other. And that conversation changed both Lucas and I's lives forever, but it also changed the trajectory of Orange Sky where we rewrote that mission around positively connecting communities. And, we then were like, well, we need something to sit down on. So we went the next day to IKEA and and bought some orange chairs, and they became a key part of Orange Sky's utility.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Right. And so the six chairs that you have, did you always start with six, or did you get to that is that a magic number you got to, or is it just completely random?
Nic Marchesi:It's a bit of both. I think so many things at Orange Sky is like, well, we need a chair. We didn't have much money. We went down to to IKEA. They had some orange chairs, which is pure coincidence.
Nic Marchesi:I think they're $20 each. We're like, well, that's over a $100 of of of chairs, and we put them that's the only space that we had. And now it's like a key part of, like, our vans are designed specifically to carry, a certain footprint of of chairs and and they're so important to our existence.
Gavin Tye:Wow. So I've read somewhere that it's estimated you had $27,000,000 of impact social impact last year. Yeah.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. And so, like, there's so many ways to to measure what Orange Sky does. We've had economists and we've had researchers and we've had so much. And essentially, you know, there's so many different numbers, but every time a van goes out, we generate over a thousand dollars of social and economic impact. You know, the cost of having access to laundry, the cost of creating community, and and or the opportunity, for for volunteering.
Nic Marchesi:And so, you know, I think last year we helped over 30,000 unique individuals have access to to our our service. But, you know, what I also see is that, there's so many things that we can't measure at Orange Sky. You know, one of the moments I always think about is in the early days, we launched a van in the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Lucas and I were up there. We'd done a whole day of washing, went to the service station to fill up the van, paid for went to pay for the fuel, and, the cashier was like, no.
Nic Marchesi:It's paid for. I was like, No. No. We're over on, like, pump two. Like, we need to fill up.
Nic Marchesi:And they're like, no. No. It's paid for. And I was like, what do mean? Like, we just filled up the veteran.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. And they said, oh, the person before you had used your service and wanted to say thanks. And I remember looking out into the service section being like, who was it?
Gavin Tye:Yeah.
Nic Marchesi:But, actually, I had no idea who it was because there was five or 10 people that would all walk back to their cars, and I'll never know who that person was. But, you know, we had had an an impact on their life, and they wanted to say thank you. And I think that's the magic part of Orange Sky is that, you know, we can't attest to solving something that is is as complex as homelessness Mhmm. Or we can't be as, you know, arrogant to assume that we will solve loneliness. But what we do know is that by us showing up day in, day out, by us using the f word at orange sky, which is friendship, we can have massive impacts on people's lives.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. I think mostly a lot of impact is like unintended consequence. Right? And you can never measure that. You'll never know.
Gavin Tye:Like I look back in my life, some of the areas that have had the most impact is if someone, it's just an off comment or, or just an act of kindness that when we were homeless, a teacher let us use a shower and wash, wash our clothes there. And he, And he actually lives in Canada because this was in The US and I tracked him down years later and I was like, Roland, I don't know if you knew that. But he said, wow, no, I had no idea. Yeah, it's amazing. And there's just no way you could put a price on it.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. And I think loneliness as well is it's a macro problem, but everyone plays a part where they should in their own community will try to have an impact on loneliness. It's a million different brushstrokes will change that. So I guess you'd have a unique perspective on this, but what does community mean to you? Because there's so many different communities I could see that interact with orange guy from volunteers to homeless, to schools, things like that.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. I think it might be one of the pursuits of life that I'll never find the true answer of it, but I think, you know, community is definitely a feeling. You know, it's a space of safety and belonging. It's a space of, you know, value exchange, but it's also a space of uniqueness. And, yeah, like, we it's our mission to possibly connect communities.
Nic Marchesi:But if you then dive into subsets, you know, Orange County operates in some of the remote remote parts of Australia, and First Peoples have had potentially the longest, continuing culture of community and connection. But that looks very different to than, you know, a community of people that fundraise for Orange Sky or a community of volunteers in regional New South Wales that go to a laundromat. And so I think, yeah, community is all different shapes and sizes. For some people, that community is loud and vibrant. For some people, that community is subtle and quiet and, you know, dark.
