Soup & Bread & Social Good

Dear friends:

Over the last seven years of Soup & Bread, we’ve been asked the same simple questions again and again: “Is my donation tax deductible?” “Why don’t you become a 501(c)3 nonprofit?” “How can I help if I can’t come to a meal?”

For seven years the short answers to these confounding questions have been, respectively: “No,” “Oh god, no,” and, “We don’t know.” And, hey, we won’t bore you with the long answers because we’re happy to say they’re no longer relevant! As of this week Soup & Bread: Chicago has fiscal sponsorship through the Social Good Fund — a San Francisco-based nonprofit that provides administrative infrastructure to noncommercial projects working for social change.

What this means on the ground in Chicago is that while Soup & Bread will remain as loose and unincorporated as ever — and cash donations made at events will continue to be channeled directly to food pantries and other beneficiaries — you can now help support our general operating costs by making a tax-deductible contribution to Soup & Bread via the fund.

We hope to raise $5,000 during the 2016 season of Soup & Bread: Chicago, which runs January 6-March 30, and we’re starting the campaign now so that you can get your donation in before the end of this year.

Our operating costs are not high, but they are ongoing: bowls and spoons and ladles; laundry and gas; web hosting; labor. Until now, most of these have been covered though book sales, through our own out-of-pocket contributions, and through scattershot donations. By joining up with Social Good we hope to more effectively separate our administrative costs from the event-based fundraising that is our mission.

Your support will go a long way toward ensuring the continued sustainability of this project, which to date has raised more than $60,000 for a range of hunger relief initiatives large and small.Please consider making a donation of any amount (how about $20?) via our website HERE.

As ever we thank you from the bottom of our empty crock pots for your support,

Martha Bayne & Sheila Sachs

PS: Soup & Bread 2016 starts January 6 at the Hideout and we still need cooks! Email soupnbread10@gmail.com to get on the schedule.