WE NYC is delighted to announce the 2018 Small Business Funding Expo, a WE NYC event in partnership with NYWIB – New York Women in Business – a SCORE organization on April 30 at the Microsoft Technology Center..
Whether you are starting a business or looking to accelerate your growth, don’t let a lack of funding be the only thing holding you back.
This full-day event will be packed with presentations, roundtable discussions, and programs to help you understand where and how to get the funds you need, and what to do when you get them. Get answers directly from up to 25 traditional and non-traditional lenders and business experts. Learn your options and also how to become more efficient and successful.
How The New Tax Laws Will Impact You and Your Small Business. By Josh Gottheimer, US Congressman, New Jersey 5th District
12:30-1:30 PMLunch & Networking
Plus FREE, confidential one-on-one mentoring by SCORE experts.
11:15 AM-3:45 PM Activities
Following the keynote addresses, you have a choice of multiple activities running concurrently in each of three-time blocks.Your choices include (see grid and details below):
Panel Discussions with speakers from a range of organizations including banks, credit unions, microlenders and more.
“Crowdfunding and Microloans, Right For You?” by WE Fund Crowd: Kiva, Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, Kickfurther, and CrowdCrux
Round Table Discussions on Finance, Management, Planning, HR, Strategy, Non-Profit, and more
Workshops on Building a Million Dollar Business, the Funding Challenge, Funding a Food Business, Empowering Productivity with Microsoft 365 Apps
The PITCH – a business pitch contest to win $1,000 in Microsoft prizes. We encourage everyone to attend and help us choose the winners. Yes, your vote counts! If you want to compete, send a written 500-word pitch to events@scorenyc.org by April 25th. We will notify you if you are selected to be one of 15 contestants.
In April 2018, Queens residents have the opportunity to participate in Queens SOUP, a crowd-funded micro-granting community dinner, hosted by the Greater Flushing Chamber of Commerce. Inspired by Detroit SOUP, the Chamber raised over $800 for neighborhood improvement projects in 2016 — this spring the program is expanding to fund projects from all over the borough.
Queens SOUP provides an opportunity for any community project based in Queens to win and get no-strings-attached money from our in-person crowdfunding during our event on April 15, 5-7pm at the Flushing Meeting House, 137-16 Northern Blvd, Flushing NY 11354. Projects can focus on arts and culture, civil rights, small business assistance, children’s programming, neighborhood beautification, environmental remediation, and more. After an online application process, four projects will be chosen to present their plans during Queens SOUP.
In 2017, after an online public application process, the following four projects were chosen to present at last year’s Queens SOUP community dinner:
Flushing CSA’s Community Cook-Off and Food Festival a public festival, show casing unique eats in Queens through a competitive cook-off featuring tastings and highlighting the benefits of local organic produce.
Plaza Plays a 6-month residency that connects playwrights to central public spaces within Queens’ neighborhoods. For this inaugural season, two local playwrights will be selected to develop site-specific play to be performed in two of Queens’ public plazas.
Summer Tinker Lab: Latimer House + Child Center a free 2-week Tinker Lab class in 8/17 to the children at Latimer Gardens Community Center. Tinker Lab is an innovative hands-on learning focused on technology and arts, teaching coding as an essential 21st century literacy skillset.
Open the Door Open the Door will give out disposable cameras to a diverse sampling of fifty Queens residents, including children, instructed to capture images of their own daily life guided by the prompt “what do you hope for?”
The Chamber is seeking various levels of sponsorship and community partnership for Queens SOUP — matching funds; in-kind donations of food, supplies, or giveaway and raffle items; volunteers during the event; or participating as a vendor in our SOUP “Marketplace.” Please contact cody@flushingchamber.nyc or maureen@greenearthurbangardens.org if you have questions about sponsorship and partnership opportunities.
WHAT IS SOUP?
SOUP is a community potluck dinner, originally founded in Detroit, that provides seed funding and promotional opportunities to help launch local projects bringing positive impacts to their community. SOUP events have taken place all over the country — increasing innovative, grassroots economic development and civic engagement.
For a $5 donation, attendees gain access to a potluck dinner where they eat, learn, and vote for one of four projects they think will have the most significant effect on their community. At the end of SOUP ballots are counted, and the money collected at the door is awarded to the project with the most votes. SOUP acts as an unique networking event, connecting projects with potential community partners and volunteers regardless of whether or not they win the cash prize.