Nic Marchesi:And I think that that's the the beauty of of of Orange Skies that we can, you know, cultivate uniqueness, but also cultivate belonging, in what we do. Yeah.
Gavin Tye:Looking back, what is one thing that you're underestimated about building Orange Sky?
Nic Marchesi:There's so many things. You know, we talk about it at Orange Sky Challenge being a part of our DNA. And, you know, we've overcome a lot of challenges at at Orange Sky, getting the first van to work, funding the service, getting volunteers, getting people to trust us. But if we actually think about, like, we're working with people at potentially the toughest times of their life or working with complexity around doing something that not many other people are are doing and actually just embrace that challenge, I think some extraordinary things can happen. You know, never did Luke and I think that this van that we pulled the speaker equipment out of would be operating, you know, full time.
Nic Marchesi:Never did we think that we'd have nearly a 100 services operating around Australia and New Zealand. Never did we think that, you know, we'd raise millions of dollars of of generous donations every year. So I think this idea that, you know, I see orange sky as this little idea that Lucas and I planted a seed. We gave it some water. The seedling went through some storms.
Nic Marchesi:It got stepped on, but it started to grow, you know, one van to two vans, one volunteer to 10 volunteers, that sort of thing. And now Orange Sky is this beautiful tree that still goes through storms. We have, you know, branches snap off or we have, really, you know, unfortunate things happen, but it is a really strong tree that a lot of people come around and seek shelter from. It's something that really contributes back to the community and and never did I think we would, almost have this magnificent tree that all be is on.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. It's a proper lighthouse. Right? People rely on it for many different things. At what point did you realize it was becoming much bigger than washing machines?
Nic Marchesi:You know, I I think there's so many incremental moments. Like, you know, the first man, we realized that it was probably gonna be something that wasn't gonna be turned back into a speaker high truck when it took hours for us to get it to work, you know, and and chuck the machines in. The machines were heavy. And then we used to run these, like, flexible ducting from the dryer out the back. Then And at one point, we're all like, well, let's just drill a hole in the side of the van.
Nic Marchesi:Yep. And so, you know, you go to Bunnings, you buy a 100 mil hole saw for $80 or something. You drill a hole inside of your van. You're like, we're probably not selling this van ever again now. We've drilled, like, massive holes in the side.
Nic Marchesi:So I think it's those incremental moments where it's like, I can remember, you know, working what was my dream job and and and full time at at that place and then following my mom in my work car out to a shift and then almost like having away this tension of wanting to be at work but also wanting to be out helping people and being like, well, maybe I should just take a gap year and and really lean into that. Or, you know, now the responsibility we have to show up, and, we still get that wrong. You know, vans break down, volunteers get sick, inclement weather happens, and people go to use our HR services and we're not there. And, you know, that's a really key thing that motivates me is that potentially in the toughest time in someone's life when they've trusted this organization to show up, and if we don't show up, the unintended consequences of letting someone down, we can't, you know, think that we can nail that all the time, but I think it's something that we take really seriously.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. You've built one of the the strongest volunteer communities. Why do you think people choose to give their time here and over other places?
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. Again, I think it's one of those things that we can analyze till the cows come home and come up with assumptions and then those assumptions be wrong. But I think there's some key things. You know? There is a culture in our country that people wanna give back, and some of that has religious or spiritual undertones, you know, specifically for the school that I went to.
Nic Marchesi:This idea of service was important, but, you know, that's changing. And if we look at the arc of volunteering, a lot of volunteering in this country came from missionary service, religious belief. And if we look at, the the decline of of those beliefs globally, You know, is that attributed to some volunteer organizations changing? Maybe. But, you know, Orange Orange Sky isn't, religiously or politically associated.
Nic Marchesi:And so, that could be one part is that people from a beliefs or upbringing perspective wanna contribute. The other part is that, we see so many volunteers that, are lacking a sense of community and belonging, and they're selfishly getting that through through Orange Sky. And and that's a great thing. You know, we had so many volunteers come to us when they hit retirement, and they're like, oh my gosh. I've been in this kindergarten called work for the last twenty five, thirty, whatever, forty years.
