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!

At our last meeting we got to talking about how the text based format of the review process doesn’t do justice to some of the submissions we receive. Sometimes a tweak in how an idea is explained or the addition of a quirky twist to the project plan can take a really cool application and dial it up to completely freakin’ AWESOME.

To add that missing Interactive/3D/IRL component to the funding process, we held the first ‘Office Hours’ session in December. A bunch of Boston trustees hung out with awesome, super creative, dynamic peeps interested in applying for a grant. We discussed ideas and gave tips on strengthening proposals. It went so well that we decided to make it a regular thing.

HOW IT’LL WORK:
About once a month (most likely on a Thursday), we’ll hold court in an embarrassingly nerdy/trendy establishment after work. Ideas will be exchanged. Brains will be stormed. Noms and beverages will be consumed.

WHO’S INVITED?
You!  Trustees, past grantees, applicants, and friends/community members. We’re keeping it broad ’cause wouldn’t it be cool if some of these crazy/brilliant ideas met, fell in love, and had babies? In all seriousness, the people who apply for awesome foundation grants are an unconventional and remarkable crew. If we put y’all in a room together, hijinks will surely ensue. So, let’s get together, chat, and we’ll be happy to provide guidance regarding what makes a proposal stand out.

WHEN:
Thursday, January 12, 2012 @ 6:30PM – 8:30PM

WHERE:
Think Tank in Cambridge’s Kendall Square. (Check the map here.)

SIGN-UP:
If you can come to only part of the office hours, that’s fine but please do RSVP so we can coordinate. Reserve a time slot here on ohours.org or email Sam Novey at snovey@gmail.com. Make sure to include your email addy and cell number so we can get in touch if need be.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

The winner of the Awesome Foundation DC grant teaches high school students the basics of computer programming through free, extra-curricular, off-campus trainings hosted by community partners.

CodeNow, founded by Ryan Seashore, is a DC grown non-profit focused on developing the next pioneers in technology by teaching underrepresented high school students foundational skills in computer programming through free, extra-curricular, off-campus trainings.

Creating a fluency in this language spurs innovation and opens doors for our youth, while creating a pipeline of talent for American companies. Watch more here: Code Now

We talked to Ryan Seashore, founder of CodeNow, about his project:

There are 5 parts to the program that focuses on providing access to hardware, training, and ongoing support and engagement:

1. Weekend Training – CodeNow partners up with other organizations to hold weekend trainings. Each student selected for the program will attend one of these trainings, which includes instruction in Scratch and Lego Mindstorms.
2. Project – Each student will be assigned a project after the weekend training which they must complete to attend the weeklong bootcamp.
3. Bootcamp - Students participate in a 4-5 day training to learn the programming language Ruby.
4. Netbook – Each student who attends the weekend training and bootcamp receives a Netbook.
5. Alumni Network - Once students have completed the bootcamp they become part of the CodeNow Alumni Network. They will receive mentoring, assistance with finding internships, and will be invited to participate in student hackathons throughout the year.

What does winning the Awesome Foundation DC grant mean to you?

Winning it is affirmation from a great group of people that we’re on the right track.  The grant allows us to buy awesome robotic kits made out of Legos which we’ve been in need of!

What sort of impact do you hope you will have in DC?

Our goal is to inspire DC youth to be tinkerers and to look under the hood of technology. I really believe we can help inspire the next great tech entrepreneurs.

What other support do you need?

We’re looking for volunteer trainers and mentors to work with our students.

You can continue to Support Code Now and help them raise the $14,000 needed to buy Netbooks for their students.

Go to http://codenow.eventbrite.com/ and donate now.

Congratulations to Awesome Foundation DC grantees Ryan and Hayes Holliday (aka BlueBrain) for this great piece in the New York Times celebrating the launch of their new locative album in Central Park – Listen to the Light:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/arts/music/bluebrains-app-central-park-listen-to-the-light.html

Watch the making of: http://vimeo.com/bluebrain/music-for-landscapes

We funded BlueBrain’s experimental Living House installation with a delicious dinner back in September with the help of Noah Kunin, Ayana Johnson, Christopher Brown, Nancy Pragre, Nelson Jacobsen, Andrea Zanon, Jessy Kate Schingler, Alexander Barth, and Miriam Schwedt and their guests.

