Magical SOUP-An Experiment in Micro-Funding

[Gannon]

My ladyfriend and I dropped into the SW Soup meetup last night. If you haven't heard of this yet, it is an experiment in funding small community-improving projects approved by a vote from all who put in their $5 entry fee for a bowl of amazing soup, some great bread, and insane desserts. It is held once a month [[for now), and seems to be growing faster than the originators ever imagined.

It was PACKED, and the organizers seemed overwhelmed at the size of the crowd. Indeed, some didn't have seats, and I'm pretty sure the food ran out early. I never even SAW any of Flyhouse Micha's desserts, but am damn glad I learned of her relative obsession with baking sweets!

We saw many familiar faces, but MOST of the room were strangers to us. Lovely creatures, all...and apparently very rabidly infected by the Spirit of Detroit. I cannot remember another roomful of individuals with such a joyful, curious, hopeful, loving, and enthusiastic presence or energy.


Before hearing the three proposals, the founder Kate introduced two of the previous winners. Hearing the first fellow describe the basic energy-efficiency and other helpful money- and life-saving classes they share with Highland Park neighborhoods, and then getting a healthy dose of confirmation from a VERY enthusiastic young fellow from the 'hood [[Isaiah/Zeke), had me in tears.


I sensed the Spirit of Detroit in action, destroying the divides which currently plague our city. In this instance, it was a total annihilation of racial and age 'isms'...it was obvious that Zeke and the idea guy [[sorry to not have his name or organization, I'll try to get that today and update this thread) had become friends during this process. I daresay Zeke now has a positive role model to emulate in his [[and our) future.


More later, I've got to get some work done. Spent last week fighting off some damn lung and throat attack.


Cheers and more, kudos to Kate at SW Soup and all her staff. Kudos also to all who came out on a Sunday night to continue the metamorphosis of Detroit.


Sincerely,
John

[Whitehouse]

If you said this was organized by the church of salvation army I would believe it too. Unity in misery. Okay, that was maybe a bit too strong but it seems like this is a real effort to make the most of something. And it looks great. The answers to get you out of you troubles is a bowl of soup. And if it helps you ease the pain of your daily struggles, then 5 dollars is a great investment.

It's a great initiative. This soup is bringing head together and sharing knowledge with each other makes you all stronger.

I've got an idea. If you got a mob of people together, try to do a guerilla action. If you have a bunch of volenteers, adopt a street. Surprise residents by clearing the streets, doing the weeds, make homes livable and not forget mobilize the press.

[Gannon]

Ha! There was not a HINT of misery in that room.


This is not a soup kitchen thing...the soup was homemade, and the cook Oksana Mirzoyan told us before everything was served all about her choices and the help she got from her mother sharing a recipe from their heritage. I didn't write any of her talk down, so it went right through this head in the breeze between my ears, but the soup was outstanding.

Everything was great, and we'd just left the fifth birthday celebration for Slow's outside the train station...so we were already pretty pumped up. Met some really great people at both gigs.


Cheers

[MDoyle]

Whitehouse, take a minute to inform yourself.

http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/...roittv910.aspx

Most definitely not a soup kitchen.

[n7hn]

I say It sounds great. Sharing ideas and food, creating stronger ties in the community. I say even If thats all thats accomplished, its accomplished ALOT .

Keep it up

[Gannon]

Here is their official website: http://www.detroitsoup.com/

and Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=342886580702


I haven't learned the previous winner's name yet, sorry.


This is such a great idea, and it has been duplicated and modified by the North Corktown group around the Spaulding Court complex [[which was in another thread here, recently).

I think it should be encouraged in EVERY neighborhood in this city. There is no shortage of individuals willing to put a little into a pot which accumulates to become a large [[and hopefully effective) spark for fostering new ideas.


But yes, the networking alone was great. Met a young fellow who needs experience with graphic design, and another who is going to my new partner's alma mater, CCS. Both of these youngsters can benefit from our experiences and career trajectories.

I dunno about the rest of you, but this is one of the most positive things I've experienced in the city in...well...forever.


Cheers and more,
John

[n7hn]

I looked at the site. What kind of things are being funded?

[Gannon]

Last night the projects were the following:

Small inspirational murals around town [[not unlike a project in Philadelphia that my honey knew about, because she used to live there)

A scheme to get fresh produce in all of liquor stores around town, including local produce...and to TEACH how to prepare and cook it.

Scholarship for 20-30 individuals or families to join the SW Time Bank


It was tough to choose between the three, and I grew to despise being put in that position, so I proposed a graded scoring method that may better reveal the weight of each to the voter. 0-3 with 3 being the strongest and zero being a vote of full rejection.