Inspired by Detroit SOUP, the Greater Flushing SOUP uses the same crowd-sourced community-dinner model to provide small grants to community projects and civic initiatives in north-east Queens. A $5 donation gets you into a pot-luck dinner where four local community groups pitch their plan to improve the Greater Flushing area. At the end of the presentations, attendees vote for their favorite initiative. The project with the most votes wins all the money raised at the door. Regardless of who wins the cash prize, SOUP acts as an innovative networking event, connecting projects with potential community partners and volunteers.
Please contact cody@flushingchamber.nyc with any questions about application criteria, matching funds, sponsorship opportunities, in-kind donations of food, volu…nteer opportunities, or community partnerships.
This coming Earth Day, April 22, 2017, Queens residents have the opportunity to participate in Queens SOUP, a crowd-funded micro-granting community dinner, hosted by the Greater Flushing Chamber of Commerce. Inspired by Detroit SOUP, the Chamber raised over $800 for neighborhood improvement projects in 2016 — this spring the program is expanding to fund projects from all over the borough.
Queens SOUP provides an opportunity for any community project based in Queens to win and get no-strings-attached money from our in-person crowdfunding during our event on Earth Day, Saturday, April 22, 2017 from 4 – 7 PM at the Flushing Meeting House, 137-16 Northern Blvd, Flushing, NY, 11354. Projects can focus on arts and culture, civil rights, small business assistance, children’s programing, neighborhood beautification, environmental remediation, and more. After an online application process, four projects will be chosen to present their plans during Queens SOUP.
After an online public application process, open February through March 2017, the following four projects were chosen to present at the Queens SOUP community dinner:
Flushing CSA’s Community Cook-Off and Food Festival a public festival, show casing unique eats in Queens through a competitive cook-off featuring tastings and highlighting the benefits of local organic produce.
Plaza Plays a 6-month residency that connects playwrights to central public spaces within Queens’ neighborhoods. For this inaugural season, two local playwrights will be selected to develop site-specific play to be performed in two of Queens’ public plazas.
Summer Tinker Lab: Latimer House + Child Center a free 2-week Tinker Lab class in 8/17 to the children at Latimer Gardens Community Center. Tinker Lab is an innovative hands-on learning focused on technology and arts, teaching coding as an essential 21st century literacy skillset.
Open the Door Open the Door will give out disposable cameras to a diverse sampling of fifty Queens residents, including children, instructed to capture images of their own daily life guided by the prompt “what do you hope for?”
The Chamber is seeking various levels of sponsorship and community partnership for Queens SOUP — matching funds; in-kind donations of food, supplies, or giveaway and raffle items; volunteers during the event; or participating as a vendor in our SOUP “Marketplace.” Please contact cody@flushingchamber.nyc or maureen@greenearthurbangardens.org if you have questions about sponsorship and partnership opportunities.
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WHAT IS SOUP?
SOUP is a community potluck dinner, originally founded in Detroit, that provides seed funding and promotional opportunities to help launch local projects bringing positive impacts to their community. SOUP events have taken place all over the country — increasing innovative, grassroots economic development and civic engagement.
For a $5 donation, attendees gain access to a potluck dinner where they eat, learn, and vote for one of four projects they think will have the most significant effect on their community. At the end of SOUP ballots are counted, and the money collected at the door is awarded to the project with the most votes. SOUP acts as an unique networking event, connecting projects with potential community partners and volunteers regardless of whether or not they win the cash prize.
Inspired by Detroit SOUP, the Greater Flushing SOUP uses the same crowd-sourced community-dinner model to provide small grants to community projects and civic initiatives in north-east Queens. A $5 donation gets you into a pot-luck dinner where four local community groups pitch their plan to improve the Greater Flushing area. At the end of the presentations, attendees vote for their favorite initiative. The project with the most votes wins all the money raised at the door. Regardless of who wins the cash prize, SOUP acts as an innovative networking event, connecting projects with potential community partners and volunteers.