Nic Marchesi:And Yeah. I've packed my bag and I've gone to work nine to five, and now I've retired. And it's like, what do I do? Nine to five on a Monday? And, you know, we sort of talk about our volunteers volunteering on a fortnightly commitment for a couple hours to make it simple and accessible.
Nic Marchesi:But, you know, we've got some volunteers, that at 09:00 in the morning, we'll go have coffee with all the other volunteers, and then they'll go and, like, inspect the van, and then they'll drive it out. They'll do their two hour shift, and then they'll drive it home, and then they'll go have lunch together. And volunteering is a whole day for them. Whereas, realistically, for some volunteers, it'll be they've worked a full day at work, they'll go and volunteer for two hours, and then they'll go and, you know, volunteer around their dinner table and cook their kids dinner and and all that sort of stuff. So, you know, why people volunteer?
Nic Marchesi:I think, you know, a lot of them are just wanting to contribute, but also they're getting a lot out of it as well.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. How do you maintain culture across a volunteer network, especially now that you're starting to spread out?
Nic Marchesi:Again, it's something that, you know, we, have had some luck and science to, but then also, there's just this unknown part to it. You know, not many people may know the full operating locations of Orange Sky or every policy or procedure or what the first van's name was or what's the, you know, different structure for this. But I'd hope that, you know, at Orange Sky, what we talk about is this power of a conversation and that f word of of friendship. You know, we don't have clients or customers at Orange Sky. We have friends, and and that friendship is really the glue that belay that is the belief of Orange Sky is that if we can create friends and connection, we can, create significant things.
Nic Marchesi:But, you know, it's something that we've gotten wrong in the past. It's something that we've magically got right, and it's something that'll probably have to always be, curated because that's so important is that we have so many friends that use our service that are like, oh, I'm in the Gold Coast today using your service, but I've also used your service in Tasmania or in Melbourne. And it's like, woah. Like, what's the thing? And, you know, Locust was over in Poutarar in New Zealand the other day launching a new service location.
Nic Marchesi:And he sort of said to this this gentleman, like, hey. Like, jump in the shower. Have you used a shower before? And he was like, yeah. Actually, I use a shower on the Gold Coast in Australia.
Nic Marchesi:And it's like, woah. Like, now we're starting to see people that not only have used our service multiple times across this country, but also over in New Zealand.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. And it's really, it's really interesting when I think about loneliness and people not giving back time. I think a large part of that is visibility. People don't know where to look. Like we went to this, it was like a street fair in Beamleigh just like a few weeks ago.
Gavin Tye:My wife was going, I have no idea there's so many places around. Like, think a lot of places are getting lost in the noise or people just getting overwhelmed with, with information and they can't drill down into, finding somewhere to work or done at their time, I think.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. And and some of it is around, you know, finding that fit. Some of it is around, making sure it's something that you enjoy. You know, if if you're going to volunteer and you're not getting paid, there's gotta be something in there to do it because there's so many other excuses to do it. But I also think that sometimes those communities are quite unknown, and that's okay because they'll probably rock up at the right time or through referral.
Nic Marchesi:And, you know, my parents went through a pretty tragic in incident, in their parental journey, and, they'd always talk about all these organisations and people came out from the woodwork at this really tough period of time and those micro communities that happen Yeah. In their in their lives.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. How important is human connection do you think to someone's dignity?
Nic Marchesi:It's vital. You know, this idea of being seen, heard, understood is is critical. And I think as a species of of pretty, basic but very complicated, mammals or whatever we are for outside is that this idea that, like, we crave a sense of, belonging or a sense of people, like, knowing that that you're cared for. And, you know, I think, again, back to that idea that, we get sick alone and we heal together, a lot of our healing can happen as an individual, and it needs to happen as an individual. And a lot of, yeah, a lot of work can happen with oneself, but also a sense of belonging, a sense of community is is so, so vital.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah.
Gavin Tye:Leadership. How has your leadership changed as Orange Sky has evolved or yours and Lucas' leadership evolved?
