Sunday Soup Granting Program

Soup grants provide funding for small to medium sized projects. One Sunday a month, we invite people to the storefront space we share for a meal based around soup.  Guest chefs cook simple soups using local ingredients. The meal is sold for $10 per preson. All the income from that meal is given as a grant to support a creative project. We accept grant applications up until the day of the meal, everyone who purchases soup that day gets one vote to determine who receives the grant. The grants are completely unrestricted and will be awarded at the discretion of the jury of Sunday Soup customers. The amount of the grants are equal to the entire Soup Fund for that particular month.

Sunday Soup is explicitly functional as a way of generating independent funding for creative projects, and implicitly critical as a way of generating conversation about the availability and distribution of resources within the mainstream arts establishment. In an environment where governmental support for experimental art practice is minimal at best, and private support is dictated by the values and priorities of granting foundations, innovative and potentially controversial work is compromised in order to fit within categories deemed “fundable.” With Sunday Soup, community participation in the grant funding and selection process is key. Applying for a grant is intentionally simple and un-bureaucratic in order to encourage broad participation. This enables InCUBATE to stimulate and promote experimental, critical and imaginative practices that may not be eligible for formal funding.

Sunday Soup, while raising money, also serves as a way to build a network of support that reaches beyond purely monetary assistance. Guest chefs organize presentations and lead discussions after the meal. We like to think of it as an open platform to discuss ongoing projects with new audiences, meet new collaborators, and share ways of working.  Sunday Soup also integrates with our other activities in that often our residents cook soup or present their work and also apply for the grant itself.  It has also allowed us to fund the projects of fellow travelers like Gabriel Saloman’s Spartacus School of Passing Time, Geraldine Juarez’ Tanda Foundation, and Joseph Del Pesco’s Black Market Type project. Presentations have taken the form of an art historical lecture by critic Lori Waxman on walking as an aesthetic practice, a meal by San Francisco underground restaurant chef Leif Hedendal, and Marc Moscato from Portland’s documentary and exhibition at Mess Hall on Chicago’s Dill Pickle Club, which also received Sunday Soup grant funding.

We’re open to suggestions, volunteers, and people wanting to start their own soups. Let us know what you think.

Many people have decided to start their own micro-granting projects, which were initiated and operate entirely independent of InCUBATE. We’re proud to be part of this growing network, please support your local granting project!

		Representatives from allied soups around the country gathered together on the occasion of the Open Engagement conference at Portland State University at Paul Middendorf’s house including Grand Rapids Sunday Soup, Baltimore STEW, FEAST Philly and NYC, Detroit Soup, Buffalo Sugar City, Ann Arbor Love Factory Collective, Portland Stock and Sweet Tooth of the Tiger