2016 GREATER FLUSHING SOUP
The Adopt-A-Block project was a week-long pilot project organized by Body and Brain Yoga and Tai Chi in collaboration with their charity branch, Flushing Earth Citizens, held in Summer 2016 that worked to clean up Roosevelt Avenue between Main Street and Union Street in downtown Flushing. Volunteers swept the side walks, washed down public trash cans and ad bins, and removed graffiti throughout the area, all while encouraging people to through out their trash and keep Flushing clean.
Other projects from our first SOUP included:
– Community Organizing Language Forums (Korean Americans for Political Advancement): Filling in the language access void in Flushing by teaching civically engaged Korean and Mandarin speakers how to reach out to neighbors on policy issues in these languages.
– Bee Aware Mural Initiative (“For The Good of The Hive”): A mural located at Ganeinu Early Learning Center painted by students from RFK High School, shinning light on the issue of our depleting bee population, and its effects on humanity.
– Kick-Off event Community Gathering to Clean Flushing Bay! followed later this summer by Live @ Flushing Bay! (Guardians of Flushing Bay): Mobilizing the community to stand up for improved water quality in Flushing Bay and Creek through a waterfront clean-up on May 7, 2016 and cultural programming along the waterfront.
The first SOUP was held as part of an Earth Week Kickoff event which included programming, classes, and giveaways created in part by Green Earth Urban Gardens, the NYC Compost Project hosted by the Queens Botanical Gardens, Partnership for Parks, GrowNYC Zero Waste Programs funded by NYC Sanitation, Flushing CSA, Gutsier Living, Body and Brain Yoga and Tai Chi, and Susten Corp. A raffle to raise funds for the upcoming SOUP in Fall 2016, was sponsored by Hydroponic Garden Centers Inc., Neil’s Natural Market, Garden World, and TD Bank.
Cody Ann Herrmann is the lead project coordinator for the Greater Flushing Chamber of Commerce’s Queens SOUP, a crowd-sourced community-dinner model to provide small grants to community projects and civic initiatives. She is a passionate New York City based community organizer with an interest in participatory design methods, public space, and local sustainable development.
A long-time Flushing resident and environmental activist, Cody spearheaded the first ever innovative Greater Flushing SOUP networking event last spring, which was inspired by a similar program first launched in Detroit. The concept: a $5 donation grants attendees a ballot and a plate at a potluck community meal, also funded by generous sponsorship from local businesses. During the dinner, four local community groups pitch their plan to improve Queens– at the end of the presentations, attendees voted for their favorite initiative. The winning team at the Greater Flushing SOUP, the Earth Citizens Club of Flushing and their Adopt-A-Block project won over $800 at last April’s event.
Through multidisciplinary arts, community engagement exercises, and grassroots organizing, Cody applies an iterative, human centered approach to environmental problem solving. With a strong entrepreneurial spirit, she also helps to manage Woody and Pete’s Honky Tonk Lyceum (@QueensLyceum) – an experimental multi-use space which operates as an organic coffee shop, art gallery, and community classroom run by Hydroponic Garden Centers Inc. in Flushing, Queens. Through community outreach driven by Cody, the Lyceum has developed into an engaging environment, serving a dynamic crowd of residents, students, creatives, and commuters. All events are predominately run by a dedicated group of volunteers and collaborators, resulting in an eclectic mix of free and low cost programing. The Lyceum hosts a rolling open call for individual artists and artist collectives of all mediums that are interested in staging performances, or exhibiting works in the gallery.
Cody first got excited about community organizing through her work with the Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership’s (TNP) and Trumbull County Land Bank’s (TCLB) community lead land reuse projects in 2015. Cody worked with TNP and TCLB throughout that summer to increase capacity building efforts within the Ohio Housing Finance Agency’s Neighborhood Initiative Program, Lots to Love, funding community lead projects in vacant lots.
Cody graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York. During her free time she enjoys studying public spaces, cycling, thrifting and talking about local water quality.
Join Cody and get involved in environmental and community based initiatives through Queens SOUP! This coming Earth Day, April 22, 2017, Queens residents borough wide will have the opportunity to participate in the first ever Queens SOUP, a crowd-funded micro-granting community dinner, hosted by the Greater Flushing Chamber of Commerce (GFCC). Learn more and apply here: https://goo.gl/forms/ccRaXrVUSFkSSRSP2. Application deadline– March 31, 2017.
