Here’s another heroic anarcho-Detroit platform: Detroit Soup is an anarcho-launching platform for citizen startups: funded by normal folks for hopeful visionaries who dream of pursuing some entrepreneurial, charity, or artistic vision within the Detroit community. Here is a description of the group from the Detroit Soup website:
– a collaborative situation
– a public dinner
– a platform for connection
– a theatrical environment
– a democratic experiment in micro-funding
– a relational hub bringing together various creative communities
– a forum for critical but accessible discussion
– an opportunity to support creative people in Detroit
Detroit SOUP is a microgranting dinner celebrating creative projects in Detroit. For $5 you receive soup, salad, bread, and a vote. You will hear from four presentations ranging from art, urban agriculture, social justice, social entrepreneurs, education, technology, etc., who have four minutes to share their idea and then field four questions from the diners. We eat, connect, share resources, and vote on what project you think should win the money gathered from the night. When the night nears to a close we count the ballots and whoever has the most votes takes home the money from the door.
Detroit Soup is about bringing people in the community together to support others in taking risk and bringing value to the city. Detroit Soup holds public dinners with a $5 charge for a “soup, salad, and a vote.” Visionaries present their projects and attendees vote on which project should receive the cash raised from the dinner. This month’s winner of the take was ‘Sit on It Detroit,’ an organization I have written about in the past on my Detroit: From Rust to Riches blog. This group builds bus stop benches (from repurposed wood with bookshelves) for placement at Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) bus stops because the government is too inept to get it done.
You can read more stories like this on my Detroit: Rust to Riches blog, or follow me on Twitter @karendecoster, and follow my public Twitter list “Detroit!” that pulls all unique Detroit sources into one list.