Nic Marchesi:It's, you know, evolved so much. You know, when we started, we were two 19 year olds that couldn't really do our own washing, didn't know how to use a washing machine, and it was just two mates. Whereas now, you know, we've got over a 100 staff in Australia and New Zealand with thousands of volunteers. We have thousands of people that use our service every week. So our leadership has definitely changed and evolved.
Nic Marchesi:I've learned a tremendous amount from that. But also, like, it it's different. Like, I've laid a team here at Orange Sky in manufacturing or building or operations and actually realized that, like, as much as I will step in and and help us later, I'm not really a great operational leader. Lucas, for the last, you know, most of Orange Sky's existence has been a leader inside this organization, and Lucas is now my boss and the CEO of Orange Sky. So, you know, our leadership is continually evolving, and I think that's a beautiful thing is that, know, you one of the things we talk about at Orange Sky is better for being orange.
Nic Marchesi:And I've learned a tremendous amount, in my life about leadership and working with teams and and whatnot. But I also think that, you know, my type of of leadership is, you know, through action. You know, it's trying something like Orange Sky. It's doing it. It's working with an awesome team to solve a problem, but it isn't in, I guess, always on late ship capacity.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. I can see from your hands, mate, you and when we saw today, they were dirty and you've got, like, Trevy's hands, you know, so you're definitely hands on. Yeah. Right?
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. I love love making things and, you know, that's one of my key values.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. What's your biggest leadership lesson?
Nic Marchesi:Wow. It's a great question. I think, you know, I always connect with this idea of, you know, the balance between art and science and the balance between wisdom and action. And, you know, I I don't think there's ever been a more powerful time in our lives that we can become wiser. You know, we can have access to any information or we can get machines and software to give us access to the clearest information.
Nic Marchesi:But also if we do nothing about that, we are dysfunctional. But also if we keep on acting and doing the stuff that we've always done and hasn't worked and don't take that wisdom, we are dysfunctional. So I think, you know, the lesson I keep on learning, you know, when people say, you know, what would be your advice for starting Orange Sky? It's like we would know nothing if we did nothing. Mhmm.
Nic Marchesi:But it just took us to be like, fuck it. Let's build the van. Yeah. Let's just like, everyone's telling us it's impossible for whatever reason we thought it was possible, and then we just shoved the machines in the van. Yeah.
Nic Marchesi:And we took it out. And then people were like, wow. Can I wash my clothes? Yep. And that would've never happened if we'd done a report or whatnot.
Nic Marchesi:And I said, yeah. The report suggests that you should do it. But it's like finding that balance, think, is the the biggest lesson. And then all of those things around, you know, we've learned so much about people or the world through but that would have only happened through through giving it a go.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. There's so many, stories of companies and initiatives where people say, don't do it, don't do it. And that until you do it and they go, oh, what a great idea. Right? So it's, not uncommon.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. And also, like, we've done a lot of things that haven't worked. We've made a lot of mistakes. And I think that's also, you know, like back to the tree analogy, orange scarf's a beautiful tree right now in a really beautiful forest, but it can also look really overwhelming. Like, how could we ever climb to the first limb, let alone the highest limb in that tree?
Nic Marchesi:And, you know, if I was looking at that tree right now and didn't grow it and see it grow from day one, I'd be really confused and intimidated as well.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Fair enough. Have there been moments where you thought this might not work?
Nic Marchesi:Absolutely. You know, the first man, you know, day two, day three, you know, growing a team or getting, tight financially or, you know, the the pandemic pandemic, realizing that hygiene and human connection is something that we'd been dealing with for a couple years, but the whole world was now dealing with. With. And when we're talking about our whole organization being founded on this idea of providing access to hygiene and providing access to fellow humans and when the world is terrified of your own hygiene and hanging out with other humans, it was a really challenging time to say how do we continue to show up and innovate around what we do. But I think, like, yeah, there's been so many moments where it's like, you know, why are we the the ones to to be doing this right now, or how could we do this?
Gavin Tye:Yeah. What keeps you going? I think you answered this before. Right? If you stop, it's people are relying on Orange Sky now, but what keeps you going?
