Co-ownership and structure spread this Queer party coast-to-coast 🥣 Liz Alpern, Founder of Queer Soup Night
Episode at a glance:
GUEST: Liz Alpern
COMMUNITY: Queer Soup Night
HOSTS: Bailey Richardson & Kevin Huynh
Show Notes
On this episode of the podcast, we interview Liz Alpern, one of the founders of Queer Soup Night.
Queer Soup Night started in Brooklyn with a simple event format. Liz, a queer professional chef, simply found a space and made a soup. Attendees got to enjoy that soup (and a party!) in exchange for a suggested donation to a cause.
The first one went so well, Liz and her partners Jen Martin and Kathleen Cunningham knew they had to keep going.
Now, there are Queer Soup Nights in chapters around the country — from Oakland and Portland to Gainesville and Boston. Their events have raised thousands of dollars for queer and queer-adjacent beneficiaries, from New York Transgender Advocacy Group to the Center for Anti-Violence Education.
Why soup? Why a party with a charity? Why launch chapters? We get into the whole story with Liz on the podcast.
While you’re listening to Liz, key in on some of our favorite insights:
Build with others, not for them.
Liz eschews any sense that she is a lone wolf founder of Queer Soup Night. As she told us, “I think a lot of people would identify as founders of Queer Soup Night…like, everybody who was at the first one. We’ve been trying to be as radical as we can about not making this about me or about the three founders.” That shows up in the language she uses in the interview (more “we” than “I”) and the way she’s grown the organization—carving out opportunities for passionate members to contribute and take on ownership every step of the way.
One-off events ≠community building.
“Once you do something three times, it’s a thing,” Liz says, and she’s right. If you want to sustain or grow a community, not just host an epic one-off experience, you’ll need to design a core activity that you and your people can repeat from the get-go. Queer Soup Nights are an easy format to repeat over and over.
Vet for genuine and qualified leaders.
If you’re going to distribute leadership, look for people who are both genuine and qualified to take on that role. When Liz opens a new chapter, she does that. She looks for applicants who truly care about the cause (they are queer and they’ve raised their hands to lead) and are qualified to host an event (they have had a background in food services and relationships in the industry).
👋🏻Say hi to Liz and Learn more about Queer Soup Night.
Listen and Subscribe to the Podcast:
Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Overcast, Pocketcast, RSS
Get Together is produced by the team at People & Company.
We published a book and we’ve worked with organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider as strategy partners, bringing confidence to how they’re building communities.
Stay up to date on all things Get Together.