Archive for July, 2011

Announcing 2 New Boston Trustees! (Psst… we still need 1 more)

Sunday, July 31st, 2011

The summer has been mighty busy in Awesometonia. In Boston alone, we:

As if that weren’t enough, there have been some changes in the micro-trustee line-up.

The 2nd Evan Burchard Chair of Higher Awesome Studies
Founding Micro-trustee, Evan Burchard began his relocation to San Francisco in grand fashion with a fully-funded Kickstarter project to WALK across the country and chart a walking trail that will be made available online to fellow pedestrian adventurers. Before heading out, Evan left his chair in good hands with Jacob Barss-Bailey. Jacob’s day job is software design at Nokia. On the side, he’s known for his love of animated gifs and quasi-legal urban planting projects. Now that he’s a micro-trustee, he’ll be using his green thumb to grow some serious Awesome for Boston to enjoy.

The 2nd Mac Cowell Chair of Higher Awesome Studies
Provided his flight isn’t severely delayed, Founding Micro-trustee Mac Cowell will be in San Francisco at the finish line of Evan’s epic walk. With his sights set westward, Mac has tapped Nadeem Mazen to carry on his Awesome Foundation legacy here in Boston. Mazen is CEO of Serious Business, LLC (a consulting firm specializing in interactive software design and viral marketing) and co-founder of danger!awesome (a laser-cutting studio and community art storefront at the heart of Central Square, Cambridge). We’re pretty excited about having a laser in the family. The fact that the laser comes attached to someone who is big into supporting the spread of business incubator programs abroad makes for an even more epic win.

Open Call for The 3rd David Fisher Chair of Higher Awesome Studies
For those keeping track, Matt Blake and David Fisher ceremoniously switched chairs in the early days of Awesome Foundation lore. In the coming months, Matt will be relocating to Austin, TX making a spot available at the @awesomebos table. He has authorized an open call for applications to fill his chair.

We’re looking for…
…someone interested in encouraging creativity and inciting revolutions.
…excitable people who know an awesome project when they see it.
…someone who is well-connected in communities outside of the tech/startup world to help diversify our group: artists, musicians, makers, chefs, nonprofit organizers, educators, mad scientists, etc. are all encouraged to apply.
…you?

Responsibilities include

  • Reviewing and selecting an Awesome Project each month. This means reviewing the month’s submissions, identifying your favorites, and championing them during a monthly 2 hour long deliberation session (low conflict, beer and pizza to help the process along).
  • Contributing $100 towards each monthly award
  • Attending the events held in honor of the winners
  • In the event of your resignation, helping to find a successor for yourself
  • Promoting, to the extent of your interest and ability, the Awesome Foundation message

If you are awesome and interested, please click here to fill out an ezpz form to let us know you’re down. Deadline = Sunday, August 7th @ 11:59p. The decision will be announced in last week of August.

Posted by Kara Brickman at 10:36 pm Comments

DC will be 2xAwesome in August

Sunday, July 24th, 2011

Please note a CORRECTION: The 2nd Awesome grant for August, donated by the good folks at Tribal Affairs, will be for $500, not $1000 as originally stated.

A Call to AWESOME: The Awesome Foundation DC partners with Tribal Affairs for a 2nd youth arts grant in August.

The Awesome Foundation DC and Tribal Affairs are pleased to announce an exciting collaboration for a special $500 youth arts grant in August. This will be in addition to the regular monthly $1000 Awesome Grant. Submit your ideas to the DC Chapter here: http://awesomefoundation.org/submissions/new

We are looking for the most courageous and ambitious and most talented student and youth artists from DC and surounds.This months special youth grant has been made possible through an event named Tribal Affairs, that was created by three students from Washington D.C. These three students Alfredo Weeks, Lara Al- Soudani and Matilda Nwoke felt the need to organize an event focused on promoting student work. The Tribal Affairs event united student from culinary arts, visual arts and fashion design into one show to promote themselves.

In addition to creating and hosting a spectacular event, Alfredo, Lara, and Matilda decided that they wanted to donate all ticket proceeds to the Awesome foundation in order to give back to student artists that made the event possible. So, this month we giving out a grant of $500 to a young artists who submits the most ambitiously awesome way to use their artistic talent and a thousand bucks cash! The Tribal Affair coordinators will join the board of the Awesome Foundation in August as the guest trustees to help decide who will receive this special grant.

The regular monthly $1000 Awesome Foundation grant is also available to anyone with an awesomely ambitious idea. So get brainstorming and submit your ideas to the DC chapter here: http://awesomefoundation.org/submissions/new


Posted by Bonnie Shaw at 2:13 pm Comments

Why I’m Psyched about Awesome Foundation Seattle

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

This is Suzanne Tidwell and that fuzzy, rainbowed thing beside her is a tree. Suzanne is a self-proclaimed yarn bomber — think Stich’n Bitch + graffiti.

Today, I watched Suzanne and her friends transform 7 or 8 of the Occidental Park maple trees into a fanciful, Christo-meets-Seuss installation (more pics below).

