Case Study: Helping Downtown Soul City Keep Its Soul and Becoming Self-Sustaining
The merchants of Downtown Soul City are ready for Master’s Week events.
After Eric Parker, cofounder of theClubhou.se, volunteered to join the Downtown Soul City board to help support its Small Business Saturday event last November, “they made the mistake of putting me on the budget committee,” he says with a laugh.
The nonprofit organization of about 13 small-business retail merchants in downtown Augusta was running on a shoestring budget, funded primarily by those small businesses. As the man behind theClubhou.se’s work to help entrepreneurs start up successful businesses, Parker’s mind started working: How could he help apply that business model to Downtown Soul City?
That led to a pilot project that Parker hopes will become another service offered by theClubhou.se: helping nonprofits build a successful business model, be financially sustainable and, ultimately, not just achieve their missions but knock them out of the park.
Over the past four months, Parker and John Porter—Downtown Soul City coordinator, former head chef and general manager at The Bee’s Knees and creator of the 10th Street Bazaar—have worked to overhaul the nonprofit’s membership model, kick off a brand-new event for Masters Week, and launch a new website:
https://downtownsoul.city
Downtown Soul City’s core membership will continue as retail merchants. “Encouraging local retail is what encourages growth and encourages people and other companies to move downtown and eat more downtown and spend more money downtown,” says Porter.
But Downtown Soul City has now added supporter-level memberships for anyone who loves downtown, including individuals, businesses like restaurants and salons that may be less than 30% retail, and corporate sponsorships. In return, supporters get added value, including swag, event RSVPs, food and beverage discounts, branding opportunities and more.
“We’ve created a model for anyone in the community to support the work these businesses do, in exchange for benefits, whether that’s discounts or access to events,” says Parker. “We’re also designing lots of great new events to bring more people downtown.”
The latest is the 19th Hole, which Porter describes as a retail crawl, running April 1 to 10, 2023. Score cards are available at local hotels, home rental agencies and participating downtown businesses. Each purchase at the various locations earns a certain score. Once shoppers reach a score of 14, they can take the completed card to Augusta & Co. at 1010 Broad St. enter to win a gift basket of downtown goodies valued at $250.
Their completed card also gets them a free coffee at downtown’s Ubora Coffee Roasters at 1128 Jones St. or a free draft beer at Riverwatch Brewery at 1175 Fourth St.
These kinds of experiences are what Downtown Soul City is known for. Along with its annual Small Business Saturday event in November, it runs Camp Soul City, which invites shoppers to enjoy camp-style activities every summer. “Augusta needs more events and experiences and things to do,” says Porter.
Because ultimately, what Downtown Soul City and theClubhou.se hope to accomplish together is to bring the community together. “I would love to get to a point where the majority of downtown retail businesses and food and beverage and others are working hand in hand to improve the daily lives of the people who live here,” says Porter. “I think it starts here. And theClubhou.se has such a wealth of knowledge and advice on how to go about the strategies that set the foundation for an organization to become self-sustaining.”
“It feels 100% aligned to me,” says Parker, since theClubhou.se is likewise located in downtown’s Georgia Cyber Center. “It’s why we created theClubhou.se. The work we do with Make Startups [our entrepreneurial training certification] is perfectly positioned to help Downtown Soul City and every other nonprofit in Augusta really understand how to sustain their work.”