Soup & Solidarity Questions and Answers

My Soup & Solidarity Discord Server’s opening has been moved up to April 1st due to a procedure and increased urgency based in happenings in the US right now. I will also be seeking “seed members” starting March 15 who will be invited outside of Patreon and will not need a Patreon membership to participate on the server. I hope that these people will start building the community spaces people are looking for. All other members will need to sign up through my Patreon. If you are interested in being a seed member, please email me through jliles@responsivellc.com with the subject line “seed member”.

How Will Soup & Solidarity Distribute Mutual Aid?

Initially, Soup & Solidarity will fund existing mutual aid groups. I will choose from various organizations across the country at first. After consensus meetings start happening, the server members may decide to keep doing that or to expand into the more labor intensive work of setting up our own direct mutual aid to individuals. This is likely to be a continually evolving and responsive process.

Is this designed for me to make money?

Whether you mean “me” as me, Jenni Liles, or you, the person reading this, the answer is yes. I need to move away from accepting insurance for my therapy participants as a means of making a living, given current events. It is my hope that the Discord server will allow that.

I hope to build a sprawling server with lots of little sub-communities regularly using voice and video channels to have informal events such as knitting circles, poetry readings, playing video games, etc. Members can make money several ways:

Pass the hat:

The host of events is expected to “pass the hat” at the end of these meetings by providing a server approved link to a payment site in the associated text chat. The host will get a portion of the proceeds. This will paid as a contractor and be considered part of the “server expenses” and the rest will be split as above.

Trading post:

At the five dollar Patreon level and above, the member will be allowed to post “classified ads” on the server to sell, swap, or give items. That member must not collect a series of complaints of slow service or false advertising or their selling/trading access will be removed.

The buy/sell/trade/give portion of the server allows access to guests (but without selling or offering options) to bring in a larger clientele. The seller will be responsible for fulfillment and Soup & Solidarity’s only role is advertising. Soup & Solidarity does not get a cut for this.

Ticketed events:

At the ten dollar level, Patrons will be able to create ticketed events where they charge per ticket sold for a class or other professionally led group. The speaker chooses the event cost and Soup & Solidarity gets half. Patreon stages provide an extremely large max capacity and will be useful for many purposes from education to self-help to organization.

Patron levels for “just giving more”.

I will provide patron levels on my Patreon choices that don’t add any more “perks” other than recognition. These allow folks with more money than time to contribute consistently every month without having to put much time or thought in.

Expenses that are not mutual aid direct payments to groups or individuals:

• My salary and benefits, which will never be more than middle class.
• The salaries or hourly wages and benefits of anyone I hire as an employee.
• A cut of every “pass the hat” event on the Soup & Solidarity server to the person facilitating that.
• Payments to the server designated as for a moderator or facilitator
• The portion of ticketed events that goes to the event facilitator.
• Server costs and other reasonable costs of business that makes this possible.

My goal is to be as transparent as possible about expenses and distributions, above what is legally required.

Is Soup & Solidarity a Charity?

No, it is not. Legally, it is a charitable project of a for-profit business, my therapy business Responsive Mental Health Services LLC. While the server is small, I will continue to operate as a one person shop, with moderating being done primarily by me and some Discord bots (with hopefully a few volunteers) but as the server grows, my goal is to get additional help. This includes:

• When server income from Patreon pledges makes it affordable to me, I plan to engage a lawyer and an accountant to advise me.
• When the server “pass the hat” and Patreon pledges combined make it necessary, or earlier if the lawyer or accountant advises to do so, I plan to engage the services of a “fiscal sponsor” who maintains a 501c3 charity and handles disbursements and tax compliance for charitable projects of for-profit businesses. Those services are cost prohibitive until the server is self-supporting, but will be very valuable as it grows.
• Because the server will need to stay in compliance with charity rules even though it is not technically a charity, campaigning for particular political candidates or political parties is not allowed on the site.
• It is possible or even probable that as the server grows, I might create a charitable trust to keep it fully funded long past my involvement. This will potentially also allow me to retire some day.
• While Soup & Solidarity will accept private grants, in line with its goals of treating mutual aid as “everyone deserves soup”, grants will have to respect our autonomy with regard to how we distribute the grants.

What do you mean by consensus based decision-making?

Consensus based decision making is a form of governance where important decisions are made by regular meetings where issues are brought forward by any member of the community who chooses, and the community works through disagreements about how to proceed until the entire community is in agreement. It discourages divisive debate and encourages compromise and creative solutions. We will be using Dean Spade’s book Mutual Aid as a guideline for how to conduct consensus meetings.

As the owner, I have financial and legal obligations that other members of the community don’t share. The one exception to true consensus based decision making is that I may need to veto decisions for financial viability or legal reasons.