I had a chance to chat with Suzanne during Arts Walk. She’s been scouring every Value Village in greater Seattle for discount yarn. She won a grant from 4Culture. And then came the paperwork and the permissions. In other words, a lot of love and hard work.

The result? Complete surprise and delight from all passers-by. People petting trees. A reason to stop for a snapshot with a friend. Awesome.

Suzanne was happy to hear that we are launching an Awesome Foundation in Seattle. She told me that winning traditional arts project grants can be tricky. “Foundations won’t often fund your project until it’s nearly completed,” making the start-up process challenging, especially for new artists like herself. A little recognition and a $1,000 grant for supplies could be a very meaningful first step for a new project.

Coming home inspired by Suzanne and her yarn bomb, I wanted to reflect on my personal motivation for launching Awesome Foundation Seattle.

  • First off, I want to see how awesome $1,000 can be. In my professional life, it seems that if a project doesn’t cost at least $100k, it can be starved of attention and support.
  • I want to meet the people of Seattle (and beyond) who can make $1,000 awesome. I’ve been coming and going from Seattle for study and work since 2005. Now that I’ve returned and hope to stay, Awesome Foundation is my call out to the local dreamers and makers – let’s bring some new fun, brains and hope to the city!
  • I’m a nerd for experiments in collaboration and community coordination. I want Awesome Foundation to be my new lab.
  • To a long-time non-profit professional, Awesome Foundation is counter-intuitive. Is “awesome” a mission? Can a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens really change the world, without big dollars and big institutions? Is philanthropy the new punk? I want to find out.
  • Finally, I want to spend more of my days inspired. And, if I’m lucky, I want to inspire more people to spend more of their days inspired. Inspired by people like Suzanne, by more color for trees, by new friends and new ideas.

Will you join me?

I’d love to hear from you. If you’re already an Awesome Foundation trustee with another chapter, leave a comment about why you’re psyched. If you live in Seattle, use the comments section to point out something local and awesome that inspires you.

And finally — Seattle-area folks — if you want to learn more about the nascent Awesome Foundation chapter, please contact me at james.nathaniel [at] gmail [dot] com soon and help us spread the word.

To learn more about Suzanne, visit her new site: http://suzannetidwell.com/.

And, better yet, come on down to Pioneer Square to check out her work. The yarn is acrylic and the trees will stay in their current Suessy state through the summer.

—————————————–

Originally posted on June 3 at nathanieljames.org.  Check out the great comments from other Awesome Foundation trustees on the original post.

UPDATE: Since I posted this piece, we’ve had a community information meeting with about 25 folks and signed up all the trustees we need to get started.  We expect to put out our first call for proposals in mid-August!

—————————————–

Now, as promised, more awesome pics:

(more…)

Posted by Nathaniel James at 11:30 pm Comments

Awesome Food now accepting applications for $1,000 microgrants

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

Awesome Food, a chapter of the worldwide Awesome Foundation, officially launched on Wednesday, July 20 and is now accepting grant applications from around the world to further food awesomeness in the universe. Visit awesomefood.net to learn more and apply at awesomefood.net/apply. The first round for application deadline is end-of-day, Friday, August 5th. (more…)

Posted by Barry Martin at 5:00 am Comments

Positions available at AF Sydney!

Sunday, July 17th, 2011

It’s with great pleasure that we here at AF Sydney can announce that we’re looking to fill two positions on our board with super awesome people such as yourself!!!

What are the positions, you ask?

1. The 2nd Alan Rogers Chair for Higher Awesome Studies

Alan has recently decided to move himself down to the wonderful city of Melbourne. Whilst Sydney’s loss is Melbourne’s gain, it also means we get to recruit a new member to the Awesome Foundation Sydney board! Taking Alan’s chair means attending our monthly dinners and pitching in $100 towards the $1000 grants we award.

2. Dean of Awesome

We’ve muddled through the process of setting up our little chapter of awesomeness here in Sydney, but now we’re looking to recruit someone to help us organise and manage the chapter each month. This role includes small but crucial tasks; such as organising the monthly dinners, posting occasionally to the AF Blog you are reading now and generally being the ‘go-to’ person for our board members.

You’ll be a fully fledged member of AF Sydney, with full voting rights and an equal say in who each months grant recipient will be. You don’t have to pay the monthly $100, but still need to pay for your dinner! :)

How do I apply?!?

Pretty easy really.

To apply for to be the 2nd Alan Rogers Chair of Higher Awesome Studies, drop me an email (steve@thesquigglyline.com) with a brief description of why you want to be involved. Alan leaves in a month, so don’t delay – we want to fill his chair as quickly as possible.

To apply to be the Dean of Awesome, drop me an email (steve@thesquigglyline.com) with an awesome application. It can be anything – video, text, audio – whatever. Just make it awesome! Applications must be in by Monday 8th of August!!!

The AF Sydney Board will be meeting on Tuesday the 9th of August to discuss the applications received.

Posted by Steve Hopkins at 5:21 am Comments
Older Posts