SOUP founder Amy Kaherl, photo by Genevieve Ferraro Devries
What comes to mind when you hear the word “SOUP”? A hearty bowl of chowder, a conversation starter, or a platform for bringing people and ideas together? Well, for Amy Kaherl, it’s all three. She founded Detroit SOUP in the Mexicantown neighborhood of Detroit in February 2010 and it has grown from strength to strength since. Amy tells us that SOUP started by seizing new ideas and opportunities that came along, “My friend at the time, Kate Daughdrill, experienced the dinner from the originators (InCUBATE, a research group dedicated to exploring new approaches to arts administration and funding) of the SOUP idea in Chicago and approached Jessica Hernandez whose family owned the Mexicantown Bakery that had a loft above that was being used for storage. After, a group that had collaborated on a Women’s event just months before continued to work together to make the dinner happen. It started because the group wanted to collaborate and work together while there was an idea that we felt could empower and connect the community while exploring new art practices.”
So just what is it? SOUP is a micro-granting dinner celebrating and supporting creative projects in Detroit. For a donation $5 attendees receive soup, salad, bread and a vote and hear from four presentations. Today, its focus has moved beyond art to cover topics on urban agriculture, social justice, social entrepreneurs, education, technology and more. Each presenter has four minutes to share their idea and answer four questions from the audience. Attendees mingle, enjoy art and vote on the project they think benefits the city the most. At the end of the night, the votes are counted, and the winner goes home with the money raised that night, to carry out their project. Winners come back to a future SOUP dinner to report their project’s progress. It is natural to think that the primary goal of SOUP is to raise money, and wonder if the small quantum of the grant limits projects’ scale and potential. Amy clarifies that the desired outcomes are far greater. “I think when people hear about SOUP, the money seems the most interesting or the best outcome, but it becomes the least interesting object being exchanged that night. Often the people have access to knowledge, people, resources, or passion to help connect or elevate the project. Because of the open nature of the evening, ideas around the community are varied and diverse. People who desire to start a nonprofit or a business, ideas surrounding community gardens, small education initiatives, after school programs... Anything that a community can imagine is shared at the dinner. Each dinner is unique because it is unique to where people live and the people, imagination, problem solving and innovation of the people who live there.”
Amy emphasizes that the value of SOUP really lies in its organic nature and the sparks that fly from having different perspectives and worldviews interact. “A challenge has been that as people have taken the model to use in their community, they want to put topics around it. This dinner is about businesses and next month is about art. This is built for the organizers’ sanity but it is unhelpful in introducing people to outside groups, narratives, or systems of problem solving. I had talked with a group that only used it around food systems in their community and after the third dinner there wasn’t any new ideas and no one new was showing up. The dinner is meant for groups of different values to collide and exchange. When we put topics around it the dinner is instantly siloed. Many people are an expert or passionate about one thing, so they may find it difficult to invite someone outside of the system that was set up. SOUP can aid in the idea of mystery and challenge the way we know and understand topics outside of our personal safe zone.”
Attesting to SOUP being fundamentally about people and ideas is the fact that SOUP has brought about a sustained relationship among participants, beyond the initial event. Amy says, “I helped start the idea in Detroit in 2010, a city that was just about to face bankruptcy. It was a city left behind but also a city that was beautiful and unique and special. Within the first two years of starting the dinners a couple met at the dinner and wed a year later. A college student was told by many people that the Empowerment Plan, her idea of creating a coat that would turn into a sleeping bag and hiring homeless people to make them, would never work, but now almost 10 years later she has turned the idea into a workforce development blueprint for the community. I know many people who had just moved into the city met their friend group by attending the dinner.”
Detroit SOUP is well established and locally led, and Amy is setting her sights on replication of the SOUP concept. Amy says that the biggest challenge she faces is to find the right funding source for what she endearingly calls “the beast of THIS project”. “I do a great job of helping others get initial funding but this idea doesn’t fit in the boxes of what many in the establishment think works. Many people want to be a beginning of an entrepreneurship ecosystem but really it is about citizenship, place, and the magic of collaborating and listening. This doesn’t have an easy, measurable return on investment.” Yet, she is undaunted in her vision for SOUP and how it can continue to grow. “The expansion of SOUP has happened by normal, everyday individuals who care about the place they live because they read something online or may have seen a video on TV or online. That just fuels the desire to give people the tools and ability to start their own dinners in where they live. You are the expert of the place that you reside. SOUP is about you living in a place and connecting with your neighbors. Money being exchanged to support ideas is exciting and helps, but we can’t build our desires alone.”
To that end, Amy is working towards providing resources to enable and empower those who wish to use the model to grow their communities. “I am working on writing a book for SOUP and expanding our website to tell stories and giving people access to resources. The goal of the site is three-fold. It allows access to tools and resources and an online collaborative community for those wanting to start a SOUP, there are resources for those who have won at SOUP and want to grow their idea, and there will be stories of winners from around the world. These stories will focus on the people who are problem solving and how they want to change and participate in the world that they live in. The model is free and accessible to anyone that wants to start the dinner in their community. It is free because there are so many communities that use it, and use it in a way that suits where one lives. Each takes on its unique flavor of the people organizing weaving within a community’s norms and values.”
On a personal level, Amy says she continues to learn that our sense of community and connection have more to do with the places we live in, and less about where we went to school, what religion we practice, or what race or gender we happen to be or not be. “All these things are important to an individual, but as a community it is about how we listen, learn, and trust the instincts of each other. I have learned we often vote for our hopes rather than what is most logical. It is in the illogical that many of the problems of our community are being tackled.”
Interested in starting a SOUP in your own neighborhood? Visit the website for inspiration, resources, a toolkit, and community! Follow @detroitsoup on social media to see how it’s done; their next Citywide SOUP will be held 3/19.