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. I think what keeps me going is that, like, we have a really great opportunity to do something. And, in this stage of my life, the idea of being able to do meaningful things is super important to me. So I think what keeps me going is, you know, the friends and volunteers. Like, we met, Sue this morning who, you know, probably for the last eight years has volunteered every Thursday morning, gets the van at quarter six in the morning, takes it out there, does 12 loads of washing and comes back, and now go work a whole work day.
Nic Marchesi:And, you know, that happens now over 450 times every week, that same, scenario. So I think what keeps me going is that, you know, we're a part of something that's greater than all of us. There's an opportunity to keep on being better and, you know, there's a sense of connection and belonging in what we're doing. And I think that the sum of all those things is is what keeps me going.
Gavin Tye:What signal were you looking for that gave you the, that told you to keep going? Was it from the very first moment of was it Jordan?
Nic Marchesi:Yeah.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Was it from that very first moment?
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. I I think so. And I and I think now those signals are in people trusting us. You know? I think the trust is a key signal for for what we do.
Nic Marchesi:If volunteers didn't feel safe to volunteer, we wouldn't be able to afford paying staff to to run our service. If the signal of our van was confusing to operate and volunteers had to get a PhD in engineering to run it, that would be a sing signal that that we weren't doing the right thing. So I think those signals, some of them are really obvious. Some
Gavin Tye:of them
Nic Marchesi:are very subtle and some of them we still don't don't know. But I think that, yeah, there's so many signals, like, there's never been more easy time to get access to data and information, but it's also the the subtle nuance nuance of, seeing how someone feels in the environment that we create.
Gavin Tye:Yep. Now, if someone wanted to build a community from scratch tomorrow, what would you where would you tell them to begin? Like, I think you'd partly answered this before. Maybe just start.
Nic Marchesi:I think just start, but also I think looking with. Yeah. And this idea of like, you know, what community do you wanna see and what are your your values and and what is your true authentic self in that space? And I think, you know, it would be hard to have them different, you know, if you're someone that for me likes making things and likes finding ways for people to play and connect. Orange Sky is the greatest community to ever be around.
Nic Marchesi:But if this community was around, sport and history and maths, I would've fucking run away years ago because it's not something that is actively interesting for me. But, actually, if you look at the parallels of what sport and history and maths do, there is so much to that at Orange Sky. Mhmm. This idea of being part of a team or a part of a brand or part of a community. Like, Orange Sky is the greatest sporting team that would would that I'll ever play in, from from that, team workspace or from a maths perspective.
Nic Marchesi:Like, I absolutely hated maths and science at school. Nearly failed it. Wouldn't have got through without Lucas. But the amount of maths and engineering that's in this shot, is significant, but then it's actually about realizing how it's positioned.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Yeah. It's I think a lot of people have like big ambitions of grandeur. Like they would start at charity or something and go, I'm going to build it to orange guy. Whereas like, that's very, very difficult.
Gavin Tye:But your, it seems that your mission was just to help Jordan or when you went out with your mom and you saw that and you said, I just want to help one person or just then help two people. And then you've grown it. Not probably intentionally from the beginning, but it's ended up here today. Like, seems like a very deliberate path.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. And I think like this idea of like, there's a level of naivety in a space, but there's also a level of like stubborn persistence. And I also think like, like, it's a corporate term, but, like, market conditions are really important, like, to acknowledge. Like, like, summer nineteen, we didn't have families. We had a van.
Nic Marchesi:We had some disposable income, and we just built this thing. Yeah. Whereas now, like, we have those hundreds of staff and thousands of volunteers. And, like, if we were gonna, like, start to think about how we could do that back then, we would have made a 100 excuses not to. It's like, I remember in the very early days, we had a board meeting.
Nic Marchesi:It cost us a $100 to build a van. Think we had two at that point in time. And, we were having a strategy session. It's like, how many vans could we build now? It was like 10.
Nic Marchesi:Like, 10 was just like a nick number that was round and made sense to me. And so then we worked backwards. It's like, well, we need to raise a million dollars. I was like, well, we would never raise a million dollars. Like, a million dollars when you're 19.
