Detroit Soup
Detroit SOUP was a community-based microgranting dinner that brought Detroiters together to share a meal, hear proposals for projects benefiting the city, and collectively decide which idea to fund with the money raised at the door. Building on the Sunday Soup model developed by the artist collective InCUBATE in Chicago, Detroit organizers—including Kate Daughdrill, Jessica Hernandez, and Amy Kaherl—adapted the idea to their own city beginning in 2010. What started as an intimate gathering grew into a widely recognized experiment in grassroots civic participation, ultimately supporting hundreds of projects and inspiring SOUP dinners in communities around the world. Its power came from the simplicity of the model: a room, a meal, a few ideas, and neighbors deciding together what they wanted to make possible.