Five weeks. Just five weeks ago I discovered Open Mic, listened to all the songs, and decided I would make a post featuring some of my favorite ones. There weren't any prizes then, and I wasn't expecting any upvotes. I got some, and I don't even think they were on purpose, but the point of that post was never to be profitable, so I gave out some prizes. 1 SBD/song isn't much of a tip, but it's something. I kept doing it. And somehow it kept growing.
I never asked permission, I never even told anyone from Open Mic I was doing it. That's kind of my thing; eighteen years ago doing something very similar I ended up in a fight with Harlan Ellison. I'd say I'm glad Harlan isn't on Steemit but given his attitude toward technology that was never much of a risk.
There are people out there who like to complain that Open Mic doesn't reward people the way they wish it would. And I want to say to those people: you can be the change you want to see. I don't know that I had a real feeling that Open Mic wasn't rewarding people the way I thought it should; I thought then (and still do) that the rewards are kind of top-heavy, but I'm sure the people running the contest have reasons for doing it that way.
What I did think was that I wanted songwriting that fits my taste to be rewarded more than it was, not because Open Mic was doing it wrong, but because I want more of it here. I put a lot of work into continually finding new music in the outside world, and it's nice to have a place where it essentially comes to me.
Eventually some people started noticing, and in each of the fourth and fifth weeks I did this I was able to give out 27 SBD to the featured songwriters. Not because I'm rich, but because I'm dedicated to the post not making a profit, and people keep voting it. Going forward my goal is to have the combination of my Open Mic entry and my curation entry essentially break even, so I'm funding it a little with my rewards from playing the game, but I don't have to bring in any money from outside.
That not only means that it should be sustainable, it means anyone can do the same if they want to. You don't even necessarily have to include your own entry or even make one. Make a curation post. Distribute the rewards from the curation posts to the musicians you're featuring. Look for the qualities that you want to see get rewarded more.
I'm fortunate enough to have some autovote support, and first-mover advantage on this may mean it's harder for you to get some of the votes I've been getting. But when I started doing this I had no expectation that it was going to become anything more than me appreciating a few songwriters, and five weeks later it has become a significant reward on top of the regular prizes the official Open Mic crew put out.
Give it a try. See how it grows. I'll pledge a 100% upvote to any independent Open Mic curation post that operates on the non-profit principle, and every week you make one I'll buy you a 
Added later: SBI created a special room on their Discord just for this, if anyone wants to talk about it or post their curation posts there. Joseph chose the tag #openmicsupport for the room and I like it and it's unused, so I'm making it the tag for the challenge here too.