Nic Marchesi:It's like, there's no chance. And in that year, we built, like, 13 vans. Yep. And so it's actually like, well, actually, a bit of it is we've had targets where we've never, you know, been, like, three years into operation. We're like, we're take over the world.
Nic Marchesi:I put vans all around the world. We registered, you know, Orange Sky America and other places. And then, like, I went and built a laundry van for a TV show over in America, and you, realize how big America is. Far out. We got enough to do here in Australia, let alone New Zealand and that sort of thing.
Nic Marchesi:So I think there is definitely targets that we haven't reached, and that's okay as well. But it's also that, you know, we, you know, you chip away at it and it grows over time.
Gavin Tye:What do think is more important, growing the community or creating a better experience for people already in it?
Nic Marchesi:I think the experience would make the growth.
Gavin Tye:Yeah.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. So I I think, you know, the if you're purely focused on growing something, but it's actually growing something because that doesn't lack substance, at some point it's gonna gonna fail. Yeah. And, you know, we, Orange Skies, are not for profit, and I don't wanna, you know, commercialize or simplify or corporatize what we do. But we've always thought about if Orange Sky is running a really good product, the money and the people and the thing will come.
Nic Marchesi:And, you know, before Orange Sky was even a charity, we'd built the van. We'd taken it out and people started to say, like, how can I give to this? Yeah. And those people didn't want a donation receipt. They didn't wanna blow it on the side of the van.
Nic Marchesi:They were just like, that's a cool idea. I wanna give to it. And I think that's, you know, one of the things about Orange Sky that resonates with people is that what we do is tangible. It's obvious. It's impactful, and and people, can easily engage in that.
Gavin Tye:I think so really, a lot of, I think a lot of companies, not just charities make the mistake of trying to grow instead of looking after what they already have. Like you, I've been in businesses before where they're, they're always trying to grow and look after, find new people and they take their current team for granted and that causes resentment and then you end up having churn if it affects the culture. Yeah. So that's really interesting. I've learned something really poignant there.
Gavin Tye:So thank you for that.
Nic Marchesi:How do
Gavin Tye:you maintain a momentum between like, different events that you have? Like
Nic Marchesi:like, I think it's always a balance. And, like, you know, one of the things I think about, is this idea of life as a balance between things you should do and could do. And we probably all define things that we shouldn't do or couldn't do. We all define things that we should do and could do, but there's always then a whole, spectrum of choice and decision and action in that. Like, we all know that we should probably brush our teeth, but then you get tired or run our toothpaste, you know, brush your teeth.
Nic Marchesi:And then there's things that we know we shouldn't do or couldn't do from a legal perspective or a health perspective, but then, I don't know, we still do that. And so there's always gonna be a level of dysfunction in that that spectrum, but then it's really thinking about how do we maintain that. And, you know, I've I've done sort of I've got that wrong, you know, like Lucas and I, in some really big growth stages of Orange Sky, haven't looked after ourselves and our bodies, haven't looked after the people around us, and we've let people down or, we've we should have maintained our vehicles or shown up and we haven't done that because we've been focusing on building a new region and we've let people down. So, again, I think it's about being realistic that there is always gonna be a level of dysfunctional mistake in that space. But then I think it's around, you know, prioritization, really good people, clear empowerment, and and ownership.
Nic Marchesi:Like, we see that now is that if there would be no way that I could run all the vans, like, it's just nearly impossible. But even if I was like, oh, I'll still run the van in Brisbane, It's like that van goes out, like, 30 times a week, just that one van. Why? It's like, could spend every day. The van would have left at quarter six this morning, and on a Thursday, we finished at 9PM at Musgrave Park.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. It's it would be illegal for me to operate that, from a working perspective around the duration of time that that asset's out. So, yeah, I think, like, something that I'm actively thinking about at the moment in my stage of my life is how do I juggle a bunch of projects and get that right. And and I think that'll always be a a challenge, but also an opportunity.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. How important do think storytelling is in building your community and maintaining community?