Other than that, this community belongs entirely to its members, who make the majority of decisions. For financial and legal accountability, I will share financials with those who accept leadership roles at community consensus meetings (with personal info redacted).

What will community on Soup & Solidarity Discord look like?

Some features will include:

Soup & Solidarity explicitly encourages spaces for marginalized people:

I belong to several marginalized populations myself, and will encourage my communities and others to establish open or “members-only” communities for their folks. I am making the entire server as accessible as possible and strongly encourage regular feedback for improvement.

Direct action spaces:

An entire part of the server is set aside as workspace for direct actions and outside mutual aid efforts. I have also provided space for people to post resource lists and other useful organizational tools.

Member creation of community spaces within the server framework:

While only mods or above can delete or move or “slow mode” a thread, any member can create a thread. This will help the server to sprawl to encompass as many ideas as the server members can dream up.

Use moderation and paywall to limit antisocial behavior:

Online spaces that charge admission, even a very small fee, generally avoid most of the troll invasions that happen online. I have set up some fairly powerful auto-mod settings. In addition, I will be seeking moderators as a the server grows. Even from the beginning, server members will be nudged to tip moderators during their sales. Eventually we’ll develop a formal moderator payment strategy.

Audio-video and stage channels:

All members from the lowest pay level up can lead or join audio-visual channels and have audio or video groups. Members at the ten dollar level and up can lead “stage” channels and schedule ticketed events to raise money for themselves and the server.

How Are You Planning to Grow the Server?

Word of mouth. Mine, and yours. Share information on the server with your friends. If you’re planning an event, let people know wherever you have a platform.

Talk about how much fun it is to be in an internet environment where debate is discouraged and consensus building and education and community are encouraged. I honestly don’t think an idea like this one needs to pay for advertisement.

While word of mouth means the server will likely start slowly, it will also help me get helpers in place before the server becomes too much for one person to run.

What Needs Does the Server Meet?

Funding mutual aid to existing groups and individuals:

The obvious need this server meets is a consistent stream of money for mutual aid as things get worse for more people. The goal is to have a very low barrier for participation as a recipient or donor while encouraging members to spread the word in order to benefit their own pockets.

Supporting the personal needs of server members:

First, it helps you make self-care a priority.

We are fighting a war. We need to be in good mental and physical shape to do so. Make it a daily ritual to do the things, to the best of your ability. Well moderated collaborative communities like this one will naturally create the conditions for people to allow themselves to be vulnerable and kind with each other and remind each other gently of the importance of taking care of themselves.

Second, it helps build both your online and in-person community.

A community like Soup & Solidarity offers room for growth in both communities. An online thread for “Your Town, Your State”, for instance, can allow you to meet new local community through getting to know each other, properly vetting each other, and meeting each other in a safe way offline once you grow to trust one another. And if you live in an area where you are a marginalized minority and have had little success building communities, communities like this online one can be a lifesaver.

Third, you can pick a passion (person, place, idea, institution, thing) and preserve, protect, and participate in/with it/them

 Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to fix everything, just work on your own interests. Let other people work on their own interests and things will come together. The server will provide lots of tools (ever increasing) to make things happen.

Finally, you can rest and play to renew your spoons on the server. 

Soup & Solidarity will give lots of opportunities for both. Participate in a knitting group. Play video games in an audio channel and laugh with each other. Organize virtual tabletop games. Create a mini-concert or listen to one. Read to each other (no copyright violations, please! — if you’re not sure, ask the author or publisher for permission or to show up and host their own event). Make an art gallery event for you and other members of the server.

This Sounds Interesting. How Can I Help?

If you are interested, I strongly encourage you to sign up at (at LEAST) the $1 level right now.This will help me get an idea of whether the server is growing too slowly and I need to boost it, or whether it’s growing fast and I need to start implementing the “OMG we’re doing this” contingency plans.

In addition, if you have skills you’d like to volunteer during this startup phase, such as setting up or moderating the Discord, legal advice, financial advice, etc., email me at jliles@responsivellc.com. As indicated above, volunteering like this, depending on server growth and consensus of server members, could lead to payment as a contractor or even employment down the road.

This is a start-up on the smallest of shoestrings. Any way you can help is valuable.

If you’ve gotten this far, please head over to my Patreon right now and pledge $1 a month toward mutual aid. More is better, but these are hard times, and I get it.

Thank you.

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Remember, if you want to be a founding member of the Soup and Solidarity Discord server (opening May 1, 2025), sign up to support it by becoming a Patron at $1 or more today.

Click here to go to the site directory to find more information and entertainment, and click here to email me to offer feedback or help me build the server.

Find more books that you might like through my Jenni’s Space / Soup & Solidarity store on Bookshop.org. I am an affiliate and earn money when you click through and buy anything, much of which gets passed on to Soup & Solidarity mutual aid.