Awesome Foundation: $1,000 a month for the most awesome idea, every month

The Awesome Foundation for the Arts and Sciences organizes regional groups of 10 people who commit to "showing up each month, stuffing $100 each into a paper bag, and giving that bag to the person we think has the best chance at achieving something awesome." The Toronto chapter is up and dispersing grants, with no strings attached.

Submissions through our application form are placed in a common pool viewable by all chapters. Each chapter meets monthly to select a project to fund. By consensus, trustees determine which project to fund, and the $1,000 fellowship is distributed accordingly. Some chapters also routinely contact applicants for interviews before awarding the fellowships.
Chapters are divided by geography, and more recently by topic of interest. While specifying a chapter to apply to is not necessary (all chapters can view the applications received by all other chapters), many chapters show a preference for local projects.

The Awesome Foundation (via Confessions of a Science Librarian)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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cory

A giant burmese python, wrapped around an electric guitar, being played by Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, on a surfboard shaped like a banana being surfed over a wave of lava.

There, that idea should win it every month.
Anonymous

I realize I’m late to the conversation, but isn’t this IP Sharecropping?
chgoliz

Thanks to Chris and reed for the detailed feedback. It’s an interesting philanthropic model, and still in the infant stages, but not that different from Wikipedia in a way. As I said, I wish you the best of luck.
reed

I’m also one of the founding micro-trustees, thanks for helping get the word out!

@chgoliz: in practice it is working nicely. The loose design keeps it low-effort for all of us and is scaling well. We started about a year and a half ago with the Boston chapter and there are now 11 chapters active or in formation. About 35 grants given to date.
chgoliz

Kewl in theory, but….how does it work in practice?

10 people, from which walks of life? If you’ve got 3 into temporary public installations, 3 into poverty alleviation, and 3 into cross-cultural exchange, they’re going to be leaning rather hard on that last poor sucker to break the tie. What if they cannot come to agreement in a reasonable amount of time?

It’s true that it’s “only” $100 per donor, but still, some level of due diligence is necessary. Who’s going to do it? For every application, every month? I know they say that they “claim no ownership” of the project funded by the money, but liability is a tricky thing. And the donors are committing to giving out $1,200 a year that is (currently at least) NOT tax-deductible. How many people are standing in line to do that? What if you can’t find a replacement trustee for yourself?

Who is responsible for the clerical aspects: updating the website, checking the voice mail, answering questions, arranging for meeting space every month?

How is the marketing done? Suitable applicants won’t just magically appear every month. Especially not for $1,000 for a specific idea (as opposed to general support for ongoing work).

Finding a consistent monthly meeting time for 10 people who don’t work together is no mean feat. How many count as a quorum to make decisions?

It should be obvious by now that I’ve done a lot of work with non-profits. It’s astonishing how many people think that just because they care about the cause means they can do the work. You need administrative and business skills to run a non-profit effectively. It can’t run (for long) on good intentions.

I think this line summing up the “about us” section of the new chapter says it all:

Of course, all of this is subject to change on-the-fly for no better reason than we feel like it that day.

I wish them luck, but I wonder how long they can maintain this awesome idea in real life.
Anonymous

There’s a very similar group in Victoria, BC, and also have awesome in the name. Their next even is this coming Wednesday!

http://www.awesomeshitclub.com/
Chris Marstall (Awesome Foundation)

Hi, I’m a trustee of the Awesome Foundation Boston chapter. Thanks a ton for this mention and here are some answers to the commenters:

@cory i would vote for that!!!

@pantograph yep, most chapters (though not all, i think) give monthly grants.

@thunderhammer at least in Boston, there are definitely lots of awesome projects for which $1000 can make a meaningful difference. Random example, last month we gave a grant to a group of volunteers in Cambridge, MA who garden urban pockets of greenery. They’re using the money to buy gardening tools.

@chgoliz we basically send our grants on the wings of angels, with minimal due-diligence and lots of faith that we are helping the world be a more awesome place. Heck, it’s only $100 apiece!

How it works: at a typical meeting of the Boston Awesome chapter, we each have a turn to pitch the submissions we like to the other trustees. Multiple rounds of voting reduce the field to two or three – they’re usually both pretty cool. One last vote and majority wins.

We (Boston chapter) have a Dean of Awesome, who gets a vote, but doesn’t have to pay the $100. In exchange, she handles the minimal administrative stuff like meeting scheduling (surprisingly, not actually that hard) and party planning (we like to latch on to other events to make this part easier/cheaper).

I don’t think we’ve yet had so poor a turnout at a meeting that we had to consider whether it represented a quorum. In general, the good faith and enthusiasm of the trustees, and the general all-around low stakes, is what makes things run smoothly every month, IMHO.
Anonymous

As an awesome foundation grant winner, for me, $1,000 isn’t so much funding for a complete project, but an incredibly useful start — enough to get us working while figuring out the rest of the funding puzzle. As well as really flattering/inspiring and fun. We’re simultaneously running a kickstarter, which is really useful for similar reasons.

It’s all project-by-project, of course. And for those of us used to piecing together a life, schedule, and living out of bits and pieces of awesome projects, well, $1,000 is definitely a useful sum.
Pantograph

So is this a monthly thing or what?
thunderhammer

Generous, but I don’t think I could get myself to even fill out an application for a *chance* at $1000.
- travtastic
  
  I know, right? Merely plebeian pocket change!
jjsaul

Considering the many Maker projects <$1k that have been featured here, imagination is the only limit.

This is likely implied, but some consulting time with an experienced expert would be a great additional prize.

Not only could an engineer, physicist, musician, artist, etc help with skills necessary to achieve the idea, but they would also have connections that might bring others into the project, and introduce the imagineer into the relevant communities.
- jjsaul
  
  Oops – first bit there was truncated by reserved characters I guess.
  
  I meant to say that BoingBoing has featured so many sub-thousand dollar Maker projects that imagination and creativity are the only limit, and a thousand bucks can go a long way.
Heartfruit

That’s awesome
Anonymous

Toronto chapter!YEAH AWESOME.