Nic Marchesi:Critical. You know, First Peoples have been telling a story to maintain culture and connection for millennia and, definitely don't wanna ever appropriate that. But as humans, we, are deeply relational beings that attach ourselves to story. And, you know, whether it be for Orange Sky, this idea of the story of Jordan trusting us, but also us making mistakes to get there is a key thing that we need to remind ourselves that we'll try something now twelve years on. It won't work.
Nic Marchesi:And we'll be like, oh, okay. Well, we tried that. Let's move on. It's like, no. Actually, our organization's around, like, trying something, it not working, making some improvements, trying again.
Nic Marchesi:It's still not working. But at the third third time, it working. So Yeah. How do we even hold on to that story when we try something doesn't work? We're okay.
Nic Marchesi:Cool. Let's move on to the next thing. So, yeah, story is critical to, you know, understanding and belonging, and that happens so much. You know? Like, even the sharing the story of what we do at Orange Sky is so important to changing stereotypes and stigmas about the story I first learned about in in harmlessness.
Nic Marchesi:And I think that, you know, that's a a key part of what we do.
Gavin Tye:What gives you hope for the future? I think Obviously, fellows like
Nic Marchesi:Yeah.
Gavin Tye:Coming through.
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. I think, you know, this idea that there's, like, life is we are still in such a privileged space and, that there's still so much to do. And that gives me a lot of hope is that it's tremendously scary seeing significant shifts in the rise of, you know, polarization or the rise of loneliness. And, you know, loneliness is if it hasn't already, will overtake heart disease in a very short amount of time. And it's like, I can remember being at school and learning about heart disease, but I don't think I went to school and learned about loneliness.
Nic Marchesi:I definitely would have felt it and experienced it, but it wasn't something that we were actively talking about. So, you know, one of our first friends at Orange Sky talked about it's knowing that someone cares and it's all about hope. And I think that that's something that the hope for the future is that, you know, shit's gonna come up and things the tree's gonna lose limbs and, you know, the tree might get sick, but actually that we've had a lot of that in our existence. And we'll, if we come together, we'll most likely solve it.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Great answer. What do you think Australia needs to do to become a more connected society?
Nic Marchesi:You know, like, it's very easy to be biased at what our orange guy does thinking that it'll solve the world, but I think these really simple things of understanding which comes through listening and curiosity, action, and trying something which comes through having the the ability to to give it a go. I think that that would make, that so much more connected and and understood. You know, if we actually realize that we're all made of the same stuff, we all want the same things and we can have that. You know, the world would be a pretty easy place, but unfortunately, we learn everything. Like, we start as a pretty useless, creature when we come out.
Nic Marchesi:And so we learn all of these things and actually realizing, like, how did we learn that? Like, our sense of love and belonging is a learned feeling. Yeah. And the lack of that in our early years may mean that we are seeking for that till we die. Yeah.
Nic Marchesi:Or the presence of that may mean that we're cultivating that until we die. Or our value system on, you know, this country is obsessed with property wealth. And, you know, my family who migrated to Australia have been put in a very, privileged position through generations of coming as a migrant to Australia to now being in a privileged position is how do we actually then acknowledge that there are unintended consequences of when some people have a lot, that means that some people will not have a lot. Mhmm. And how do we actually sort of share that around is like, I don't know, pretty confusing.
Nic Marchesi:It's yeah.
Gavin Tye:It's interesting time. So if people wanted to, get in contact with Lawrence, go out volunteers, see what events what's the best way? Through your website?
Nic Marchesi:Yeah. We always encourage people to jump onto our website. You can register, volunteer, you can find out and, access our service if you need need our service. You can make a donation, and you can find out heaps more stories on the website.
Gavin Tye:Yeah. Thank you so much. And, yeah, really appreciate being our first guest on Changemakers. So yeah, wish you all the best for '26.
Nic Marchesi:Thanks. And thanks for joining in,
Gavin Tye:Vince.
Nic Marchesi:Yes. Thank you.
Gavin Tye:Thanks, Well, hope you liked that podcast by Nick. If you're still listening, thank you very much. If you found this enjoyable, please give us a rating on your podcast app that you're listening to. And if I could ask you to do one thing, maybe share it with someone so we can try to spread the word and bring some visibility to these great change makers out in our world. Thank you.