The fruits of our labor:

Individual actions wont change the world, so Awesome students in DC are going to reinvent it.

Katie Kindle, a teacher in a DC school, wants to empower her students to become change makers in their communities.

When she started a project with her students to identify a problem they see in the world around them, and then generate an action they could take to change the course of the problem, they unanimously responded that their individual actions won’t change the world.

So Katie created this project to proving them wrong and giving them an experience with creating a vision and seeing it through to completion.

Katie tells us about her awesome project:

Students will experience what it feels like to generate an idea, implement it in the world, and then see what happens. We have no delusions that their individual actions will solve complex problems like world hunger, but we are opening up the possibility that the actions of one committed individual can be the ember that sparks change and inspires others to join the campaign to take responsibility for making the world a world that works for all of us.

Over the course of this school year, six seniors will identify problems in the world that give them that feeling in the pit of their stomachs that something is not right and needs to change. Then they will research those problems both through reading research on the topic and by interviewing people affected by the problem and those working to try and solve it. Once they have gathered information and become experts on their topics, students will go through the creative process of generating an action plan for how they, as individuals, could change the course of this problem. Their action plans could involve public art, awareness campaigns, internet campaigns…almost anything you can imagine is possible.

Once their action plans are defined, students will pitch their idea to a panel of Awesome Foundation members for feedback. At this point students can apply for funding if their project requires it. All students will be pitching to convince the panel that they are ready to implement their plan. The panel will either give them the green light because their projects are well thought out and ready to go or they will offer feedback on places where the student may need to think through their plan a little more carefully. Once students have revised their projects, they will spend the month of March putting their plans into action.

What does winning the Awesome Foundation DC grant mean to you?

Winning the Awesome Foundation DC grant means the world to me because it means that my students will have an authentic opportunity to put their ideas into action. It also means that I get to tell my students that complete strangers believe in their ideas and what they can do. This is unbelievably powerful. When I told my students about winning the grant they had no idea I had applied and their faces reflected back complete joy and amazement. I had been talking to them for over a month about our thesis project and most of the excitement was on my end. My students were feeling more daunted by the process than excited and they were definitely skeptical that this crazy idea their teacher had thought up would actually work. Having the Awesome Foundation behind us gave the whole project a different vibe and communicated to the students that it is possible for them to come up with ideas for change that could really make a difference.

How will you use the Awesome Grant?

I will use the grant to fund my students’ projects. I have six students so each of them will have access to up to $150 to implement some action to create change. Their topics this year are:

1. Childhood obesity
2. The lack of mental health support for veterans
3. Women’s changing roles and opportunities in the workforce
4. World hunger
5. Tobacco companies advertising to youth
6. New technologies and their usefulness in creating social change

What sort of impact do you hope you will have in DC?

My first hope is that I will be able to impact how my students see themselves and their role in the world. I want them to experience what it means to be an engaged global citizens and to have the confidence that their ideas are valid and can make a difference. As an extension of the direct project my students have embarked upon, I hope to inspire other teachers and students to take the learning that is happening in the classroom out into the world. I hope to show that it is possible to empower student voice both in the classroom and in the world by creating authentic opportunities for them to explore, experiment, analyze, create, and reflect on topics that matter to them.

What other support do you need?

The other support that I need is for people who have expertise or experience with any of my students’ topics to join us. My students need to be able to talk to people about their topics as part of their research. They may also need people to participate in their projects. We would love to collaborate with anyone who would like to help advise students on their projects, anyone who would be willing to be interviewed during the research phase, or anyone who wants to participate once the students have designed their action plans.

If you would like to get involved, please @ us at @afdndc.