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Foundation Proposal

Mr./ Mrs./ Ms. _____________

The Georgia Power Foundation

241 Ralph McGill Blvd., N.E., Bin 10095

Atlanta, GA United States 30308-3374

Dear _________:

The Atlanta History Center is dedicated to connecting people, culture, and history

through story telling. While the Atlanta History Center’s commitment to this goal is paramount,

there is always room for more stories and more voices. Food and foodways are natural avenues

to uncovering cultural stories because food is a welcoming force and food reveals cultural

values. Through the medium of a podcast, Soul Food: Recipes from Atlanta will bring another

opportunity for connection to the Atlanta History Center’s digital initiative. While the podcast

will focus on food from Atlanta, one does not need to be in Atlanta to enjoy stories of food, or to

want to try new recipes, therefore Soul Food is the perfect initiative to help grow the Atlanta

History Center’s digital audience beyond the bounds of Atlanta and Georgia. The Atlanta History

Center requests a grant of $5,000 from The Georgia Power Foundation to assist the production of

the podcast Soul Food: Recipes from Atlanta.

Soul Food will focus on the recipes of Atlanta’s communities through local restaurants.

The goals of the podcast are to provide connection, promote empathy, increase the Atlanta

History Center’s Digital Audience, and increase the Atlanta History Center’s visibility in

currently underserved communities. All kinds of cuisine will be included, and a special focus

will be given to Atlanta’s Black American communities, immigrant communities, and southern

fusion. Through using foodways, the podcast will uncover stories of migration, family, recipes,
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and suddenly hard-to-find ingredients. Soul Food will promote connections between listeners and

the communities discussed in each episode. Everyone can understand the importance of a family

recipe, has traditional foods for special occasions, and knows the frustration of being in a place

and unable to find the ingredients for your favorite dish. Through these connections empathy will

be fostered as listeners see themselves in the communities interviewed and are encouraged to try

the recipes themselves. By including multiple communities and encouraging listeners to be in

conversation with the podcast, Soul Food will increase the Atlanta History Center’s digital

audience. Two of the Atlanta History Center’s guiding principles, Inclusivity and Community,

will guide how Soul Food operates. Soul Food will enter each community respectfully, using

restaurants as contacts. After authentically representing the stories the restaurants want to tell,

Soul Food will invite responses from the community and use their restaurant contacts to gather

and represent the community’s stories.

In order to complete our goals, Soul Food has several objectives it will work to complete.

To increase connection among the audience and between the audience and the interviewees, Soul

Food will include stories of migrants and “traditional” southerners, both black and white. It will

be an intentional goal to provide equal airtime to both popular restaurants and lesser known,

more local institutions. To reveal the people behind these recipes, Soul Food will invite listeners

to share their own versions of highlighted recipes through social media or by “calling in”

(emailing in voice memos to be played on the podcast). This will allow for a larger conversation

to take place outside the bounds of the podcast and for listeners to feel connected to each other as

they try out dishes and share any mistakes or triumphs. Sharing written recipes and encouraging

visitors to make them will also promote empathy. Other objectives are to include the cultural

heritage and family connections of recipes, when possible, include the history and context of
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recipes and ingredients, the events for which certain dishes are made, and to include voices of

each community Soul Food discusses.

In order to increase the digital audience, Soul Food will include multiple communities,

and encourage digital participation so that people can feel close while far away through social

media and responses to podcast episodes. A wide base of digital interaction will hopefully

encourage responses from migrant communities in other cities, who will share their versions of

the dishes. These responses will be included in the podcast. Promoting the Atlanta History

Center’s visibility will be done carefully, as the intention is to help the community and provide

for its needs, not the History Center’s. Soul Food will build trust through relationships with local

restaurants, create visibility by attending community events, and partner with restaurants for

“give away”s including gift certificates and free admission to the Atlanta History Center.

This grant asks for help producing the podcast by purchasing the recording equipment.

As Soul Food wishes to show Atlanta’s communities the respect they deserve, the podcast needs

to be produced carefully and seriously. The goal for this money will be to purchase the best

recording equipment and editing software so a digital recording studio can be created at the

Atlanta History Center. Consideration must be given to equipment that is also mobile, in the case

of any in the field recording. The grant will go towards the purchase of microphones,

windshields, and acoustic panels among other recording and editing equipment. There will also

be a contingency fund budgeted into the grant request in case any of the technology breaks,

which from research is a common problem in the podcasting community.

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Budget

Object Model/ name quantity price total

Microphone Shure SM7B 2 399.00 798.00
Headphones Sony 2 349.99 699.98
Windshield Blimp 2 299.00 598.00
Boom Arm Rode PSA 2 2 109.00 218.00
Procaster
Audio Interface Rodecaster Pro 1 599.00 599.00
Integrated
Podcast product
studio
Shock Mount Rode Microph 2 49.00 98.00
SM4-R
Acoustic Treatment ATS acoustic 16 60.45 967.20
panels with
Guilford of Main
Fabric 24x 36x 2”
Cables Amazon 4 52.95 239.80
Contingency/Breakage 773.02
Total 5000.00

Soul Food will start by interviewing the chefs of local Atlantan restaurants (one

restaurant per episode) and will move into interviewing the communities of the restaurants once

trust is established. The format will be interview based, with a focus on drawing out the narrative

from the interviewee, in a radio format, similar to NPR produced podcasts. The podcast will be

released monthly, with the first season spanning seven to ten episodes. Depending on how many

community interviews we are able to get, the first season will include at minimum five restaurant

interviews and the rest community interviews. In the second season, assuming that we will have

been able to gather more community interviews, the format will change slightly to episodes

combining restaurant and community interviews. The length of the episodes will be between

forty-five minutes to an hour, depending on the length of the interviews. This will allow the

podcast to be played during commutes and as listeners are doing various chores, cleaning or
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making dinner. Soul Food will be published on the Atlanta History Center’s website, and also to

any platforms of the Atlanta History Center’s choosing. Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify,

and Google are viable options.

Evaluation metrics will include how many people are listening to the podcast, how many

people are interacting, either on social media or by reaching out to the podcast, and if the Atlanta

History Center sees an increase in visitation from listeners of Soul Food, or members of the

communities the podcast has featured.

Thank you for your time and consideration. If you would like further information or

would like to visit the Atlanta History Center to learn more about the program, please call

________.

Thank you for all of your previous support of the Atlanta History Center.

Best,

__________