Archive for December, 2011

AF-San Francisco Funds Operas Written and Directed By Little Kids

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Hello everyone!

It’s official: the trustees of Awesome Foundation San Francisco are extremely proud this month to make an award to Erin Bregman of the Little Opera Company. Erin’s project is simple, but awesome. She works with children between 2nd and 5th grade at the West Portal Elementary School to write, produce, and perform complete operas. That’s singing and dancing.

Since they come out of the collective minds of the kids that Erin works with, the topics of these operas are unbelievably intense: previous works have included operas about evil ponies on Mars, pirates, and Custer’s Last Stand (see video above). Naturally, we’re all about this, so AF-SF is helping to fund their upcoming production in March. We’ll post more details as they come together – but from what Erin tells us, the performance is set to include wild animals, magical moons, and spooky forests, so it pretty much is going to be awesome.

Also: they’re looking for people to lend a hand! If you know of a small performance space that might be a good place for it – be sure to drop us a line at contact@awesomefoundation.org. Also, if you’re interested in donating to these efforts, the Little Opera Company has a page set up over at IndieGoGo where you can help out.

In short, we’re ridiculously excited. Congratulations Erin!

Posted by Tim Hwang at 6:23 am Comments

Awesome Melbourne teams up with Pozible

Monday, December 12th, 2011

In the interest of awesome we’ve teamed up with Pozible, Australia’s largest crowdfunding site to expand our reach to even more awesome projects. This newfound friendship is simple and stays true to our Awesome Foundation roots. Just like the Awesome Foundation, Pozible also supports awesome projects and ideas.

Pozible founders, Rick Chen and Alan Crabbe saw a need for a public crowdfunding platform in Australia through their work with visual artists who were falling short when it came to vital start up costs. The pair wanted to create a site for creators and innovators to find early supporters for their projects, thus Pozible was born in May 2010 and has since help fund over 300 projects.

Pozible gives creative individuals, groups and organizations the opportunity to raise funds through pre-selling tangible and intangible rewards by posting a project on Pozible.com.au. If you donate $15 you might get a copy of the creator’s eBook, but by donating $150 you might receive a home cooked meal at the author’s house.

Each project has a funding goal and a time limit (from 1-90 days) set by the project creator; this goal must be met or exceeded to receive any contributions put towards the creator’s project. During this time the project creator spreads the word about their idea to their fans, friends, family, strangers and sponsors to build support. Supporters simply register and help fund the project.

So where does The Awesome Foundation come in?  Before a project is launched on Pozible, project creators will be asked if they would like their project to be considered for the Awesome Foundation grant for that month. By simply ticking a box their project will be put in The Awesome Foundation’s pool of consideration.  If a Pozible project is selected as our monthly awesome recipient Pozible will not take a service fee from the $1000 grant, and if the selected project doesn’t make its funding goal, it will still get to keep the $1000 grant, no strings attached.

In turn, all applications submitted to The Awesome Foundation will automatically be given an invitation to post their project on an otherwise selective Pozible site, with a generous mate’s rate for the service fee collected on funds raised for their project.  The projects we’ve funded have received an overwhelming amount of support from the general public, by putting Awesome Foundation projects on Pozible; fans of funded projects can now make a difference in the projects they hold a sweet spot for.

This initiative was also largely created for the projects that don’t receive funding from the Awesome Foundation. We receive so many awesome projects ever month, but unfortunately we only have one grant to give out. We want the creators of these applications to know there are other options to receive funding and encourage them to stay dedicated to making their projects a reality.

The Melbourne Awesome Foundation and Pozible partnership is a natural one; we both want to link the projects we receive with more resources during their pursuit of awesomeness.

Posted by Leslie Swearingin at 7:37 pm Comments

Introducing…Boston’s Awesome Office Hours!

Monday, December 12th, 2011

Here at Awesome Boston, we get a lot of ideas every month. Not all of the ideas are awesome, but a lot of them are pretty close and could use just a pinch of awesome-factor to send them over the edge.

That’s why we’re starting Awesome office hours. From 6-8 PM this Thursday, December 15th, several trustees from Awesome Boston will be at Voltage Cafe in Kendall Square to help you refine your idea from great to awesome. If this is successful, there’ll be many more. Don’t have an idea? Come talk to us until you have one, or just say hi! Make sure to follow us on Twitter (@awesomebos) for updates.

Posted by Christina Xu at 4:37 pm Comments

Montreal’s first grant party!

Sunday, December 11th, 2011

Mixing a love of Montreal with a healthy dose of community building, over 40 people gathered at Bar La Quincaillerie near Lafontaine Park to celebrate the first round of applicants to La Fondation Formidable.

The Fondation’s first round grant winner is Bobbi Jo Hart, whose project Alley Kids is a Mile End alley-greening project designed and documented by local kids. With her Awesome Foundation grant, Bobbi Jo intends to “create closer and more awesome relationships with our neighbours (many meeting for the first time) with the shared goal to beautify our alley space for our children and local community”.

The goal of the Awesome Foundation is not simply to share financial resources, but to encourage and recognize change agents. As such, two other applicants presented their projects.

Mariangiola Fabbri and Sonia Rousseau presented a food recuperation project in Rosemont / Petit-Patrie. Along with 2 other Katimavik interns they are working with local restaurants to gather extra food and serve it in a collective kitchen to local residents living with food insecurity.

Boards of the Boroughs founder Tay wants to create “longboards (a type of skateboard) with distinctive shapes and graphics representative of the many boroughs of Montreal”, hoping that the boards will “generate dialogue as to why we fall in love with these neighborhoods as we do. As people see these boards, I hope that they will see the connection between civic pride and alternative transportation.”

Awesome events are fueled by the ideas presented and the energy and relationships they generate. Money might be the catalyst, but it’s ultimately not a game-changer. Anthropologist Margaret Mead writes, “A small group of thoughtful people can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”.

People, relationships and networks in the service of community are at the heart of the work of the Montreal Awesome Foundation. Money and events are just tools to achieving the greater goals of bringing people together and supporting great ideas. Nevertheless, they are important tools and we like holding events and funding projects, so look for us to do more of both throughout 2012.

Posted by Chad Lubelsky at 4:00 pm Comments

Audio Warhol @The National Gallery

Sunday, December 11th, 2011

One of our first Awesome Foundation in DC went to Experience Counterpoint, an experimental chamber orchestra. Now, after much scheming and planning, their guerrilla “flash mob” style performance of Audio Warhol was performed yesterday at the Andy Warhol: Headlines exhibit of the National Gallery.

Dressed as Warhol doppelgangers, the actors, musicians and DJ performed a musical/multimedia event inspired by the work of Andy Warhol based on Terry Riley’s minimalist work In C.

See more about the performance here: http://pinklineproject.com/article/counterpoints-audio-warhol-national-gallery-saturday

Posted by Bonnie Shaw at 9:57 am Comments