***Australia – The Awesome Foundation

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Poo Power – Melbourne’s April Grant

Sunday, May 13th, 2012

A new Melbourne project, Poo Power!, which uses discarded dog waste from parks as a renewable energy source is the latest recipient of the Awesome Foundation, Melbourne Chapter. The grant was awarded to Duncan Chew who developed the project after watching people readily scoop their dog’s poo in plastic bags only to send it to landfill but wanting to find a more sustainable way.

Duncan Chew discovered there is over 1,350 tonnes of dog waste to be disposed of every day in Australia – nearly half a million tonnes per year. Using this un-tapped resource, the project involves building a digester to convert the dog waste into a biogas. It will then be used in a Melbourne park in a public lighting installation as a community meeting place for use by dog owners and other visitors.

“In researching the scope of the project we were intrigued by the strong sense of community amongst dog owners that congregate at these parks,” says Duncan Chew. “We want to nurture this relationship and build a biogas fueled ‘campfire’ where people can come together at this unique meeting space.” The $1000 grant will be used to contribute towards the cost of building the poo-powered campfire.

Further updates on Poo Power! will be posted on the website: www.poopower.com.au.

Posted by Leslie Swearingin at 8:29 pm Comments

Sydney loves ghost stories!

Saturday, March 31st, 2012

Our recent recipients for February are working on the first episode of a gothic play/audio tour that will explore the Chinese heritage of Surry Hills, an inner-city suburb in Sydney now pretty well gentrified, with a great selection of restaurants, cafes, bars, pubs and designer retail. But it wasn’t always this way. As Mei Tsering, one of the writers/developers from the project explains,

“The setting of the sound walk will be in contemporary Surry Hills but will go back in time to the early 1900s of plague quarantines, (when) rat catching was a lucrative job and the war was seen as a ‘restricted holiday’ out of the Surry Hills slums. The streets were run by fashionable young gang members and the Chinese living in the area were a dying community following restrictive immigration policies and problems with gambling and opium dens.”

“The walk will follow two cousins of Chinese descent as they try and find the home of their ancestors. They hope to make an offering to be rid of a hungry ghost troubling their families. Hungry ghosts are spirits that return to take what they can if sufficient offerings haven’t been made by their living relatives.”

We can’t wait for episode 1!

Posted by Renae Mason at 9:33 pm Comments

One Awesome Party.

Sunday, February 26th, 2012

Three awesome things happened last Wednesday in Melbourne.

The Melbourne Awesome Foundation turned one.

We threw a party.

We gave away $4,317 in our first mega grant.

We got together at Inspire 9‘s co-working space and were greeted at the door by probably the only Tram Inspector we ever will be happy to see.

We’d come together on this night on the common ground of a few things: we like to eat, we like to drink, and we like to spread awesomeness. Miss Tresna Lee, you are an epic party planner and many thanks go your way. Here’s what the night entailed:

- Rooftop Honey: One of our previous grant winners gave everyone a sample of their honey tasting spectrum; honeypots from each suburb of Melbourne. We have to say, Northside takes the cake.

- We listened to the sweet sounds of previous grant winner, Tram Sessions, all night. Including the likes of Courtney Barnett and Johnny Rock and The Limits.

-The West Winds Gin boys got everyone talking: Sabre gin, matured lemon juice, crumbled Rooftop Honeycomb – need we say more.

-Miss Chu, the Rice Paper Queen gave us some incredible chow.- Little Creatures provided us some nice brews.

- Monk Bohdi Dharma made us believe that perhaps vegans do it better, with some ridiculously good cupcakes.

-10 kilos of Calendar Cheese stole the show.- Fabulous door prizes from Market Lane.

Simon Taylor was MC for the night, probing the mega grant finalists on why they deserved to win. Here’s a quick recap:

-YGAP’s Five Cent Project: Collecting and doing something useful with the abundance of unwanted 5 cent pieces in Australia, totalling $150 million. This something useful involves the support of communities in Melbourne, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bangladesh and Ghana.

-The Art Truck by Felicity Strong: Taking the food truck concept one step further, Felicity plans to make a roving art truck to showcase local artists at festivals and around Australia at different events.

- One Girl’s Toilet Project: One Girl has already achieved a lot of awesome, sending over 100 girls to school in Sierra Leone. There next mission is to build two secure toilets within the school, allowing for not only the health but safety of their students. This is all stemmed from an incident where one of their students was bitten by a snake when walking to find a bathroom. So much awesome, and one tough decision. We debated, we persuaded, and eventually we all had to choose.

The wining project by just one vote was One Girl.

Kudos to a very worthy cause.

Posted by Leslie Swearingin at 5:19 am Comments

The Awesome Mega Grant Party!

Friday, January 13th, 2012

We’re throwing a party February 22nd and we want you there!

Melbourne is pretty awesome so when it throws a party you know it’s going to be one of epic proportions and unlike any you’ve attended before.

Since our founding nearly one year ago, we’ve funded $12,000 worth of awesome projects in Melbourne and beyond and have recently started another chapter to bring you twice the awesome each month. None of which would be possible without the support we receive each month from the community — you rock Melbourne!

And now it’s time for us to really share the awesomeness with you at The Awesome Mega Grant Party! We hope you will join us and become a Melbourne Awesome Foundation micro-trustee for a night to help us chose an awesome project to receive a grant of $3,000 plus. The more that is pledged, the bigger the party and grant can be. Funds raised through Pozible will go towards throwing the party and awarding the grant.

Every support pledge of over $50 will be given a vote, with bigger and better rewards available for larger pledges!

For support pledges over $100 you will be given a ticket to attend one of the coolest parties in town featuring:

- A super secret location (close to public transport) revealed the day of!

- A room full of beautiful awesome people

- The hosting brilliance of Mr Simon Taylor

- Cocktails from The West Winds Gin

- Food and wine from local producers

- Music from Tram Sessions

- And a showcase of previous Awesome Foundation grant recipients like Rooftop Honey

Make your pledge on Pozible today to be a part of the most awesome party Melbourne’s ever seen!

BUY YOUR TICKETS —–> HERE

All January and February Awesome Foundation applications will be in the running for the mega grant – get the word out!

Posted by Leslie Swearingin at 12:15 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