Cheers

[n7hn]

Nice. Good to hear positive things

[fryar]

Huh? Somebody is doing something?

I think it should be encouraged in EVERY neighborhood in this city. There is no shortage of individuals willing to put a little into a pot which accumulates to become a large [[and hopefully effective) spark for fostering new ideas.

Truly. Since they're having overflow issues, maybe the time for that can be said to have come, at this point. I think I read somewhere that these guys meet on a roof or something, but it also seems like a great way to promote an establishment in a neighborhood, say on Wednesday night or something. Hamtramck SOUP, Skip?

I say It sounds great. Sharing ideas and food, creating stronger ties in the community. I say even If thats all thats accomplished, its accomplished ALOT.

Yes. Surely it accomplishes more - some of the ideas thrown up at these things likely stick, so to speak - but that alone is the bedrock of civic society.

To indulge in a brief tangent along these lines, if there was an effective way to promote block parties, I would be all for it. In order to promote civic society. Tax me, ask me for a donation, I don't care. I hate scrappers enough to just throw some money into the pot.

I looked at the site. What kind of things are being funded?

This is something I, too, would like to see more of on their site. Some manner of tracking or follow-ups can really help identify and foster the success stories. And help to promote the setting up of SOUPs in the neighborhoods.

[fryar]

Hey, my "somebody should do something" file is suddenly kind of excited.

It is held once a month [[for now), and seems to be growing faster than the originators ever imagined.

eSOUP@DY, anyone?

Here's an easy-to-implement idea:

1) We apply a convention on DY where we use the word "esoup" in a post in order to highlight that thread [["i.e. DetroitDad, great job cleaning up that downtown graffiti, if you wanted to, maybe you could put together a graffiti-cleaning kit with some esoup proceeds")

2) I [[doesn't have to be me, but I volunteer) run a DY search for "esoup" on a monthly basis, maybe the first of each month or thereabouts, and post a summary of ideas in the last month in a new thread. Others could add ideas to this post. We crowd-source the selection of preliminary candidates to DY members in a somewhat unscientific manner, basically on the basis of everyone's comments in that thread, sort of like a verbal vote, just kind of gauging what emerges as the best-liked ideas. Maybe this should be improved upon, but initially, this is a doable approach, and surveys and websites can be written at a future time.

3) After maybe a week, a link is posted that will take you to Paypal in order to contribute your fiver or tener, and vote for your favorite idea.

4) Winning idea gets micro-funded.

We have people on this board with experience about the relevant mechanics as far as using Paypal goes, the SOUP folks might be willing to contribute some ideas with regard to approaches that can be taken or types of projects that have succeeded in the past, and we may be able to get an existing nonprofit to "umbrella" this project so our fivers or teners are tax deductible.

This isn't the best system, long-term, but it's enough to get started.

Do I roll up my sleeves ?

[YoungOldHead]

www.Kickstarter.com
Take pledges for an idea; if enough pledges are not made to fund a project your credit card does not get charged.

[fryar]

Kickstarter is a little different, but thanks for that tip nonetheless. Very cool. Welcome to the internet, really.

See some current local projects at: http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/detroit-mi/funding

[DetroitDad]

I'm intrigued. Hey, why don't you check out People Movers. That is basically an underused tool with a lot of potential. Basically, it was the answer some Detroiters came up with for the problem of not having a search engine for initiatives or organizations. It can also serve as a social "community" networking tool.

[[http://www.peoplemovers.com/)

Hey, my "somebody should do something" file is suddenly kind of excited.



eSOUP@DY, anyone?

Here's an easy-to-implement idea:

1) We apply a convention on DY where we use the word "esoup" in a post in order to highlight that thread [["i.e. DetroitDad, great job cleaning up that downtown graffiti, if you wanted to, maybe you could put together a graffiti-cleaning kit with some esoup proceeds")

2) I [[doesn't have to be me, but I volunteer) run a DY search for "esoup" on a monthly basis, maybe the first of each month or thereabouts, and post a summary of ideas in the last month in a new thread. Others could add ideas to this post. We crowd-source the selection of preliminary candidates to DY members in a somewhat unscientific manner, basically on the basis of everyone's comments in that thread, sort of like a verbal vote, just kind of gauging what emerges as the best-liked ideas. Maybe this should be improved upon, but initially, this is a doable approach, and surveys and websites can be written at a future time.

3) After maybe a week, a link is posted that will take you to Paypal in order to contribute your fiver or tener, and vote for your favorite idea.

4) Winning idea gets micro-funded.

