Every month, we give someone $750 to do something awesome in Seattle.
The Awesome Foundation is an international philanthropic organization devoted to forwarding the interest of awesomeness in the universe. Every month we award a no-strings-attached grant of $750 to a project that we deem Awesome. We're interested in a wide variety of projects, ranging from friendly postcards sent to random strangers to light festivals to pop-up museums (and all sorts of other things; check out all of the projects we've funded). If you think your idea is worth $750, send us an application!
Apply for a grant »There are no set rules about what we will or won't fund, but here are some of the things we think about:
We're all for crazy ideas, but we also want to know that you can achieve what you're setting out to do. If a project fails, we want it to be due to the inherent risks of the idea, not the implementation.
Keeping a good thing going is great, but it's not what we're here for. We want our grants to help new ideas take off!
We're invested in our local community and we want to do things that help Seattle grow. If your project isn't based in Washington state, consider applying to one of the more than 70 Awesome Foundation chapters around the world.
Continuing with our focus on community, we also lean towards projects that bring people together. We like to see people coming together through a project instead of enjoying it in isolation.
There are a lot of funding channels for established organizations, and we're all for that. However, we prefer to use this money to support individuals and small groups.
Like we said before, these aren't rules, they're guidelines. We are more than happy to throw away everything we mentioned earlier for any project that makes us stop in our tracks and say “Whoah! That's awesome!”
If you'd like more feedback on a grant proposal, we hold office hours (we call it “Awesome Hours”) occasionally or by appointment. Join our announcements list or follow us on Twitter to get timely announcements about Awesome Hours and other events. And, as always, send us an application if you think your idea is a good fit!
Awesome Seattle is made up of individuals who contribute their time and money to support awesomeness in Seattle. Each month a small handful of trustees get together, read proposals, and contribute their cash to the cause (adding up to the $750 that we give out as a grant). In addition to our full-time trustees, who participate every single month, we have a small number of guest trustee spots for anyone who is curious about what we do or unsure about committing to giving every month.
If you'd like to join us, send an email to seattle@awesomefoundation.org and introduce yourself. We promise not to bite!
Want to keep tabs on us and learn about the projects we fund, our upcoming events, and other cool stuff? We try to be easy to stalk.