Awesome Teeny Tiny Grants for Growing and Preparing Food

We've written about the Awesome Foundation, which is really a string of giving circles that are springing up locally around the world.  A small group of people give $100 a month into a pool and decide which project they will donate $1000 to, based on an extremely simple application form.  That's it.  They leave the definition of "awesome" loose, so as to caste a wide net.  And since it's not a real foundation in a legal sense, they do not have the legal obligation to perform "due diligence"--for instance, making sure the recipient has 501(c)3 (not for profit) status with the IRS. They can give with a free hand to projects that seem awesome. Of course, they don't get the tax deductibility, but they get flexibility and freedom. 

For the first time, a chapter of the Awesome Foundation has been created not around a locality, but a subject.  The Awesome Food Foundation gives $1000 grants for food-related projects.  This has in the past resulted in a grant to convert a mobile kitchen to one that is powered by solar panels, a project to convert shipping containers into portable farms for refugee camps, and a compost mobile that collects household food scrap to create the material for compost for community gardens. The sky's the limit in imagination--as long as you can work with $1,000.  If you have a food-related awesome idea that $1,000 can significantly push towards reality, you may want to give them a try.

Awesome Foundation for Small Causes

What’s the Awesome Foundation?  It’s not like George Constanza’s Human Fund, a scam or nonsense.  It’s really a giving circle, in which a group of people pools their contributions and decide amongst themselves what worthy cause will get the  money.  They take applications and decides to fund things that are, in their terms, “awesome.”  In fact, their slogan is “funding awesomeness $1000 at a time.” 

Unlike an IRS-sanctioned grant-giving foundation, they are not hemmed in by needing to give to 501c3 organizations or to do a prescribed sort of “due diligence” investigation, or to distribute the funds through a pass-through organization that has 501c3 status.  Recipients can be a group or an individual.  The various chapters of the Awesome Foundation look at a short, straightforward application, decide if it is awesome, and if they wish to fund it.  And by awesome, they don’t mean nice clothes or a MP3 player for the applicant.  They don’t spell out  what constitutes "awesome,” but believe as Supreme Court Justice Stewart Potter believed about pornography, that they know it when they see it.  They don’t fund for personal use, the upkeep of established organizations, or vague ideas.  So what have they funded?

 According to their blog, they have funded a project to start urban farming in Los Angeles high schools, environmentally sustainable surfboards, and a collection of good literature in a public place that is more selective but just as non-monetary-based as a public library in San Francisco’s Mission District (Ourshelves), among other projects.

 In fact the Awesome Foundation has grown into a set of giving circles in over two dozen cities around the world.  Since it’s just individuals putting their money in a pot and making decisions, they can give money to causes that just need a short push to become reality, whether a group or individual has the correct IRS paperwork or not.  If you have an awesome project and a small amount of money might help, this could be a place to inquire.