We have people on this board with experience about the relevant mechanics as far as using Paypal goes, the SOUP folks might be willing to contribute some ideas with regard to approaches that can be taken or types of projects that have succeeded in the past, and we may be able to get an existing nonprofit to "umbrella" this project so our fivers or teners are tax deductible.

This isn't the best system, long-term, but it's enough to get started.

Do I roll up my sleeves ?

[English]

This level of creativity is clearly above my pay grade -- never in a million years would I have thought of any of this. Very exciting!

[kathy2trips]

This is awesome, and evidently contagious. Please keep us posted.

[Gannon]

I'm tardy to this party, even though I started it.

Go figure. I've been battling off an aggressive upper-respiratory infection, and forgot to update this thread.


Soup was founded by both Kate Daughdrill and Jessica Hernandez, Kate wanted to insure Jessica wasn't cut out of the kudos. All of their 'staff' are more collaborators...which I just love to hear.


This is just the sort of socio-capitalist exercise I expect to see more of...as people gather together to form unique solutions to the quandary of conundrum we're currently being served at all angles. Seems all economic, social, religious and political institutions are failing us miserably, as they seek to continue their existence instead of focusing on their core functions serving others.


It is oddly fun for me to be living in this age, watching these drastic institutional changes happening all around...especially those positive sprouts like Soup and Spaulding Court [[and all the spin-offs from the urban gardens).


Cheers!

[jon]

We're hiring a paid intern to run Soup at Spaulding! If you think every neighborhood should have one of these, this would be a good place to start, see the posting here, note: deadline to apply is Jan 18th!

[DetroitDad]

Detroit SOUP

[[Sent via Email).

February 3, 2011 at 3:38pm
Subject: February SOUP
Detroit SOUP: One Year Celebration!

Sunday, February 6th
Above Mexicantown Bakery: 4304 W. Vernor - Detroit
Doors at 7:00pm; Dinner at 8:00pm
Cost: Pay as you go.

Join us this Sunday, February 6th for the one year celebration of Detroit SOUP! We are excited to celebrate a whole year of micro-grant making by bringing back all of the grant recipients from the past year to hear more about the progress of their projects and how they used their SOUP funding. We're also looking forward to having our first soupmaker, Phreddy Wischusen, cook for us again as we celebrate a whole year of soups that brought us together to meet new folks and have meaningful conversations about creative production in the city.

The first year of Detroit SOUP has been an incredible experiment thanks to the hard work and generosity of so many people! We're realizing that in order to create a sustainable infrastructure for the project, we have to switch things up a bit. We've got to creatively address how to fund overhead costs and sustain the tons of work that is done for free to produce a monthly gathering. After much reflection and discussion, we've decided that in its second year Detroit SOUP is going to be happening seasonally. We're also inviting folks to join us for the one year celebration this Sunday and pay-what-you-will for dinner to support the cost of utilities, supplies, and a new sink upstairs in the bakery loft to sustain Detroit SOUP in the coming year.

We've also been incredibly inspired by other soup-based granting dinners that are popping up in and around the city and really like how local neighborhoods are getting together to share meals and support each others' work! This format seems to work even better than our large format for getting neighbors together to address their own concerns as they get to know each other and support each others' projects. We're happy to share resources and stories about how we got started if you're interested in starting your own independent project; just shoot us an email or talk with an organizer on Sunday night.

Thanks for all your support of Detroit SOUP in its first year! Hope you can make it out to celebrate with us on Sunday night.

[detroitind]

If I am not mistaken that 6 month internship only breaks down to $3.75 per hour. I assume one has to determine that their work is charity and not a living wage.

I am glad for projects like this but find that position a little low even for a do gooder like myself.

[ruxy17]

One of the many Detroit area Soup events, North Corktown’s "Soup at Spaulding" had a special St. Patrick’s day event last week and we had a great turnout. Many thanks to Atwater Brewery and Avalon for their donations of beer and bread to round out our feast!

One of the presenters that night was the lovely Kate from Spirit Farms. Her project is for a pocket park at the end of Spirit Farms on MLK just west of Trumbull. The park will serve as a gathering space, and feature a community bulletin board. The board will serve as a communication tool in a hugely diverse neighborhood where other forms of communicating about neighborhood going-ons [[email, facebook) often miss large sections of the neighborhood.

If you couldn’t make it to the soup but would still like to help fund her project, follow this link: <http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/campaign-0-2214>

There is only one day left to donate, so pass this along! Thanks!

[jon]

more talk here: http://www.facebook.com/soupatspaulding

7 hours, $924 to go...