Opening the summer of 2011, Ponyride, a 30,000 square-foot warehouse in the Corktown area of Detroit, presently serves as home to 25 socially-conscious businesses, ranging from non-profits like Detroit Soup, to for-profit entrepreneurial ventures like Detroit Denim. Following is my conversation with Ponyride’s Executive Director Kate Bordine on how they made it happen, the power […]
Posted in Detroit, entrepreneurism, Local Business | Also tagged 3rd Ward, branding, Brooklyn, business incubators, Cleveland, co-working, Corktown, Detroit Denim, Detroit Harmonie, Detroit Soup, Empowerment Plan, foreclosure, grants, hip hop dancing, Hugh, Indiegogo, Kate Bordine, Knight Foundation, letterpress, local non-profits, makers, metalworking, networking, new models for non-profits, Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy, Phil Cooley, pop-up retail, Pot and Box, recording studio, Slows Bar BQ, Smith Shop, social entrepreneurship, TechShop Detroit, textiles, the lessons of Detroit, triple bottom line, Two James Distillery, volunteering, woodworking |
By Mark | February 25, 2012
I’ve been puzzling over an email that I received from local real estate developer Stewart Beal a few days ago, announcing a new “business concept” of his, called CITYfarm. “CityFARM,” said Beal in his letter, “is a company with a social mission (kind of like a hybrid of a for profit company and a not […]
Posted in Agriculture, entrepreneurism, Food, Uncategorized, Ypsilanti | Also tagged Adams Street, Adams Street Farm, Amanda Edmonds, CityFARM, farm jobs, farming, Food Gatherers, food security, GMO, Growing Hope, heirloom seeds, Kickstarter, Lauren Maloney, local non-profits, new models for non-profits, organic farming, pesticide, Stewart Beal, urban farming |
By Mark | August 25, 2010
Still have some spare money after Alan Grayson’s big money bomb, and that donation to the Union of Concerned Scientists? Well, you’re in luck. Tomorrow, one of my favorite non-profits in the world, the youth literacy and writing organization known as 826, will be accepting donations. And they’re not asking for very much. They just […]
Posted in Art and Culture | Also tagged 826, 826 Michigan, Alan Grayson, donations, Give by Cell, literacy, Mobile GIving Foundation, money bomb, Union of Concerned Scientists, writing skills, Youth Literacy Day |
By Mark | November 12, 2009
I don’t pass parenting tips along all that often. It’s rare that I come across an idea that’s so unambiguously phenomenal that I want to share it. I picked something up from some friends recently, however, that I feel compelled to mention… They give their daughter an allowance, with the understanding that some percentage of […]
