After a 10-year hiatus, a Philly microgranting project comes back to the table for community fundraising

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This weekend, a fundraising project to seed small community projects in Philadelphia returns after 10 years away.

Philly Stake is a ticketed luncheon where attendees listen to pitches for creative community projects and then vote on which projects will receive the evening’s proceeds. It will be held this Sunday at Bartram’s Garden in West Philadelphia under a tented pavilion, with locally sourced food.

“Think ‘Shark Tank’ but for altruistic Philadelphians that are proposing projects, mostly having to do with something that is creative, community-engaged and relevant to Philadelphians,” said co-founder Theresa Rose.

Philly Stake is a microgranting project that raises small amounts of money for projects with modest ambitions. Rose expects to raise about $1,700 this weekend, which will be distributed to three winning projects coming in first, second and third.

Rose launched Philly Stake in 2010 after attending a similar concept in Brooklyn called FEAST, or Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics, which was based on an idea originating in Chicago called SOUP.

“There was a lot of awesome things happening in Philly, a lot of creative people wanting to do great projects,” Rose said. “But a real lack of support on that small scale.”

Both FEAST and SOUP lasted less than five years. The longest-running program was Detroit SOUP, lasting from 2010 to 2025 and ending when its parent organization, Build Institute, ceased all operations.

The original Philly Stake lasted six years. Rose and her team of volunteers shut it down in 2016.

“It was a long time and a lot of effort,” she said. “My son was 1 ½ at the time. That can be tricky. We had other folks on the team that were having babies or moving. It was a matter of energy dispersed and not having enough volunteer energy to keep it going.”

Rose said between 175 and 250 people would attend a Philly Stake meal. During its six-year run, the event raised $21,500, which was distributed to 24 projects.

Aside from the cost of food and supplies, all money raised by ticket sales went to the recipients. They included Warrior Writers, a veteran writing project; the Recycled Artist in Residency program, which places artists into a recycling dump in Northeast Philly; and Philly Thriller, a public Halloween dance party staged by Rashid Holmes of West Philadelphia.

“She lived in a neighborhood where she didn’t feel like it was safe for the kids to trick or treat,” Rose said. “So she organized a block party where she taught all the kids the ‘Thriller’ dance and there was this huge dance in the block. She did the whole Philly Thriller dance at Philly Stake and had the entire audience get up and do some of the moves.”

The relaunch of Philly Stake this weekend at Bartram’s Garden will feature five presentations: PHLASK, a local app for locating and distributing free, life-sustaining resources such as food and water; Autistic Art Coalition, which advocates for sensory-friendly art experiences for neurodivergent people; Gongs in Schools, which advocates for meditative practices for young people; Trash Academy, which uses art to raise awareness of waste disposal and its shortcomings; and AREYTO Philly, which promotes Caribbean and South American spiritual practices.

“In the world as it is, I feel like there’s no better time to bring back the sort of love and joy that Philly Stake brought to so many people,” Rose said. “There’s the environment, politics, war. There’s a whole list of devastation in the world, and I think that the best thing that I can do, at least, is try to share a little bit of joy and love with others by doing work that supports people doing great things.”

The original run of Philly Stake held two or three events a year. The relaunch will not be so ambitious. Rose plans to hold one Philly Stake a year, moving it around to different neighborhoods.