An innovative new website in Detroit seeks to combine two web trends -- couponing and crowdsourcing -- to build a virtual community to support the city's new projects.
Detroitbigfdeal.com is a web-based community financing platform. Unlike websites like Kickstarter, they aren't focused on hitting a targeted sum. Rather, a project gets funded when enough community members donate -- whether they give $10 or $50. Members who donate are then eligible for discounts and coupons from local businesses, like
Union Street,
The Raw Cafe, the
Garden Bowl and
GOODS.
The first project Detroitbigfdeal will fund is the
4th Street Farm community garden in Midtown. Website co-founder Tunde Wey says they hope to engage 50 members of the community to donate (click
here to give).
Wey says, beyond financing, they are also hoping to create an apparatus where people can do more than donate -- they can adopt a project and be a part of it, based on his own experience helping grow 4th Street Farm.
"We're finding ways that we can take this offline platform, bring it online, and then move it back offline -- it's just this seamless connection," Wey says.
Though Detroitbigfdeal is a for-profit website, Wey says the site's first priority is creating a community of users who come back to the site -- and they'll work to make deals with local businesses whom their user base will support.
"We're trying to engage people here. We're trying to be a part of all this wonderful energy that's happening here," Wey says. "I think for me, Detroit is like a different speed. You reorient. What I think success is, what I think community is, what I think happiness is."
Support the 4th Street Farm and Detroitbigfdeal.com by attending a free
benefit at the Magic Stick on Tuesday, May 31. Audra Kubat and others will play. Check out
detroitbigfdeal.com for more information.
Source: Tunde Wey, co-founder, Detroitbigfdeal.com
Writer: Ashley C. Woods
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.