Organization:The Awesome Foundation

Overview

The Awesome Foundation is a way to celebrate and support the brilliant ideas that every-day people have, and thus create more awesomeness in the universe and at large. They do this by awarding a $1000 grant each month to a really swell idea. No strings attached. And AWESOME THINGS COME OF IT!!!

An Awesome Foundation "Chapter" is born when a group of 10 seemingly normal people (or unruly misfits) come together as 'micro-trustees', and agree to pool $100each of their own money, every month. The self-organized group then collectively decides upon a project to receive their collective $1000. While the Awesome Foundation's first circle of ten originated in Boston, MA in 2009, it has since exploded into a worldwide phenomenon with 89 chapters and 899 projects funded (that's $899,000!). Each chapter is completely autonomous, and organized around geographic location or topic of interest, including technology, arts, food, social good, and beyond.

Ultimately, it is a way for regular people to philanthropically support other regular people's dreams, because we all know that it is regular people have the most ingenious flashes of brilliance, wildest fantasies, and diversity of interest and experience in making something unique happen! 

Origins

Tim Hwang founded The Awesome Foundation in 2009, to address his frustration with the unavailability of small amounts of funding for small projects. So, he rallied 10 friends to begin this experiment in what they called 'guerilla funding'. In their home-made Foundation, anyone could be eligible for the $1000 grant by submitting a simple 7 question application on their website.

What they found was that $1000 was a very sweet amount of money- it was small enough that the trustees did not worry about risk in what they were investing in, knowing another month would role around fast, but it was plenty of funding to legitimize the awesomeness of a person's idea and motivate them to GO BIG with it (like an activation energy!). The grants began to create great ripple effects in the community; festivals funded once would reoccur annually, people's inventions would receive media coverage and lead to more inventions, and they would find highly commendable applications at home and abroad. Casual tinkerers were becoming bonafide citizen problem solvers! Communities And it didn't take billionaires to get them started. 

"We tap the really underestimated power of JOY- without joy the Awesome Foundation would be the Cheap and Efficient foundation, which is a lot less catchy." - Christina Xu, Trustee

In 2011, in the wake of the Haiti Earthquake foriegn aid scramble, the Foundation established The Institute on Higher Awesome Studies with the resounding cry for alternatives to traditional forms of aid, "Yo, I know this sounds cray-cray. But like, check this argument out..." . Mainstream aid is plagued with many inefficiencies in short sighted goals, rigidity and use of outsiders over indigenous resources and knowledge. AF recognized that their flexibility in being a sum of many decentralized small parts allowed them to adapt to tough aid crisises, chapter by chapter, month by month, and empowering taskforces native to the areas they are trying to help. These chapters are already cropping up in New Orleans and Detriot.

Current Chapters and Some of Their Awesomeness

Awesome Chapters are becoming valuable nodes in their communities; creating a reason for very interesting, imaginative, cross-disipline people to encounter eachother and public attractions which alllow them to bond. Many Awesome Projects are very communiy-centric, here are a few: 

Steps and Tips for Getting Involved

To Submit an Idea:

To apply to the main Awesome Foundation with an idea, use this link: , or find another local or themed Awesome Chapter to apply to.

Attributed of a good project

To Establish a Chapter:

To apply to initiate a Chapter or get involved with a current one: 

Contact & Resources:

Check out the TEDxBoston: