AwesomeWiki - User contributions [en]

Talks about Awesome Foundation

2013-02-12T23:12:57Z

Nkkl: added slides

* February 2013 - Ellen Chisa and Nikki Lee (Awesome Seattle) at [https://vimeo.com/59261997 Creative Mornings Seattle] (17 minutes + Q&A). Download their slide deck here: [[File:Seattle Creative Mornings - The Awesome Foundation.pptx]].
* June 2011 - Christina Xu (IHAS/Awesome Boston) at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WThSnniic2s TEDxBoston]. (9 minutes)
* April 2010 (old school!) - Tim Hwang (IHAS/Awesome San Francisco) at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOq8gAGrmDM Ignite Boston]. (5 minutes)

File:Seattle Creative Mornings - The Awesome Foundation.pptx

2013-02-12T23:08:47Z

Nkkl: The slide deck used by Ellen Chisa and Nikki Lee for their February 2013 Creative Mornings talk about the Awesome Foundation.

The slide deck used by Ellen Chisa and [[user:nkkl|Nikki Lee]] for their February 2013 Creative Mornings talk about the Awesome Foundation.

Trustee engagement

2012-08-13T05:38:25Z

Nkkl: Just cleaning things up

{{TOC right}}

How do we keep our trustees excited and engaged?

== General ==
Meeting with grant winners engages trustees and connects them to the projects they're funding. Having a regular structure with people signed on to it makes things easier, and for meetings it makes people more likely to be able to attend. Similarly, Food collects money in $300 chunks to make operations roll smoother, given their virtual distributed nature.

Having entertaining, unique events means more people continually attend and celebrating "wins" leads to continued engagement. In some places the previous winner also sits in on next round and votes.

== Group size ==
Boston has 26 members, so about 10-14 show up each time and vote on two grants. Halifax has 30 members, and does three cycles (first and finalist selection, judging a live event, one set off) with 10 people, so everyone plays a role somewhere in the funnel. Seattle rotates guest trustees in and out, with 10-12 people at each meeting, and uses the extra money as operating expenses (parties, supplies, etc.).

A bigger organization makes closeness in a big group harder. You become a bit more of a blob and a bit less of a "team". A bigger group means lower commitment and less connection. It's important to balance!

== Harmony ==
In SF, forming personal relationships between the trustees has helped sustain things. In Pittsburgh, meetings are very inefficient, because they're basically social events. Wine, beer, and food slow down the voting, in a good way, and no virtual call ins are allowed. Conversely, Food is all virtual, so people don't know each other irl, but they still have lively discussions. The most important thing is setting norms and getting new people in; when they know what they're signing up for it leads to better cohesion with new members.

== New Blood ==
Boston let about 10 people in at once. It may have "saved the chapter". New York had a big turnover all at once, as the original trustees got too busy or too famous. Bringing in new blood changed the culture and established new norms. On strategy is to set norms with the active people, then invite more people to 'soft replace' the flakier people.

Having more people spreads responsibility and gets you more money to utilize. Guest/honorary trustees (like the mayor!) are a good source of fresh excitement. New people also give busy people the opportunity to back out gracefully since they're not letting people down.

== Ideological Splits ==
The most common major split seems to be between "silent awesome" and "go for fame". Detroit once reconvened to overturn a grant because one trustee decided the selected project didn't set the right tone for the group. Don't be afraid to speak up after decisions are made, but be diplomatic and sensitive when communicating like this.

[[category:Summit 2012]]
[[category:Operations]]

Dean Support Group

2012-08-13T05:22:04Z

Nkkl: light organizing

{{TOC right}}

== Problems ==
* Other dean long term
* Maintaining engagement in trustees
* Learning about starting
* How to scope trustees to get involved and project ideas, share flow
* Communication
* Engage on followup
* Work distribution
* How to vet people on the board
* How to get more deans

== Ideas ==
* Chat dean title
* Tips and tools to keep track with trustees
* Buddy system

== Growth ==
* Setting up extra chapters
* Growing
* Get more chapters created, spread the culture, get fully functional

== Communication ==
* Email list
* Google docs
* Google group or Facebook group
* Conference calls, google moderator

[[category:Saturday]]
[[category:Operations]]

IHAS

2012-08-13T05:13:58Z

Nkkl: Organizing like a boss!

{{TOC right}}

What the heck is IHAS anyway? The short answer is that it's a backend for the Awesome Foundation.

== Kitten Voltron ==
The Awesome Foundation is like a herd of kittens. The point of IHAS is to create Kitten Voltron. Basically, kittens that are cute, but can work together and share information!

== Objectives ==
* Incubating the new Awesome Foundation chapters, especially in areas of need.
* Developing infrastructure to enable faster & stronger growth.
* Organizing events for our community.
* Serving as an ambassador for the micro-granting movement.

== Open Questions ==
* What should the relationship between IHAS & Awesome Foundation be going forward?
* Should IHAS protect the Awesome brand?
* How can we help you better?

[[category:Saturday]]
[[category:About the AF]]
[[category:IHAS]]

Resources and References

2012-08-13T04:58:09Z

Nkkl: /* Who's Working on What? */ - added state of the awesome team

{{TOC right}}

== Design References ==

=== Logos ===
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/3/31/AF-logo.eps EPS Awesome Foundation Logo]
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/4/4f/AF-logo.png PNG Awesome Foundation Logo]
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/1/1e/Awesomefoundation.png PNG AF Favicon]

=== Stickers ===
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/5/53/AFStickers5.png AF Die-Cut Stickers (AweSummit 2012) - .PNG File]
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/8/89/AF_sticker_concept.ai AF Rectangular Stickers (AweSummit 2012) - .AI File]
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/1/19/AF_sticker_concept.png AF Rectangular Stickers (AweSummit 2012) - .PNG File]
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/4/49/Sticker_Design_Revision2.pdf Sticker Design (AF-San Francisco) - PDF File]
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/f/fe/AFSF-stickers.indd Sticker Design (AF-San Francisco - INDD File]

=== Postcards ===
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/6/65/AFSF-postcard.indd Awesome Foundation Postcard Design (AF-San Francisco) - .INDD File]
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/8/86/AFSF-postcard.pdf Awesome Foundation Postcard Design (AF-San Francisco) - .PDF File]

=== Shirts ===
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/d/d4/AF-Summit-Tshirt-FINAL.eps AweSummit 2012 T-Shirt Design - .EPS File]

=== Business Cards ===
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/8/81/AwesomeFoundation_B-Cards.pdf AF Business Cards (PDF Version)]
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/2/24/AwesomeFoundation_B-Cards.indd AF Business Cards (.indd Version)]

=== Institute on Higher Awesome Studies ===
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/9/9f/IHAS_3.png IHAS Logo (Color)]
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/c/c8/IHAS_BW.png IHAS Logo (B/W)]

=== Report Templates ===
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/4/48/State-of-Awesome-Dec10-Rev2.indd State of the Awesome 2010 INDD File]
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/0/03/State-of-Awesome-Dec10-Rev2.pdf State of the Awesome 2010 PDF File]

== Technical References ==

* [[Website Manual]]

== Other Random Stuff ==

* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/2/29/AF-tattoo.eps AF Tattoo Design - .EPS File]
* [http://wiki.awesomestudies.org/images/0/00/Seal_of_the_Dean.png Abandoned "Seal of the Dean" Design - (AF-Boston 2010)]

== Who's Working on What? ==

* [[ Wiki Team Roster ]]
* [[ Web Team Roster ]]
* [[ Design Team Roster ]]
* [[ Welcome Team Roster ]]
* [[ State of the Awesome Team Roster ]]

AF origins

2012-08-13T04:52:42Z

Nkkl: Just cleaning things up

{{TOC right}}

[[category:Summit 2012]]
[[category:About the AF]]

The origin story of the Awesome Foundation.

== Original trustees ==
There were 11 or 12 original trustees, including Alexis, the spirit animal. In attendance: Tim Hwang, Jon Pierce, Reed Sturtevant, Evan B., Erhardt Graeff, [[User:Tibbon|Dave Fisher]], Keith Hopper. Not in attendance: David Nunez, Emily Daniels (now part of Awesome Food), Matt Blake, and Mac Cowell. The original premise was "How to make Boston more awesome" - all of the awesome was there, but atomized around the area. We were coming up with really complicated ideas originally.

== Noteworthy grants ==

=== The first grant ===
The first grantee was a textile artist and professor at RISD. The idea was a giant hammock in a park that held 15-20 people at a time, which was installed at a park for about two weeks during certain hours. It took about 14 months from the time of the grant to when it was constructed. The other finalist, a lightning gauntlet, had greater legal risk (legal questions about liability come up frequently). The project ended up costing about $20,000, and part of it required lots of legal insurance and obligation. She kept it going in part of because of the grant, despite the challenges. There were a lot of things to consider: it involved something giant, it involved the community, it was making something from scratch. A major questions was what does it mean when we say no strings attached? Do we just let it go if/when it gets done?

Hansy came back to speak and talks about the obligation she felt after getting the money. It became about an entire community - it takes a village to raise a giant hammock.

=== Favorite projects ===
'''Tim's Favorite:''' A project to have a device that pokes you in the back of the head to remind you to keep being happy.

'''Jon's Favorite:''' Hacker type projects - a DIY kit to put up a balloon and map geography, and open source software to stitch stuff together. This kit was also used in the gulf oil spill.

'''Reed's Favorite:''' A guy named Ripley from Idaho had recently retired and was gardening on 1000'. He said if he had gear he had enough land to cultivate 10,000' to give away more food (Ripley's Garden for others).

'''Evan's Favorite:''' Danger Dinner. The grantee wanted to go have dinner on the top of a mountain with custom made dishware that would break at low temperatures to see if it would kill them. Not funded, but a good reminder of weird.

'''Erhardt's Favorite:''' The Eco-pod Armada, water mediation plants towed by remote control boats as a community event to clean up the East River.

'''Dave's Favorite:''' The grantee wanted to hang glide in a bear suit and shoot at cars, or dress up as a monster and hide near the highway in upstate New York and try to cross the road when cars were coming, and see how many newspapers he'd get in before getting either caught or hit by a car. He was very specific about his idea and wanted to make the arms long. We unfortunately didn't fund it.

== Initial concerns ==
=== Budget ===
Is it feasible to do something with about a thousand dollars? What if there's a million dollar thing to do? We figured that we were being the initial funding, and this would help projects raise additional funding.

=== Orphans vs. Flamethrowers ===
Erhardt: I'd go home every month and tell my girlfriend what we funded. This was the litmus test of if we were helping people or not.

So, he felt compelled to bring in a voice of what was doing something good for the world. We're always battling between wanting to fund flamethrowers, or wanting to fund something for orphans. The flamethrower-orphan paradox.

=== Identity ===
Every new chapter is trying to find its identity/soul. How much do we control the process of chapter formation and impose the structure of Boston on other chapters?

=== Preventing problems ===
Don't try to fix problems before you have them. This has interesting repercussions - we still haven't decided what happens when people do things or speak on behalf of the organization.

=== Diversity ===
Radically different viewpoints help drive discussion and grants. In Boston, the founding group was mostly tech people. When it started, there were awesome tech projects that were not funded because the chapter didn't want to signal that they were only for tech. They wanted to signal to all of the other groups as well.

It's important to shake things up every so often to keep the whimsical aspect. Funding things there was no other source of support in the world for - like a cotton candy gun. There are a lot of things that fund social good, but not as many people funding flamethrowers. There are some that are both, like laser space heaters. Another good one was a guerrilla stickering project. The grantee designed semi-transparent handicapped layover stickers, for example showing an active disabled person rather than a chair with a head. Another was a community project to crochet basketball nets and hang them up on the backboards that were empty all over Boston.

Another signal thing was giving grants to places that weren't in Boston, for instance the grant to a peer to peer network in Australia, and now there are more chapters in Australia. Granting other places helped plant seeds that grew.

=== Supporting without money ===
We've talked about featuring other things that we couldn't give $1000 but we give a stamp of approval, to make the community more aware of awesome projects. We've given some Kickstarter invites and held Awesome hours, sometimes we just help people come up with better ideas that they go out and do. We also have a trend where people start to champion ideas - if the idea doesn't get funded, that person will go back and helps them in some way.

Collaboration, not Calcification

2012-08-05T19:37:38Z

Nkkl: summarized key themes; full transcript is linked

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-collaboration-not-calcification MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

== Participants ==
=== John Bracken ===
John works at the Knight Foundation in Miami supporting innovation.

=== Mike Normal ===
Mike works at [http://wefunder.com/ Wefunder], a Kicktstarter-esque platform that lets people invest in startups.

=== Alexa Clay ===
Alexa is author of [http://www.misfiteconomy.com/ The Misfit Economy]. She looks at the DIY economy and citizen-driven economics.

=== Mark Surman ===
Mark is the [http://blog.mozilla.org/press/bios/mark-surman/ Executive Director at the Mozilla Foundation]. He thinks about collaboration and helping people move from being consumers to being creators.

== Q&A ==
=== Removing barriers ===
* If you had to choose one thing to banish from the world to drive progress and collaboration, what would you pick?
* Does anyone agree with someone else's answer?

Generally, everyone picks things that they see as psychological or cultural barriers to collaboration. The group agrees that more needs to be done to encourage people to get involved and allow them to be useful.

=== Engagement ===
* What do you do to encourage engagement?
* Going back to the idea of not having jobs or job titles, how is this portable to the world of Hoover Dams and buildings and other large-scale projects?

One of the more unusual ways to collaborate is to allow people to work by themselves and just contribute to an emergent ecosystem. Sometimes people spend so much time conferencing and connecting and collaborating that they cripple their ability to actually get things done. At the same time, decentralized technology and permission free distribution systems come with their own problems. We need better organizational APIs, so that people can see the connections between projects and get involved.

There needs to be good curation of involvement. In addition to good top-down curation, we need to create safe spaces that allow for dialogue and even conflict.

=== Miscellaneous ===
* Has collaboration become more of a "come here and help me with this project" process and less of a coalition of people from different viewpoints working together?

That's the idea behind organizational APIs - we don't have to have everything in common to work together, we just need to share a goal.

* What about crowdfunding?

There is legislation about this being worked on and the SEC is working on defining specifics.

* How do you show the value of opening institutions?

It's happening organically - the internet is clearly a disruptive force, and people with that mindset are already in organizations.

[[category:Summit 2012]]
[[category:Meta]]

The Age of Peak Guilt

2012-08-05T17:46:33Z

Nkkl: filled in rest of themes

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-the-age-of-peak-guilt MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

== Participants ==
=== Zach Walker ===
Zach works for [http://www.donorschoose.org/ Donor's Choose]. Most people know what Donor's Choose is, but for those who don't, it's often described as "Kickstarter for American public schools".

=== Nick Grossman ===
Nick is an internet advocate and is working on starting up [http://connected.io/ connected.io]. Nick thinks about how networks and connectedness are changing things.

=== Andrew Slack ===
Andrew works for the [http://thehpalliance.org/ Harry Potter Alliance], which draws parallels between real world projects and fiction to inspire fans into action. Their view is that fantasy is not an escape, but an invitation.

=== Michael Norton ===
Michael works at [http://drfd.hbs.edu/fit/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=ovr&facId=326229 Harvard Business School] and studies the relationships between happiness and money.

== Q&A ==
=== Culture ===
* What can we do to build awesomeness into organizations that don't have it baked in from the start?
* What about organizations working on very serious issues? Can you work playfulness into that?

You can use competition to convince organizations - issue a challenge to them to do specific Awesome things (like opening up data to developers). And all organizations should have a sense of playfulness baked in, no matter how serious their cause. There is a tension between serious and playful though. Nonprofits push back against getting donations from people who don't care; they really want people to engage with their cause and be actively choosing to contribute.

=== Narratives and storytelling ===
There is a notion that narrative helps people relate to a cause - the idea of connecting hunger and *The Hunger Games* or creating a supervillain to personify global warming. Building stories gives people a meaningful connection to a cause.

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

Main Page

2012-08-05T17:29:49Z

Nkkl: removed link to attendance list (deleted)

{{TOC right}}

Welcome to the Awesome Summit wiki! This is where we will be documenting the [http://blog.awesomefoundation.org/2012/04/23/awesome-summit-2012-its-coming/ 2012 Awesome Summit].

== [[:Category:Summit 2012|2012 Session Schedule and Notes]] ==

== Sessions by topic ==
* [[:category:About the AF|About the AF]]: Everything pertaining to the then and now of the Awesome Foundation.
* [[:category:IHAS|IHAS]]: The Institute on Higher Awesome Studies.
* [[:category:Meta|Meta]]: The current state of affairs for alternative philanthropy and the AF.
* [[:category:Operations|Operations]]: Everything you need to know to run a successful chapter.
* [[:category:Summit 2013|Summit 2013]]: Looking towards next year's summit.
* [[:category:Tools|Tools]]: Shared materials for chapters.

To see all categories, go to [[Special:categories]].

== Other documentation ==
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/davefishernc/sets/72157630715631774/ Pictures from Dave Fisher (Columbus)]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcn/sets/72157630696187794/ Pictures from Jesse Chan-Norris (NYC)]
* [http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=84979541@N00&q=%23awesummit Pictures from Lee-Sean Huang (NYC)]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/regtiangha/sets/72157630740103892/ Pictures from Reg Tiangha (Calgary)]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/maltman23/sets/72157630740554460/ Pictures from Mitch Altman (SF)]
* [http://prezi.com/aeh3pevn5g8p/meta-awesome-foundation-pitches/ Prezi of Metapitches by Willow Brugh (Seattle)]

== Getting started ==
Consult the [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.

* [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]

Main Page

2012-08-05T17:28:40Z

Nkkl: fixed category link to Summit 2012

{{TOC right}}

Welcome to the Awesome Summit wiki! This is where we will be documenting the [http://blog.awesomefoundation.org/2012/04/23/awesome-summit-2012-its-coming/ 2012 Awesome Summit].

Want to see who was in attendance? Check the opt-in [[attendees (2012)|attendee list]].

== [[:Category:Summit 2012|2012 Session Schedule and Notes]] ==

== Sessions by topic ==
* [[:category:About the AF|About the AF]]: Everything pertaining to the then and now of the Awesome Foundation.
* [[:category:IHAS|IHAS]]: The Institute on Higher Awesome Studies.
* [[:category:Meta|Meta]]: The current state of affairs for alternative philanthropy and the AF.
* [[:category:Operations|Operations]]: Everything you need to know to run a successful chapter.
* [[:category:Summit 2013|Summit 2013]]: Looking towards next year's summit.
* [[:category:Tools|Tools]]: Shared materials for chapters.

To see all categories, go to [[Special:categories]].

== Other documentation ==
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/davefishernc/sets/72157630715631774/ Pictures from Dave Fisher (Columbus)]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcn/sets/72157630696187794/ Pictures from Jesse Chan-Norris (NYC)]
* [http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=84979541@N00&q=%23awesummit Pictures from Lee-Sean Huang (NYC)]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/regtiangha/sets/72157630740103892/ Pictures from Reg Tiangha (Calgary)]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/maltman23/sets/72157630740554460/ Pictures from Mitch Altman (SF)]
* [http://prezi.com/aeh3pevn5g8p/meta-awesome-foundation-pitches/ Prezi of Metapitches by Willow Brugh (Seattle)]

== Getting started ==
Consult the [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.

* [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]

The Age of Peak Guilt

2012-08-03T00:27:28Z

Nkkl: porting over summaries of notes

Giving More Than Money

2012-08-02T23:54:24Z

Nkkl: refactoring the participants

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-giving-more-than-money MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

This page references the open panel from the Awesome Connect event. For notes from the internal discussion session on helping fellows with more than money, see the page on [[Grantee support|grantee support]].

== Participants ==
=== Jeremy Liu ===
Jeremy Liu works on professional skill matching in the Bay Area, and previously ran the [http://www.ebaldc.org/ East Bay Asian Development Corporation].

=== Deanna Zandt ===
Deanna is interested in the problem of handling volunteer labor in nonprofit organizations. She is also interested in advocacy and evangelism by the general public (for example, the [http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/us-usa-healthcare-komen-idUSTRE8111WA20120203 Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy]).

=== Arlene Ducao ===
Arlene loves maps, and focuses on drawing connections between mapping and volunteerism. She is currently working on [http://globalchallenge.mit.edu/teams/view/242/ making infrared satellite imagery more accessible] during disasters.

=== Emilie Dubois ===
Emilie is a PhD student at Boston College studying collaborative consumption, with a specific focus on [http://timebanks.org/ time banking]. She is interested in questions of social capital and peer-to-peer bartering.

== Question and Answer ==
=== Barriers to volunteering ===
* Is there a barrier between low skill volunteers and super volunteers who might either push projects in a new direction or go rogue?
* People who don't have money don't necessarily have time either - was that an explicit design constraint for these projects?

As an example, Planned Parenthood had a great media and volunteership strategy that allowed women to participate and campaigns and initiate their own efforts, and people got really into it. The important thing is that you have to leverage existing community and have that built before you need it. Even within those communities there are sometimes issues with identifying the right people for a job. Time Banking and similar systems are great for identifying people with skills, but they still have to have time to give, which gets to be hard for people whose skills are in high demand. Part of the time issue is that we need to move away from focusing on "solving other peoples' problems" and more on building agency.

=== Gamification ===
* Has time banking been gamified?

Not currently, because it doesn't need it to be compelling. Analogous behavior already takes place within families and circles of friends; we should do a better job of supporting those efforts before thinking about gamification.

=== Disrupting the space ===
* These are all old questions; we've been talking about cooperation and social capital for years. Are we at a moment of disruption in this space?

We can be if we start rethinking this space and taking inspiration from other fields (for example, crowdsourcing). People are already starting to understand that traditional market economies are not a one-size-fits-all solution.

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

Giving More Than Money

2012-08-02T23:47:21Z

Nkkl: summarized key themes; full transcript is linked

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-giving-more-than-money MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

This page references the open panel from the Awesome Connect event. For notes from the internal discussion session on helping fellows with more than money, see the page on [[Grantee support|grantee support]].

== Jeremy Liu ==
Jeremy Liu works on professional skill matching in the Bay Area, and previously ran the [http://www.ebaldc.org/ East Bay Asian Development Corporation].

== Deanna Zandt ==
Deanna is interested in the problem of handling volunteer labor in nonprofit organizations. She is also interested in advocacy and evangelism by the general public (for example, the [http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/us-usa-healthcare-komen-idUSTRE8111WA20120203 Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy]).

== Arlene Ducao ==
Arlene loves maps, and focuses on drawing connections between mapping and volunteerism. She is currently working on [http://globalchallenge.mit.edu/teams/view/242/ making infrared satellite imagery more accessible] during disasters.

== Emilie Dubois ==
Emilie is a PhD student at Boston College studying collaborative consumption, with a specific focus on [http://timebanks.org/ time banking]. She is interested in questions of social capital and peer-to-peer bartering.

== Question and Answer ==
=== Barriers to volunteering ===
* Is there a barrier between low skill volunteers and super volunteers who might either push projects in a new direction or go rogue?
* People who don't have money don't necessarily have time either - was that an explicit design constraint for these projects?

As an example, Planned Parenthood had a great media and volunteership strategy that allowed women to participate and campaigns and initiate their own efforts, and people got really into it. The important thing is that you have to leverage existing community and have that built before you need it. Even within those communities there are sometimes issues with identifying the right people for a job. Time Banking and similar systems are great for identifying people with skills, but they still have to have time to give, which gets to be hard for people whose skills are in high demand. Part of the time issue is that we need to move away from focusing on "solving other peoples' problems" and more on building agency.

=== Gamification ===
* Has time banking been gamified?

Not currently, because it doesn't need it to be compelling. Analogous behavior already takes place within families and circles of friends; we should do a better job of supporting those efforts before thinking about gamification.

=== Disrupting the space ===
* These are all old questions; we've been talking about cooperation and social capital for years. Are we at a moment of disruption in this space?

We can be if we start rethinking this space and taking inspiration from other fields (for example, crowdsourcing). People are already starting to understand that traditional market economies are not a one-size-fits-all solution.

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

Giving More Than Money

2012-07-28T19:31:10Z

Nkkl: panelist descriptions

File:AwesomevizFINAL.pdf

2012-07-26T18:47:14Z

Nkkl: Slide deck on the State of the Awesome presented by Jacob Model, Jonathan Lansey, and Nikki Lee at Awesome Summit: Assemble 2012.

Slide deck on the State of the Awesome presented by Jacob Model, Jonathan Lansey, and Nikki Lee at Awesome Summit: Assemble 2012.

Summit 2013

2012-07-26T18:24:32Z

Nkkl: fixed category link

{{TOC right}}

It's going to be so fun that we'll definitely want to do it again!

== Precedent (2012 Summit) ==

=== Attendee motivations ===
Why did people decide to attend Awesome Summit in the first place?
* cross-pollination/learning from others
* getting inspired
* curiosity

=== Purpose ===
Meta-Question: What's the purpose of the Awesome Summit? In fact, are we actually even an organisation or just an emergent entity based on some shared interests?

* do we need to have an annual one that incorporates as many people from all chapters as possible vs. regional events, some other models etc.
* based on a completely non-scientific and sub-optimal participatory process, seems like the general consensus of the discussion group feels that there should be another summit next year (roughly around this time of year)

=== Boston's process for 2012 ===
* started in Jan, but bulk of work to organize has been in the last 2 months leading up
** necessity of establishing venues and contracts at least half a year ahead of time however (MIT Media Lab booked in Dec)
* $25,000 in donations which certainly helped but should not expect to exist for all future summits
** also ticket sales for the public component of the summit
** 124 tickets sold for the public event this time round
* need to be aware that fewer people will generally be able to attend than desired or planned for
** $10,000 was used to subsidize travel for this summit
* the MIT Media lab was made available gratis, which was very helpful, otherwise would cost ~$1000/hour
* agenda was decided by fiat more or less by small group of people, major driving reason was just to get everyone together
* '''Need to establish a feedback mechanism for this summit to determine what people liked, disliked, would recommend'''

== Future planning ==

=== Goals of 2013 Awesome Summit ===
* get everyone together
* learning from each other
* making sure we're on the same page (or at least knowing such a page exists)
* celebrate getting to $1,000,000 total grants, as forecast by the data mining team
* recurring themes:
** helping with trustee turnover or expanding pool
** soliciting good applications/getting through application slumps)

=== Where's the AWESOME in these summits? ===
* leaving increased capacity behind in the city i.e. stronger proposals
* Awesome Connect--bringing together network or resources + applicants + award mega-grant
* invite former grantees
* storytelling
* disruptive philanthropy

=== Looking forward ===
Towards the future:
* IHAS can play a continuing role to seek sponsorship/funding for future summits
* point of connection for entrepreneurs that want to give back'''

=== Location ===
Deciding on a process for determining location (brainstorming)
* letter of intent?
** Boston's process

=== Decision-making process ===
* a lot of existing models have competing pitches presenting at the end of the current summit and then a decision is made there
* is it at the level of a vote per(active) chapters, per trustee, what?
* having a committee struck to help lead to a decision on venue
** would they decide by fiat, would they make a decision after a collaboratively decided short-list, vice versa?
** have the committee include a rep (or multiple reps) from each short-listed location
*** potential conflicts of interest that result from this
*** potential of the summit planning cannibalizing the vitality of the host chapter's standard activities

=== Summit Commitee ===
Creating a Summit Committee?
* <strike>separate from a committee to help decide the summit location</strike>
* help to ensure that the summit happens each year
* '''BUT''' do we want to duplicate the effort and resources required to have two separate committees?
** perhaps having a sub-committee that works to decide a location
* '''NEEDS:''' a group to determine location, a group to work on logistics, a group to work on programming/content; whether these be separate groups or sub-groups

=== Selection Process ===
1. Pitches made by interested chapters/locations

2. Mandatory submission of info to committee (opens by Aug 18, closes Sept 29)

3. Committee vets submissions and creates short-list of viable possibilities (takes four weeks, requesting page content by Oct 27)

4. Pages posted two weeks later on November 10

5. Vote by active chapters based on the short-list (2 weeks, closing Nov 24)
* One vote per chapter for preferred location. PREFERENCE
* Individuals indicate ''where'' they '''could''' attend, were it to be at any of those locations. ABILITY

6. Committee takes the vote into consideration and then decides (one week)

7. Announcement of next year's location at the summit (December 1)

[http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8025/7623606110_d208bba858_z.jpg timeline image]

=== Tentative Selection Timeline ===
* Application process opens
* Close of application process
* Vetting of applications by committee
* Deliberation by committee on short-list (Vetting)
* Submitting groups publish their "pitch page"/Voting begins
* Voting closes
* Announcement of location of summit

=== Pitches ===
The pitch should:
* demonstrate solidarity and commitment of chapter (or hosting group if it's a different body)
* demonstrate strength of chapter and ability to execute
* mandatory submission component to committee to demonstrate that the capacity to implement exists
** form/questions to be designed by committee
* video or other excitement building pitch would be optional

=== Potential Criteria ===
* (or at least considerations)
* urban vs rural areas? environment that leads to retreat style or otherwise

=== Value of hosting a summit ===
* potential capacity building for the hosting group
* branding/marketing
* improve number/quality of submissions
* exposure
* potential collaborations and expanded network due to all of the above

=== ISSUES ===
* up till now Awesome XX:YY's have all been pretty ad-hoc groups; summits require much greater level of organization and dare-we-say, structure
* no particular failsafe on this right now, but that's okay--worst thing that happens is there's no summit that year
** is that actually okay? potential damage to brand/chapters/etc.
* this tentative process is, of course, a work in progress and subject to change due to good arguments (that could also be part of pitches, especially with regards to dates, etc.)
* an actual pre-defined agenda, or a structure by which participants can create large chunks of the agenda?
* looking towards the future, if IHAS wants to expand Awesomeness internationally in a major way, imperative to involve reps from international chapters as part of future Summit Commitees

== Resources ==
To be uploaded

[[category:Saturday]]
[[category:Summit 2013]]
[[category:Meta]]

User talk:Nkkl

2012-07-26T18:19:39Z

Nkkl: /* Moderator */

Hey Nikki, I see that you moved the links that I added to the main page to some sub-page. I recommend filling the main page with pointers to pages that people can edit otherwise people might never get past the homepage.--[[User:Lansey|Lansey]] 10:48, 23 July 2012 (PDT)
:Yes, that's more or less intentional because the wiki isn't really in a state where it's ready for people to just jump on board and started adding stuff everywhere. People who know their way around a wiki and are unlikely to break things or create confusing/messy structures will be fine... everyone else can wait a few days until I get things a little more cleaned up. This was originally only meant to document the summit, so it's not structured to handle anything beyond that.
: -- [[User:Nkkl|Nkkl]] 11:01, 23 July 2012 (PDT)

== Moderator ==

Hey Nikki! I would definitely be down to help moderate! :)

:You have to leave me your name! Preferably in the form of your wiki account.
:-- [[User:Nkkl|Nkkl]] 11:19, 26 July 2012 (PDT)

The Slow Funds Movement

2012-07-23T21:56:13Z

Nkkl: /* Project specifics */ - spelling fix

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

== Participants ==
=== Rick DeVos ===
Rick runs a number of projects focused on Grand Rapids, MI: [http://www.artrise.com/ ArtRise], [http://momentum-mi.com/ Momemtum], and most recently [http://startgarden.com/ Start Garden], which has eclipsed the first two. All three of these projects are local and focused on investing in the community.

=== Jay Lee ===
Jay runs a startup called [http://smallknot.com/ Smallknot] that does hyperlocal crowdfunding to support local businesses. Small businesses put up pages on Smallknot, use the platform to raise funds in their local community, and then pay their supporters back (in full plus interest) in goods and services.

=== Stephanie Pereira ===
Stephanie is the Director of Art at [http://www.kickstarter.com/ Kickstarter]. Her focus is on reaching out to artists and helping them develop successful Kickstarter campaigns, and she shares a number of examples of projects that have a done a good job engaging funders in meaningful and innovative ways.

== Panel Discussion ==

=== Scalability ===
* The Slow Food movement gets critiqued for being too boutique, which hurts scalability. Is this a danger for slow funding?
* A big part of crowfunding is getting funders involved beyond just giving money. Is there a point where we'll be oversaturated with these personal beyond-economic transactions? For example, sometimes it's too tiring to deal with Couchsurfing, and you just want Airbnb or a hotel.

It's easier to scale slow funding because there aren't the same material and logistics costs with funding, and there are a lot of layers of involvement available. Projects really work on a human scale. Sometimes the demand for funder involvement can be overwhelming, but you have the choice to be more or less involved, and decide whether or not to fund something.

=== Elitism and the Digital Divide ===
* Another problem the slow food movement has encountered is elitism and silos that lock other people out, with the digital divide what demographics do you see missing from your platform and what is your plan to engage people?

Startgarden and Smallknot have both had great success reaching a broad range of people, especially Smallknot because it leverages the existing customers of a business (and it's the responsibility of the business to reach out). Stephanie points out that Kickstarter's most active cities are the usual suspects (major metropolitan areas), but that there is also a lot of excitement in places like Missoula, Montana that people wouldn't predict.

=== Slow Funding ===
* Can you tell us about the slow money movement? (directed at Jay)

The slow money movement is tied to the slow food movement, and came out of trying to finance local food. It's been around about 3 years, and Woody Tash from Investors Circle wrote a book ([http://www.slowmoney.org/book Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money]).

== Audience Q&A ==

=== Failure ===
* I'd love to hear about your failure rates. Especially Kickstarter, we always hear about success rates, how many fail, what happens to them?
* What about accountability - is the failure rate of Kickstarter so high because people aren't held accountable by face-to-face interactions?

Successful crowdfunding is really about getting people involved - people who take responsibility for reaching out and getting people engaged have very high success rates. For example, on Kickstarter once you get a single donor your probability of success goes from 44% to over 50% - it meas you are telling people and getting them engaged. Smallknot projects have 100% success rate for businesses that are actually reaching out to their networks and maintaining relationships. Rick adds that we don't need to plan for everything or mitigate the 5-year failure rate, we just want to get things started.

As far as accountability, social capital plays a huge part in all three areas. There is a social contract between projects and their funders, and it really is effective. People care about providing value to the people supporting them.

=== Replication ===
* Scale vs. replication - do you want to grow nationally or have clones and things happening?
* How do you feel about others copying or replicating your projects somewhere else? Where do you draw the line?

Replication and replicability are real goals for Smallknot, because solutions need to be tailored to communities, not one-size-fits-all. Start Garden isn't focused on anything outside of Grand Rapids, but is open to being replicated elsewhere. Kickstarter is not offended by clones - the goal is to make the world more exciting. It doesn't take away from anyone to have more services trying to do good.

=== Value Exchange ===
* One of the things I worry most about is long-term planning and sustainability. Are there ways to translate these ideas about crowdfunding into a long-term sustainability model?
* Rick does investment, Jay and Stephanie do barter. What about donation?

Engagement is the key to sustainability, and the process of running a campaign helps a lot with building the long-term sustainability model. Amanda Palmer is a great example of this, she goes to her fans over and over again to create something with them and continuously engages them and thinks about what they want. People have funded sequels on Kickstarter, which shows that if you manage a project well you are getting fans, not just money. If you provide value to people, they will keep funding you; it's not about asking them to give money, it's a value exchange.

=== The Digital Divide ===
* Do people who are not online have an opportunity to get involved in things like small business development? Is there an option for people who don't have access or who are blocked by the digital divide?

Smallknot, for example, is a technology company at heart. It's difficult to monitor and track funds that don't go through their system, and building an offline platform that's scalable to small businesses is really difficult to do. There are also ways to engage people offline - Smallknot businesses advertise in their stores, people do offline Kickstarter activites where they hold parties and events with an admission price. Crowdfunding doesn't have to be digital.

=== Curation ===
* The role of curation in the context of funding: you still have to be approved to have a Kickstarter campaign, there is vetting. How much gatekeeping, if any, should platforms be doing to be a democratic funding model?

There are lower barriers to entry than people think - ArtRise is extremely open, Smallknot only requires that you be a business, and Kickstarter accepts more than 80% of ideas. Projects that aren't accepted tend to be pitching an idea, not an actual project, and are usually accepted when they come back with more direction. It's about putting good energy into your project.

=== Project specifics ===
* Where did the money for Start Garden come from?

Startgarden was funded by private investors.

* Startgarden has chosen $5000 amounts, I'm curious about what's typical for the other 2 platforms, what is the scale?

Close to half of projects on Kickstarter are in the $1,000-5,000 range and 2/3 are under $10,000, and $10,000 is about the highest that Smallknot has seen. Within the Awesome Foundation, many international chapters ask how to handle exchange rates and the rule of thumb is "enough to get something done but not enough to fight over".

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

Open branding

2012-07-23T21:55:50Z

Nkkl: summarized key themes; full transcript is linked

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-decentralized-organizations-and-open-brands MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

== Participants ==
Erhardt Graeff, moderator, opens with a short presentation on the Awesome Foundation and a brief summary of the some of the [[Growing the Awesome|conversations about branding]] from Awesome Summit: Assemble.

=== Bryce Dwyer ===
Bryce helped found [http://sundaysoupchicago.org/ Sunday Soup Chicago], which charges particpants for a bowl of soup and pools the proceeds into a grant that is awarded to whichever project the group gives the most votes to. The model has been replicated in a number of cities under various names and the original actually died out in 2009 before being restarted in 2012 (inspired by successful derivatives).

=== Benjamin "Mako" Hill ===
Mako is a fellow at the MIT Center for Civic Media studying the social structure of free software communities. He spends a lot of time thinking about decentralized brands in the free software movement.

=== Becky Hurwitz ===
Becky is the community outreach coordinator for the Center for Civic Media and has done work on the Occupy movement, as well as broader study on social movements and decentralized organizations.

== Panel Q&A ==
=== Shared values ===
* Reaching shared/values principles, how did each of your groups do that?

In the Sunday Soup community, there aren't any formally agreed upon values - they are all driven by necessity. Values become articulated around needs, so when everyone sees the problem the same way they get similar values. It's become more of a problem in the Occupy movement, where disagreements about values have undermined the community. It's not always easy to get everyone to agree, and you can't make values that are inclusive of all points of view.

=== Organizational structure ===
* What role do leaders play in this process? What do leaders look like? What is the importance of shared cultural background?
* I think there is value to having some sort of foundational organizational structure - what do you think about that? Social capital is great, but so is financial capital.

Organizational leadership is complicated, and there's always the danger of having an organization turn into an extension of a really charistmatic leader. Being decentralized also doesn't mean that traditionally charismatic leaders won't arise and start to bend the culture, but if the organization decides as a group to fight that, it can help. The team needs to take initiative for stepping outside of that comfort zone if they want to have an actually innovative structure, although a lot of organizational structure is an open question.

=== Branding ===
* What is the value of the brand, and how important is that to recruiting new people to the movement?
* How does belonging to open brands affect people and change the experience from doing the thing without putting the brand on it?

Open branding allows people to have more ownership, and branding in general gives people something to identify with, and to better understand how to get involved. Putting a brand on an activity amplifies beyond the impact of the activity without the brand, because it creates a sense of identity and gives people something to be proud of (ex: the Nobel Prize is more than just money).

=== Project specifics ===
* Have we reached Peak Occupy? What's next? Is the narrative going to continue? Is the lack of coherent leadership bringing down the movement?

We don't necessarily know what the future of Occupy is going to be, but there are groups of people who have splintered off and are continuing to work on the problem.

* Mako, do you have examples of free software/OSS projects that petered out and were reborn?

Inkscape has died three times, with a name change each time. Some of the problems were around leadership, sometimes political and social disagreements. There were lots of people who thought that a good vector drawing program was a good idea, but disagreement on parts of that and variation in the vibrancy of the community led to some temporary deaths of the project.

* In the AF, we have a gap between Kitten Voltron and this amorphous blob of rogue funders... there is a balance between stepping in to help provide guidance and support without being an official structure, how can organizations better navigate that transition?

It's better to do less and not burn yourself out, because it's a huge problem. Taking your time and scoping back is worth it.

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

The Slow Funds Movement

2012-07-23T21:49:43Z

Nkkl: /* Project specifics */ - rearranging questions to go with their answers

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

== Participants ==
=== Rick DeVos ===
Rick runs a number of projects focused on Grand Rapids, MI: [http://www.artrise.com/ ArtRise], [http://momentum-mi.com/ Momemtum], and most recently [http://startgarden.com/ Start Garden], which has eclipsed the first two. All three of these projects are local and focused on investing in the community.

=== Jay Lee ===
Jay runs a startup called [http://smallknot.com/ Smallknot] that does hyperlocal crowdfunding to support local businesses. Small businesses put up pages on Smallknot, use the platform to raise funds in their local community, and then pay their supporters back (in full plus interest) in goods and services.

=== Stephanie Pereira ===
Stephanie is the Director of Art at [http://www.kickstarter.com/ Kickstarter]. Her focus is on reaching out to artists and helping them develop successful Kickstarter campaigns, and she shares a number of examples of projects that have a done a good job engaging funders in meaningful and innovative ways.

== Panel Discussion ==

=== Scalability ===
* The Slow Food movement gets critiqued for being too boutique, which hurts scalability. Is this a danger for slow funding?
* A big part of crowfunding is getting funders involved beyond just giving money. Is there a point where we'll be oversaturated with these personal beyond-economic transactions? For example, sometimes it's too tiring to deal with Couchsurfing, and you just want Airbnb or a hotel.

It's easier to scale slow funding because there aren't the same material and logistics costs with funding, and there are a lot of layers of involvement available. Projects really work on a human scale. Sometimes the demand for funder involvement can be overwhelming, but you have the choice to be more or less involved, and decide whether or not to fund something.

=== Elitism and the Digital Divide ===
* Another problem the slow food movement has encountered is elitism and silos that lock other people out, with the digital divide what demographics do you see missing from your platform and what is your plan to engage people?

Startgarden and Smallknot have both had great success reaching a broad range of people, especially Smallknot because it leverages the existing customers of a business (and it's the responsibility of the business to reach out). Stephanie points out that Kickstarter's most active cities are the usual suspects (major metropolitan areas), but that there is also a lot of excitement in places like Missoula, Montana that people wouldn't predict.

=== Slow Funding ===
* Can you tell us about the slow money movement? (directed at Jay)

The slow money movement is tied to the slow food movement, and came out of trying to finance local food. It's been around about 3 years, and Woody Tash from Investors Circle wrote a book ([http://www.slowmoney.org/book Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money]).

== Audience Q&A ==

=== Failure ===
* I'd love to hear about your failure rates. Especially Kickstarter, we always hear about success rates, how many fail, what happens to them?
* What about accountability - is the failure rate of Kickstarter so high because people aren't held accountable by face-to-face interactions?

Successful crowdfunding is really about getting people involved - people who take responsibility for reaching out and getting people engaged have very high success rates. For example, on Kickstarter once you get a single donor your probability of success goes from 44% to over 50% - it meas you are telling people and getting them engaged. Smallknot projects have 100% success rate for businesses that are actually reaching out to their networks and maintaining relationships. Rick adds that we don't need to plan for everything or mitigate the 5-year failure rate, we just want to get things started.

As far as accountability, social capital plays a huge part in all three areas. There is a social contract between projects and their funders, and it really is effective. People care about providing value to the people supporting them.

=== Replication ===
* Scale vs. replication - do you want to grow nationally or have clones and things happening?
* How do you feel about others copying or replicating your projects somewhere else? Where do you draw the line?

Replication and replicability are real goals for Smallknot, because solutions need to be tailored to communities, not one-size-fits-all. Start Garden isn't focused on anything outside of Grand Rapids, but is open to being replicated elsewhere. Kickstarter is not offended by clones - the goal is to make the world more exciting. It doesn't take away from anyone to have more services trying to do good.

=== Value Exchange ===
* One of the things I worry most about is long-term planning and sustainability. Are there ways to translate these ideas about crowdfunding into a long-term sustainability model?
* Rick does investment, Jay and Stephanie do barter. What about donation?

Engagement is the key to sustainability, and the process of running a campaign helps a lot with building the long-term sustainability model. Amanda Palmer is a great example of this, she goes to her fans over and over again to create something with them and continuously engages them and thinks about what they want. People have funded sequels on Kickstarter, which shows that if you manage a project well you are getting fans, not just money. If you provide value to people, they will keep funding you; it's not about asking them to give money, it's a value exchange.

=== The Digital Divide ===
* Do people who are not online have an opportunity to get involved in things like small business development? Is there an option for people who don't have access or who are blocked by the digital divide?

Smallknot, for example, is a technology company at heart. It's difficult to monitor and track funds that don't go through their system, and building an offline platform that's scalable to small businesses is really difficult to do. There are also ways to engage people offline - Smallknot businesses advertise in their stores, people do offline Kickstarter activites where they hold parties and events with an admission price. Crowdfunding doesn't have to be digital.

=== Curation ===
* The role of curation in the context of funding: you still have to be approved to have a Kickstarter campaign, there is vetting. How much gatekeeping, if any, should platforms be doing to be a democratic funding model?

There are lower barriers to entry than people think - ArtRise is extremely open, Smallknot only requires that you be a business, and Kickstarter accepts more than 80% of ideas. Projects that aren't accepted tend to be pitching an idea, not an actual project, and are usually accepted when they come back with more direction. It's about putting good energy into your project.

=== Project specifics ===
* Where did the money for Startgarden come from?

Startgarden was funded by private investors.

* Startgarden has chosen $5000 amounts, I'm curious about what's typical for the other 2 platforms, what is the scale?

Close to half of projects on Kickstarter are in the $1,000-5,000 range and 2/3 are under $10,000, and $10,000 is about the highest that Smallknot has seen. Within the Awesome Foundation, many international chapters ask how to handle exchange rates and the rule of thumb is "enough to get something done but not enough to fight over".

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

Giving More Than Money

2012-07-23T21:08:42Z

Nkkl: added link to liveblog

The Slow Funds Movement

2012-07-23T19:48:30Z

Nkkl:

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

== Participants ==
=== Rick DeVos ===
Rick runs a number of projects focused on Grand Rapids, MI: [http://www.artrise.com/ ArtRise], [http://momentum-mi.com/ Momemtum], and most recently [http://startgarden.com/ Start Garden], which has eclipsed the first two. All three of these projects are local and focused on investing in the community.

=== Jay Lee ===
Jay runs a startup called [http://smallknot.com/ Smallknot] that does hyperlocal crowdfunding to support local businesses. Small businesses put up pages on Smallknot, use the platform to raise funds in their local community, and then pay their supporters back (in full plus interest) in goods and services.

=== Stephanie Pereira ===
Stephanie is the Director of Art at [http://www.kickstarter.com/ Kickstarter]. Her focus is on reaching out to artists and helping them develop successful Kickstarter campaigns, and she shares a number of examples of projects that have a done a good job engaging funders in meaningful and innovative ways.

== Panel Discussion ==

=== Scalability ===
* The Slow Food movement gets critiqued for being too boutique, which hurts scalability. Is this a danger for slow funding?
* A big part of crowfunding is getting funders involved beyond just giving money. Is there a point where we'll be oversaturated with these personal beyond-economic transactions? For example, sometimes it's too tiring to deal with Couchsurfing, and you just want Airbnb or a hotel.

It's easier to scale slow funding because there aren't the same material and logistics costs with funding, and there are a lot of layers of involvement available. Projects really work on a human scale. Sometimes the demand for funder involvement can be overwhelming, but you have the choice to be more or less involved, and decide whether or not to fund something.

=== Elitism and the Digital Divide ===
* Another problem the slow food movement has encountered is elitism and silos that lock other people out, with the digital divide what demographics do you see missing from your platform and what is your plan to engage people?

Startgarden and Smallknot have both had great success reaching a broad range of people, especially Smallknot because it leverages the existing customers of a business (and it's the responsibility of the business to reach out). Stephanie points out that Kickstarter's most active cities are the usual suspects (major metropolitan areas), but that there is also a lot of excitement in places like Missoula, Montana that people wouldn't predict.

=== Slow Funding ===
* Can you tell us about the slow money movement? (directed at Jay)

The slow money movement is tied to the slow food movement, and came out of trying to finance local food. It's been around about 3 years, and Woody Tash from Investors Circle wrote a book ([http://www.slowmoney.org/book Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money]).

== Audience Q&A ==

=== Failure ===
* I'd love to hear about your failure rates. Especially Kickstarter, we always hear about success rates, how many fail, what happens to them?
* What about accountability - is the failure rate of Kickstarter so high because people aren't held accountable by face-to-face interactions?

Successful crowdfunding is really about getting people involved - people who take responsibility for reaching out and getting people engaged have very high success rates. For example, on Kickstarter once you get a single donor your probability of success goes from 44% to over 50% - it meas you are telling people and getting them engaged. Smallknot projects have 100% success rate for businesses that are actually reaching out to their networks and maintaining relationships. Rick adds that we don't need to plan for everything or mitigate the 5-year failure rate, we just want to get things started.

As far as accountability, social capital plays a huge part in all three areas. There is a social contract between projects and their funders, and it really is effective. People care about providing value to the people supporting them.

=== Replication ===
* Scale vs. replication - do you want to grow nationally or have clones and things happening?
* How do you feel about others copying or replicating your projects somewhere else? Where do you draw the line?

Replication and replicability are real goals for Smallknot, because solutions need to be tailored to communities, not one-size-fits-all. Start Garden isn't focused on anything outside of Grand Rapids, but is open to being replicated elsewhere. Kickstarter is not offended by clones - the goal is to make the world more exciting. It doesn't take away from anyone to have more services trying to do good.

=== Value Exchange ===
* One of the things I worry most about is long-term planning and sustainability. Are there ways to translate these ideas about crowdfunding into a long-term sustainability model?
* Rick does investment, Jay and Stephanie do barter. What about donation?

Engagement is the key to sustainability, and the process of running a campaign helps a lot with building the long-term sustainability model. Amanda Palmer is a great example of this, she goes to her fans over and over again to create something with them and continuously engages them and thinks about what they want. People have funded sequels on Kickstarter, which shows that if you manage a project well you are getting fans, not just money. If you provide value to people, they will keep funding you; it's not about asking them to give money, it's a value exchange.

=== The Digital Divide ===
* Do people who are not online have an opportunity to get involved in things like small business development? Is there an option for people who don't have access or who are blocked by the digital divide?

Smallknot, for example, is a technology company at heart. It's difficult to monitor and track funds that don't go through their system, and building an offline platform that's scalable to small businesses is really difficult to do. There are also ways to engage people offline - Smallknot businesses advertise in their stores, people do offline Kickstarter activites where they hold parties and events with an admission price. Crowdfunding doesn't have to be digital.

=== Curation ===
* The role of curation in the context of funding: you still have to be approved to have a Kickstarter campaign, there is vetting. How much gatekeeping, if any, should platforms be doing to be a democratic funding model?

There are lower barriers to entry than people think - ArtRise is extremely open, Smallknot only requires that you be a business, and Kickstarter accepts more than 80% of ideas. Projects that aren't accepted tend to be pitching an idea, not an actual project, and are usually accepted when they come back with more direction. It's about putting good energy into your project.

=== Project specifics ===
* Where did the money for Startgarden come from?
* Startgarden has chosen $5000 amounts, I'm curious about what's typical for the other 2 platforms, what is the scale?

Startgarden was funded by private investors.

Close to half of projects on Kickstarter are in the $1,000-5,000 range and 2/3 are under $10,000, and $10,000 is about the highest that Smallknot has seen. Within the Awesome Foundation, many international chapters ask how to handle exchange rates and the rule of thumb is "enough to get something done but not enough to fight over".

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

The Slow Funds Movement

2012-07-23T19:47:30Z

Nkkl: /* Audience Q&A */ - summarizing audience Q&A into themes

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

== Participants ==
=== Rick DeVos ===
Rick runs a number of projects focused on Grand Rapids, MI: [http://www.artrise.com/ ArtRise], [http://momentum-mi.com/ Momemtum], and most recently [http://startgarden.com/ Start Garden], which has eclipsed the first two. All three of these projects are local and focused on investing in the community.

=== Jay Lee ===
Jay runs a startup called [http://smallknot.com/ Smallknot] that does hyperlocal crowdfunding to support local businesses. Small businesses put up pages on Smallknot, use the platform to raise funds in their local community, and then pay their supporters back (in full plus interest) in goods and services.

=== Stephanie Pereira ===
Stephanie is the Director of Art at [http://www.kickstarter.com/ Kickstarter]. Her focus is on reaching out to artists and helping them develop successful Kickstarter campaigns, and she shares a number of examples of projects that have a done a good job engaging funders in meaningful and innovative ways.

== Panel Discussion ==
Moderated by Christina Xu. These are the main themes; for more complete transcripts see [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds the liveblog].

=== Scalability ===
* The Slow Food movement gets critiqued for being too boutique, which hurts scalability. Is this a danger for slow funding?
* A big part of crowfunding is getting funders involved beyond just giving money. Is there a point where we'll be oversaturated with these personal beyond-economic transactions? For example, sometimes it's too tiring to deal with Couchsurfing, and you just want Airbnb or a hotel.

It's easier to scale slow funding because there aren't the same material and logistics costs with funding, and there are a lot of layers of involvement available. Projects really work on a human scale. Sometimes the demand for funder involvement can be overwhelming, but you have the choice to be more or less involved, and decide whether or not to fund something.

=== Elitism and the Digital Divide ===
* Another problem the slow food movement has encountered is elitism and silos that lock other people out, with the digital divide what demographics do you see missing from your platform and what is your plan to engage people?

Startgarden and Smallknot have both had great success reaching a broad range of people, especially Smallknot because it leverages the existing customers of a business (and it's the responsibility of the business to reach out). Stephanie points out that Kickstarter's most active cities are the usual suspects (major metropolitan areas), but that there is also a lot of excitement in places like Missoula, Montana that people wouldn't predict.

=== Slow Funding ===
* Can you tell us about the slow money movement? (directed at Jay)

The slow money movement is tied to the slow food movement, and came out of trying to finance local food. It's been around about 3 years, and Woody Tash from Investors Circle wrote a book ([http://www.slowmoney.org/book Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money]).

== Audience Q&A ==

=== Failure ===
* I'd love to hear about your failure rates. Especially Kickstarter, we always hear about success rates, how many fail, what happens to them?
* What about accountability - is the failure rate of Kickstarter so high because people aren't held accountable by face-to-face interactions?

Successful crowdfunding is really about getting people involved - people who take responsibility for reaching out and getting people engaged have very high success rates. For example, on Kickstarter once you get a single donor your probability of success goes from 44% to over 50% - it meas you are telling people and getting them engaged. Smallknot projects have 100% success rate for businesses that are actually reaching out to their networks and maintaining relationships. Rick adds that we don't need to plan for everything or mitigate the 5-year failure rate, we just want to get things started.

As far as accountability, social capital plays a huge part in all three areas. There is a social contract between projects and their funders, and it really is effective. People care about providing value to the people supporting them.

=== Replication ===
* Scale vs. replication - do you want to grow nationally or have clones and things happening?
* How do you feel about others copying or replicating your projects somewhere else? Where do you draw the line?

Replication and replicability are real goals for Smallknot, because solutions need to be tailored to communities, not one-size-fits-all. Start Garden isn't focused on anything outside of Grand Rapids, but is open to being replicated elsewhere. Kickstarter is not offended by clones - the goal is to make the world more exciting. It doesn't take away from anyone to have more services trying to do good.

=== Value Exchange ===
* One of the things I worry most about is long-term planning and sustainability. Are there ways to translate these ideas about crowdfunding into a long-term sustainability model?
* Rick does investment, Jay and Stephanie do barter. What about donation?

Engagement is the key to sustainability, and the process of running a campaign helps a lot with building the long-term sustainability model. Amanda Palmer is a great example of this, she goes to her fans over and over again to create something with them and continuously engages them and thinks about what they want. People have funded sequels on Kickstarter, which shows that if you manage a project well you are getting fans, not just money. If you provide value to people, they will keep funding you; it's not about asking them to give money, it's a value exchange.

=== The Digital Divide ===
* Do people who are not online have an opportunity to get involved in things like small business development? Is there an option for people who don't have access or who are blocked by the digital divide?

Smallknot, for example, is a technology company at heart. It's difficult to monitor and track funds that don't go through their system, and building an offline platform that's scalable to small businesses is really difficult to do. There are also ways to engage people offline - Smallknot businesses advertise in their stores, people do offline Kickstarter activites where they hold parties and events with an admission price. Crowdfunding doesn't have to be digital.

=== Curation ===
* The role of curation in the context of funding: you still have to be approved to have a Kickstarter campaign, there is vetting. How much gatekeeping, if any, should platforms be doing to be a democratic funding model?

There are lower barriers to entry than people think - ArtRise is extremely open, Smallknot only requires that you be a business, and Kickstarter accepts more than 80% of ideas. Projects that aren't accepted tend to be pitching an idea, not an actual project, and are usually accepted when they come back with more direction. It's about putting good energy into your project.

=== Project specifics ===
* Where did the money for Startgarden come from?
* Startgarden has chosen $5000 amounts, I'm curious about what's typical for the other 2 platforms, what is the scale?

Startgarden was funded by private investors.

Close to half of projects on Kickstarter are in the $1,000-5,000 range and 2/3 are under $10,000, and $10,000 is about the highest that Smallknot has seen. Within the Awesome Foundation, many international chapters ask how to handle exchange rates and the rule of thumb is "enough to get something done but not enough to fight over".

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

Open branding

2012-07-23T18:37:54Z

Nkkl: added link to liveblog

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-decentralized-organizations-and-open-brands MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

== The Awesome Foundation ==
=== The awesome ===
* Independently organized chapters
* Flexible definition bends to fit each locale, set of trustees, theme
* Innovative strategies for handling trustees + decision-making
* Lack of hierarchy and structure lets trustees focus on fun

=== The awkward ===
* What if chapter needs tax-exempt status to partner?
* What if a chapter or trustee goes rogue?
* What if our own TV Show tries to trademark Awesome Foundation?

* Trademark vs. T(rust)M(e)
** Don't solve problems we don't have yet

== Sunday Soup ==
* started in 2007 in Chicago
* charged $5 for a bowl of soup, collected emails and grant proposals, emailed out list of proposals and asked everyone to vote on who should get the money
* Switched from once a week to once a month to preserve bandwidth
* closed in 2009

=== Problems addressed ===
* Saw a lack of small scale, unrestricted funding
* Lack of funding for projects that didn't fit into existing "fundable" categories

* Presented at a exhibition in 2008, grew and spread
** STEW, Baltimore
** FEAST, Brooklyn
** Philly Stake, Philadelphia
* In 2010 met people doing it in other cities, talked about how to do things
* Created a website: [sundaysoup.org]
** collect applications
** automate money
** map of projects around the world
* In 2011, organized an International Day of Soup (collaborated across cities)
* Collectively created a poster on how to do it and distributed it at event
* Started it back up in Chicago in 2012

== Free Software ==
* Defining "free software" is a huge aspect of the free software movement
** multiple iterations of defining what this means
* "a big tent with clear boundaries"
* open source movement attempted to trademark/service mark the term (failed)

=== The problem ===
* It's not people misusing the brand
* For most people, it's that not enough people are using the brand
* We should strive to create brands that people care about enough to want to abuse them
* Attempts to block abuse will
** limit your brand's success
** probably fail

== Civic Media ==
* Occupy and the AF have overlap - decentralized decision making
* (get more notes from the livebloggers)

== Panel Q&A ==
* Reaching shared/values principles, how did each of your groups do that?
** Bryce: Haven't formally checked, but a lot of the values are the same because they're driven by necessity. Values become articulated around needs that are common to a lot of different cities, but that's just the US.
** Becky: Occupy tried to be decentralized, and that became a bit of a problem. For example, is the movement violent or nonviolent? Disagreement between subgroups, conflict of values. Other values had less agreement, but less of an issue.
** Mako: Identified a set of people to target and get buy-in from, collaborated with those people. Goal has not been to get everybody involved, the goal has been to set clear boundaries.

* What role do leaders play in this process? What do leaders look like? What is the importance of shared cultural background?
** Mako: Organization and principles should not be indistinguishable from personality of the leader.
** Becky: In Occupy, leaders looked like traditional leaders, which is a little ironic. In order to champion an idea amongst lots of people, you need to have lots of charisma (traditional leadership skills). Cultural background makes it easier in the outset, but part of being in a really popular movement means you will run into people with lots of different backgrounds and have to deal with that.
** Bryce: We've been really conscientious of inviting and encouraging people who aren't just our friends, get people who don't look like us. It's easy for more experienced people to fall into leadership roles, tried to fight this by deciding as a group how to divide up responsibilities.

* What is the value of the brand, and how important is that to recruiting new people to the movement?
** Bryce: (re: Sunday Soup has inconsistent naming) We don't expect people to call it something, so that empowers people more to do what they want with it.
** Becky: It was less a brand and more of a media event. At first that was helpful, because goal was to just get the word out. Has become more difficult to define as it's grown.
** Mako: Brands are attractive to people, and that's the point of them. But many successful brands are open and not trademarked (ex. Republican and Democrat). That creates flexibility and power of imagination.

* How does belonging to open brands affect people and change the experience from doing the thing without putting the brand on it?
** Mako: Prizes and association with the name matter more than just the money.
** Becky: Re 350 climate change event - having more people in the street means more people will notice and join and the impact will be bigger and change will be more likely. Big problem today is lack of participation, and seeing people makes participation more likely.

* Have we reached Peak Occupy? What's next? Is the narrative going to continue? Is the lack of coherent leadership bringing down the movement?
** Becky: I would love to be able to answer all of these. Everyone is asking what is going to happen next. There are groups of people who've broken off and are doing more targeted work and have gone after smaller goals. Networks were built, and those remain, so that's a way that it continues. I don't know what will happen with the 99% narrative.

* Mako, do you have examples of free software/OSS projects that petered out and were reborn?
** Mako: There's no lack of projects that have petered out. Ones that have come back later are more complicated... Inkscape has died three times, I can't even remember the original name (name changed each time). Some of the problems were around leadership, sometimes political and social disagreements. There were lots of people who thought that a good vector drawing program was a good idea, but disagreement on parts of that and variation in the vibrancy of the community.

* In the AF, we have a gap between Kitten Voltron and this amorphous blob of rogue funders... there is a balance between stepping in to help provide guidance and support without being an official structure, and it seems like your communities have navigated that, advice on navigating that transition? And fighting burnout while doing that?
** Bryce: Burnout is always a problem, to some extent we have mitigated that problem by being honest with ourselves and acknowledging that it's ok to not do it all the time. Everyone should be willing to work less if it means prolonging the project.
** Becky: Burnout is a huge issue with Occupy. Taking your time will pay off.
** Bryce: There is also a difference between internal bureaucracy and the expectations you externalize, and there are qualitative differences between ways of organizing.
** Mako: If you've built a movement with a set of principles, you create space for evolution over time.

* I think there is value to having some sort of foundational organizational structure - what do you think about that? Social capital is great, but so is financial capital.
** Mako: Don't get me wrong - I've created startups, been on the board of incorporated nonprofits with staff, I'm not saying there is no space for these things. Being dependent on a single organization is what worries me; I like small organizations. I'd rather have lots of small organizations that cover a broader area.
** Becky: (examples of intergroup collaborations and organized 501c3)
** Bryce: We avoided becoming a 501c3... we felt like we had questions, not answers. There were all sorts of legal liability and tax issues though, and we were serving food and alcohol without a license. Maybe there is some way in the future to handle that, we've been lucky that we haven't had to deal with police.

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

The Slow Funds Movement

2012-07-23T18:35:05Z

Nkkl: cleaned up panel Q&A

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

== Participants ==
=== Rick DeVos ===
Rick runs a number of projects focused on Grand Rapids, MI: [http://www.artrise.com/ ArtRise], [http://momentum-mi.com/ Momemtum], and most recently [http://startgarden.com/ Start Garden], which has eclipsed the first two. All three of these projects are local and focused on investing in the community.

=== Jay Lee ===
Jay runs a startup called [http://smallknot.com/ Smallknot] that does hyperlocal crowdfunding to support local businesses. Small businesses put up pages on Smallknot, use the platform to raise funds in their local community, and then pay their supporters back (in full plus interest) in goods and services.

=== Stephanie Pereira ===
Stephanie is the Director of Art at [http://www.kickstarter.com/ Kickstarter]. Her focus is on reaching out to artists and helping them develop successful Kickstarter campaigns, and she shares a number of examples of projects that have a done a good job engaging funders in meaningful and innovative ways.

== Panel Discussion ==
Moderated by Christina Xu. These are the main themes; for more complete transcripts see [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds the liveblog].

=== Scalability ===
* The Slow Food movement gets critiqued for being too boutique, which hurts scalability. Is this a danger for slow funding?
* A big part of crowfunding is getting funders involved beyond just giving money. Is there a point where we'll be oversaturated with these personal beyond-economic transactions? For example, sometimes it's too tiring to deal with Couchsurfing, and you just want Airbnb or a hotel.

It's easier to scale slow funding because there aren't the same material and logistics costs with funding, and there are a lot of layers of involvement available. Projects really work on a human scale. Sometimes the demand for funder involvement can be overwhelming, but you have the choice to be more or less involved, and decide whether or not to fund something.

=== Elitism and the Digital Divide ===
* Another problem the slow food movement has encountered is elitism and silos that lock other people out, with the digital divide what demographics do you see missing from your platform and what is your plan to engage people?

Startgarden and Smallknot have both had great success reaching a broad range of people, especially Smallknot because it leverages the existing customers of a business (and it's the responsibility of the business to reach out). Stephanie points out that Kickstarter's most active cities are the usual suspects (major metropolitan areas), but that there is also a lot of excitement in places like Missoula, Montana that people wouldn't predict.

=== Slow Funding ===
* Can you tell us about the slow money movement? (directed at Jay)

The slow money movement is tied to the slow food movement, and came out of trying to finance local food. It's been around about 3 years, and Woody Tash from Investors Circle wrote a book ([http://www.slowmoney.org/book Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money]).

== Audience Q&A ==
* I'd love to hear about your failure rates? Esp. Kickstarter, we always hear about success rates, how many fail, what happens to them?
** Stephanie: Comes up a lot, stats are published live. Average site-wide is ~44%, it varies from category to category. Some learn from it and go via another avenue, some immediately re-try (with pretty high success rate).
** Jay: From our part, we see people viewing crowd funding as magic. We have a high dependence on local networks, people who have put effort into building networks and doing outreach have a 100% success rate, those who expect it to just come to them have a harder time.
** Stephanie: What we do know from our stats is that if someone gets even 1 pledge they have over a 50% success rate, goes up even more if they get to 30%.

* Where did the money for Startgarden come from?
** Private investors

* Christina: Advice Joi Ito - always think about how much work it takes to say no. Sometimes it's easier to give a blanket yes.
** We don't need to plan for everything or mitigate the 5-year failure rate, let's just get things started.

* Scale vs. replication - do you want to grow nationally or have clones and things happening?
** Jay: Our real goal is replication, replicability. Initially aimed at large cities, but doing more research into hyperlocal, it's smaller cities where people are the most engaged in their community. We're trying to find ways to let the model replicate, not build a one-size-fits-all. Goal is to build self-sustaining communities.
** Rick: We're specifically about Grand Rapids, but we're open to hearing about ideas from other places. But we want it to benefit West Michigan.

* How would you feel about someone replicating Startgarden somewhere else?
** That would be great. We hear about people replicating artprize through Google alerts, it's great.

* Stephanie, what is your take? There are lots of Kickstarter-like services now.
** Stephanie: We're really focused on what we're doing, we're excited to see people making things in the world. Our attitude is that it's about enabling more opportunities for people, so if other services are trying to do the same thing as us all the better. I don't think it takes away from us.

* You can plead the 5th, but where would Kickstarter would draw the line?
** Stephanie: I think you'd have to ask our lawyer.

* One of the things I worry most about is long-term planning and sustainability. Are there ways to translate these ideas about crowdfunding into a long-term sustainability model?
** Stephanie: You're almost answering your own question. The process of running a campaign helps a lot with building the long-term sustainability model. Amanda Palmer is a great example of this, she goes to her fans over and over again to create something with them and continuously engages them and thinks about what they want. People have funded sequels on Kickstarter, if you manage a project well you are getting fans, not just money, and can keep engaging them.
** Jay: Engagement is the key. If you provide value to them, they will keep funding you. We require that people provide value, not just $100 t-shirt. There's no sense of a donation involved, it's a fair transaction. It's not about asking them to give money, it's a value exchange.

* You (Rick) do investment, and you do barter. What about donation?
** Stephanie: Getting something of value is important, we really want people to getting a return on their investment. It's like going to the movies - you pay $12 every time, you don't go "oh I already gave that movie theater money".
** Rick: We thought from our perspective, culturally it would make more sense to be a business investing in businesses. We didn't just want to give a whole bunch of grants at once.

* How are people held accountable to doing their projects?
** Stephanie: The thing that has impact on what people deliver is how invested everyone is in the project. If you talk with people and engage them along the way, they will support you with money and social capital.
** Rick: We were thinking about social collateral when we put together the 5 by 5 night. Soft agreement that people needed to come back with an update in a few months. Similar concept with Startgarden, contract includes making people come to an update night to check in.
** Stephanie: I really want to underscore that social contract thing. Comes up a lot at Kickstarter, especially when projects are overfunded. People are invested in the investment of their backers, they get excited about the enthusiasm of their backers.

* Startgarden has chosen $5000 amounts, I'm curious about what's typical for the other 2 platforms, what is the scale?
** Stephanie: Close to half of projcets on Kickstarter are in the $1000-5000 range. 2/3 under $10k.
** Christina: A lot of international chapters ask how to translate currency and we say enough to get something done but not enough to fight over.

* Do people who are not online have an opportunity to get involved in things like small business development? Is there an option for people who don't have access or who are blocked by the digital divide?
** Jay: It's sort of a difficult question. At heart, we are a technology company. It's difficult for us to monitor and track funds that don't go through our system, building an offline platform that's scalable to small businesses is really difficult to do.
** Christina: Do stores advertise that they are running Smallknot campaigns in their stores?
** Jay: Yes
** Stephanie: There are ways to engage people offline, people throw parties and have donations for example. (examples of traditional fundraisers)
** Rick, Jay: We do see a lot of offline activity. It's a great side effect, collateral.

* Role of curation in the context of funding: you still have to be approved to have a Kickstarter campaign, there is vetting. How much gatekeeping, if any, should platforms be doing to be a democratic funding model?
** Rick: Our tolerance is pretty high. For Artprize there is a huge range, international art exhibits vs. chainsaw bear carving, there is a spectrum. Getting comfortable with that is important. We really have two channels: public vote and our team. Public vote has picked things that our team would never have chosen, and sometimes they see things we don't. If you're opening up to the point where you're a little bit scared, that's a good thing.
** Jay: The real point comes down to the idea of accountability. We let the crowd source the ideas as well as fund the ideas. The guidelines we set is between a business and not a business, we let a lot of the vetting process happen on the ground.
** Stephanie: People don't really realize how permissive Kickstarter is, ~80% acceptance rate. A lot of that 20% is people who have a vague idea, not an actual creative project. It's about the idea and doing something, not the content but whether or not it's resonating with people. We don't think of ourselves as a donation platform, so exchange of value. Community value. And if those things are happening we're happy to recommend it. It's about putting good energy into your project.

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

Giving More Than Money

2012-07-23T18:04:49Z

Nkkl:

{{TOC right}}

This page references the open panel from the Awesome Connect event. For notes from the internal discussion session on helping fellows with more than money, see the page on [[Grantee support|grantee support]].

== Jeremy Liu ==

== Deanna Zandt ==

== Arlene Ducao ==

== Emilie Dubois ==

== Question and Answer ==

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

Giving More Than Money

2012-07-23T18:03:33Z

Nkkl:

The Slow Funds Movement

2012-07-23T18:01:57Z

Nkkl: /* Rick Devos */

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

== Participants ==
=== Rick Devos ===
* Grand Rapids, MI

==== ArtPrize ====
* giving away prizes to artists - have to be over 18, have to show art somewhere within a 3 sq. mi. area, public votes to allocate the prizes

==== Momentum ====
* YCombinator-like accelerator
* started a prototype called 5 by 5 night, team selects 5 ideas, each gets 5 slides + 5 minutes, a panel of judges selects how to allocate $5000 between those groups

==== StartGarden ====
* Building on previous ideas, put ArtPrize and Momentum on ice
* For-profit
* Start with $5000

=== Jay Lee ===
==== Smallknot ====
* just graduated out of TechStars New York, team of 5
* want to change small business financing through community
* Operating in NYC and Greenville, SC
* Want to spur small business growth in a grassroots, decentralized way
* Empower communities

* Smallknot works as a hyper-local crowdfunding platform
** Business puts up a page on Smallknot
** people donate
** Business takes the money and repays it in kind - with goods and services to the community
* win-win-win
** businesses repay in kind, for much cheaper ($0.30 or $0.40 on the dollar), investors get disproportionate repayment
** strengthens the community
* Small businesses are important, we need to support those
** We can send money across the globe
** But it's really hard to get it from you to someone down the street through traditional means (like bank loans)
** There's no way to build the community you want
* Reclaiming our neighborhoods, reclaiming our community
* Cash mobs: like flash mobs, but instead of dancing people give money to local businesses to show support
** Ex: show up at a local business and everyone spends $20 on something

=== Stephanie Pereira ===
Director of Art Program at Kickstarter

===== Kickstarter =====
* 13 categories
* "the cool thing about the internet is that it's redefining local"
* Kickstarter is a place to test ideas
* sharing some stories of Kickstarter projects
** international reach
** directly engaging with the people who care about what you're making
** connecting people over a topic area across the internet
** helping communities push and grow creative ideas

== Question and Answer ==
* Slow food movement gets critiqued for being too boutique - is that also true for your projects? (scalability)
** Jay: Demand is what drives scale, and once more people get engaged costs go down, and transport and prep issues don't apply to finance
** Rick: There are different levels of involvement, there are layers of involvement
** Jay: You can even argue now that the financial system doesn't scale
** Stephanie: What we're seeing is that everyone has an idea, small or big, which makes it very human-scale

* Do you think there is a point where we'll be saturated with these personal beyond-economic transactions? Ex: couchsurfing vs. air bnb, sometimes it's too tiring to deal with couchsurfing, sometimes people want a less entangled transaction
** Stephanie: Sometimes you want air bnb, sometimes you want the hotel. Sometimes you look at projects and you will just wait and see, sometimes you're really excited. It's about helping people connect on those many levels.
** Christina: So it's about offering that spectrum of choices
** Rick: Our desire for stories is bottomless
** Jay: If it happens, it's a good problem to have, if everyone is too engaged we're in a good place

* Another problem the slow food movement has encountered is elitism and silos that lock other people out, with the digital divide what demographics do you see missing from your platform and what is your plan to engage people?
** Rick: Startgarden just launched in April, we've been seeing a broader age range than we expected
** Jay: We see people recruited through businesses networks, so the demographics shift by project and they're driven by the offline world so we don't see that divide
** Stephanie: It's happening organically. the slow food movement analogy totally holds

* Jay, can you tell us about the slow money movement?
** Jay: It's tied to the slow food movement, setting up financing opportunities for slow food businesses. It's been around about 3 years, book by founder: Reflections on the Nature of Slow Money.

* I'd love to hear about your failure rates? Esp. Kickstarter, we always hear about success rates, how many fail, what happens to them?
** Stephanie: Comes up a lot, stats are published live. Average site-wide is ~44%, it varies from category to category. Some learn from it and go via another avenue, some immediately re-try (with pretty high success rate).
** Jay: From our part, we see people viewing crowd funding as magic. We have a high dependence on local networks, people who have put effort into building networks and doing outreach have a 100% success rate, those who expect it to just come to them have a harder time.
** Stephanie: What we do know from our stats is that if someone gets even 1 pledge they have over a 50% success rate, goes up even more if they get to 30%.

* Where did the money for Startgarden come from?
** Private investors

* Christina: Advice Joi Ito - always think about how much work it takes to say no. Sometimes it's easier to give a blanket yes.
** We don't need to plan for everything or mitigate the 5-year failure rate, let's just get things started.

* Scale vs. replication - do you want to grow nationally or have clones and things happening?
** Jay: Our real goal is replication, replicability. Initially aimed at large cities, but doing more research into hyperlocal, it's smaller cities where people are the most engaged in their community. We're trying to find ways to let the model replicate, not build a one-size-fits-all. Goal is to build self-sustaining communities.
** Rick: We're specifically about Grand Rapids, but we're open to hearing about ideas from other places. But we want it to benefit West Michigan.

* How would you feel about someone replicating Startgarden somewhere else?
** That would be great. We hear about people replicating artprize through Google alerts, it's great.

* Stephanie, what is your take? There are lots of Kickstarter-like services now.
** Stephanie: We're really focused on what we're doing, we're excited to see people making things in the world. Our attitude is that it's about enabling more opportunities for people, so if other services are trying to do the same thing as us all the better. I don't think it takes away from us.

* You can plead the 5th, but where would Kickstarter would draw the line?
** Stephanie: I think you'd have to ask our lawyer.

* One of the things I worry most about is long-term planning and sustainability. Are there ways to translate these ideas about crowdfunding into a long-term sustainability model?
** Stephanie: You're almost answering your own question. The process of running a campaign helps a lot with building the long-term sustainability model. Amanda Palmer is a great example of this, she goes to her fans over and over again to create something with them and continuously engages them and thinks about what they want. People have funded sequels on Kickstarter, if you manage a project well you are getting fans, not just money, and can keep engaging them.
** Jay: Engagement is the key. If you provide value to them, they will keep funding you. We require that people provide value, not just $100 t-shirt. There's no sense of a donation involved, it's a fair transaction. It's not about asking them to give money, it's a value exchange.

* You (Rick) do investment, and you do barter. What about donation?
** Stephanie: Getting something of value is important, we really want people to getting a return on their investment. It's like going to the movies - you pay $12 every time, you don't go "oh I already gave that movie theater money".
** Rick: We thought from our perspective, culturally it would make more sense to be a business investing in businesses. We didn't just want to give a whole bunch of grants at once.

* How are people held accountable to doing their projects?
** Stephanie: The thing that has impact on what people deliver is how invested everyone is in the project. If you talk with people and engage them along the way, they will support you with money and social capital.
** Rick: We were thinking about social collateral when we put together the 5 by 5 night. Soft agreement that people needed to come back with an update in a few months. Similar concept with Startgarden, contract includes making people come to an update night to check in.
** Stephanie: I really want to underscore that social contract thing. Comes up a lot at Kickstarter, especially when projects are overfunded. People are invested in the investment of their backers, they get excited about the enthusiasm of their backers.

* Startgarden has chosen $5000 amounts, I'm curious about what's typical for the other 2 platforms, what is the scale?
** Stephanie: Close to half of projcets on Kickstarter are in the $1000-5000 range. 2/3 under $10k.
** Christina: A lot of international chapters ask how to translate currency and we say enough to get something done but not enough to fight over.

* Do people who are not online have an opportunity to get involved in things like small business development? Is there an option for people who don't have access or who are blocked by the digital divide?
** Jay: It's sort of a difficult question. At heart, we are a technology company. It's difficult for us to monitor and track funds that don't go through our system, building an offline platform that's scalable to small businesses is really difficult to do.
** Christina: Do stores advertise that they are running Smallknot campaigns in their stores?
** Jay: Yes
** Stephanie: There are ways to engage people offline, people throw parties and have donations for example. (examples of traditional fundraisers)
** Rick, Jay: We do see a lot of offline activity. It's a great side effect, collateral.

* Role of curation in the context of funding: you still have to be approved to have a Kickstarter campaign, there is vetting. How much gatekeeping, if any, should platforms be doing to be a democratic funding model?
** Rick: Our tolerance is pretty high. For Artprize there is a huge range, international art exhibits vs. chainsaw bear carving, there is a spectrum. Getting comfortable with that is important. We really have two channels: public vote and our team. Public vote has picked things that our team would never have chosen, and sometimes they see things we don't. If you're opening up to the point where you're a little bit scared, that's a good thing.
** Jay: The real point comes down to the idea of accountability. We let the crowd source the ideas as well as fund the ideas. The guidelines we set is between a business and not a business, we let a lot of the vetting process happen on the ground.
** Stephanie: People don't really realize how permissive Kickstarter is, ~80% acceptance rate. A lot of that 20% is people who have a vague idea, not an actual creative project. It's about the idea and doing something, not the content but whether or not it's resonating with people. We don't think of ourselves as a donation platform, so exchange of value. Community value. And if those things are happening we're happy to recommend it. It's about putting good energy into your project.

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

User talk:Nkkl

2012-07-23T18:01:10Z

Nkkl:

The Slow Funds Movement

2012-07-23T17:56:49Z

Nkkl: added link to liveblog

{{TOC right}}

For liveblogged transcripts of this talk, see the [http://civic.mit.edu/blog/rahulb/awesome-summit-2012-slow-funds MIT Center for Civic Media blog].

== Participants ==
=== Rick Devos ===
* Grand Rapids, MI

==== ArtPrize =====
* giving away prizes to artists - have to be over 18, have to show art somewhere within a 3 sq. mi. area, public votes to allocate the prizes

==== Momentum ====
* YCombinator-like accelerator
* started a prototype called 5 by 5 night, team selects 5 ideas, each gets 5 slides + 5 minutes, a panel of judges selects how to allocate $5000 between those groups

==== StartGarden ====
* Building on previous ideas, put ArtPrize and Momentum on ice
* For-profit
* Start with $5000

=== Jay Lee ===
==== Smallknot ====
* just graduated out of TechStars New York, team of 5
* want to change small business financing through community
* Operating in NYC and Greenville, SC
* Want to spur small business growth in a grassroots, decentralized way
* Empower communities

* Smallknot works as a hyper-local crowdfunding platform
** Business puts up a page on Smallknot
** people donate
** Business takes the money and repays it in kind - with goods and services to the community
* win-win-win
** businesses repay in kind, for much cheaper ($0.30 or $0.40 on the dollar), investors get disproportionate repayment
** strengthens the community
* Small businesses are important, we need to support those
** We can send money across the globe
** But it's really hard to get it from you to someone down the street through traditional means (like bank loans)
** There's no way to build the community you want
* Reclaiming our neighborhoods, reclaiming our community
* Cash mobs: like flash mobs, but instead of dancing people give money to local businesses to show support
** Ex: show up at a local business and everyone spends $20 on something

=== Stephanie Pereira ===
Director of Art Program at Kickstarter

===== Kickstarter =====
* 13 categories
* "the cool thing about the internet is that it's redefining local"
* Kickstarter is a place to test ideas
* sharing some stories of Kickstarter projects
** international reach
** directly engaging with the people who care about what you're making
** connecting people over a topic area across the internet
** helping communities push and grow creative ideas

== Question and Answer ==
* Slow food movement gets critiqued for being too boutique - is that also true for your projects? (scalability)
** Jay: Demand is what drives scale, and once more people get engaged costs go down, and transport and prep issues don't apply to finance
** Rick: There are different levels of involvement, there are layers of involvement
** Jay: You can even argue now that the financial system doesn't scale
** Stephanie: What we're seeing is that everyone has an idea, small or big, which makes it very human-scale

* Do you think there is a point where we'll be saturated with these personal beyond-economic transactions? Ex: couchsurfing vs. air bnb, sometimes it's too tiring to deal with couchsurfing, sometimes people want a less entangled transaction
** Stephanie: Sometimes you want air bnb, sometimes you want the hotel. Sometimes you look at projects and you will just wait and see, sometimes you're really excited. It's about helping people connect on those many levels.
** Christina: So it's about offering that spectrum of choices
** Rick: Our desire for stories is bottomless
** Jay: If it happens, it's a good problem to have, if everyone is too engaged we're in a good place

* Another problem the slow food movement has encountered is elitism and silos that lock other people out, with the digital divide what demographics do you see missing from your platform and what is your plan to engage people?
** Rick: Startgarden just launched in April, we've been seeing a broader age range than we expected
** Jay: We see people recruited through businesses networks, so the demographics shift by project and they're driven by the offline world so we don't see that divide
** Stephanie: It's happening organically. the slow food movement analogy totally holds

* Jay, can you tell us about the slow money movement?
** Jay: It's tied to the slow food movement, setting up financing opportunities for slow food businesses. It's been around about 3 years, book by founder: Reflections on the Nature of Slow Money.

* I'd love to hear about your failure rates? Esp. Kickstarter, we always hear about success rates, how many fail, what happens to them?
** Stephanie: Comes up a lot, stats are published live. Average site-wide is ~44%, it varies from category to category. Some learn from it and go via another avenue, some immediately re-try (with pretty high success rate).
** Jay: From our part, we see people viewing crowd funding as magic. We have a high dependence on local networks, people who have put effort into building networks and doing outreach have a 100% success rate, those who expect it to just come to them have a harder time.
** Stephanie: What we do know from our stats is that if someone gets even 1 pledge they have over a 50% success rate, goes up even more if they get to 30%.

* Where did the money for Startgarden come from?
** Private investors

* Christina: Advice Joi Ito - always think about how much work it takes to say no. Sometimes it's easier to give a blanket yes.
** We don't need to plan for everything or mitigate the 5-year failure rate, let's just get things started.

* Scale vs. replication - do you want to grow nationally or have clones and things happening?
** Jay: Our real goal is replication, replicability. Initially aimed at large cities, but doing more research into hyperlocal, it's smaller cities where people are the most engaged in their community. We're trying to find ways to let the model replicate, not build a one-size-fits-all. Goal is to build self-sustaining communities.
** Rick: We're specifically about Grand Rapids, but we're open to hearing about ideas from other places. But we want it to benefit West Michigan.

* How would you feel about someone replicating Startgarden somewhere else?
** That would be great. We hear about people replicating artprize through Google alerts, it's great.

* Stephanie, what is your take? There are lots of Kickstarter-like services now.
** Stephanie: We're really focused on what we're doing, we're excited to see people making things in the world. Our attitude is that it's about enabling more opportunities for people, so if other services are trying to do the same thing as us all the better. I don't think it takes away from us.

* You can plead the 5th, but where would Kickstarter would draw the line?
** Stephanie: I think you'd have to ask our lawyer.

* One of the things I worry most about is long-term planning and sustainability. Are there ways to translate these ideas about crowdfunding into a long-term sustainability model?
** Stephanie: You're almost answering your own question. The process of running a campaign helps a lot with building the long-term sustainability model. Amanda Palmer is a great example of this, she goes to her fans over and over again to create something with them and continuously engages them and thinks about what they want. People have funded sequels on Kickstarter, if you manage a project well you are getting fans, not just money, and can keep engaging them.
** Jay: Engagement is the key. If you provide value to them, they will keep funding you. We require that people provide value, not just $100 t-shirt. There's no sense of a donation involved, it's a fair transaction. It's not about asking them to give money, it's a value exchange.

* You (Rick) do investment, and you do barter. What about donation?
** Stephanie: Getting something of value is important, we really want people to getting a return on their investment. It's like going to the movies - you pay $12 every time, you don't go "oh I already gave that movie theater money".
** Rick: We thought from our perspective, culturally it would make more sense to be a business investing in businesses. We didn't just want to give a whole bunch of grants at once.

* How are people held accountable to doing their projects?
** Stephanie: The thing that has impact on what people deliver is how invested everyone is in the project. If you talk with people and engage them along the way, they will support you with money and social capital.
** Rick: We were thinking about social collateral when we put together the 5 by 5 night. Soft agreement that people needed to come back with an update in a few months. Similar concept with Startgarden, contract includes making people come to an update night to check in.
** Stephanie: I really want to underscore that social contract thing. Comes up a lot at Kickstarter, especially when projects are overfunded. People are invested in the investment of their backers, they get excited about the enthusiasm of their backers.

* Startgarden has chosen $5000 amounts, I'm curious about what's typical for the other 2 platforms, what is the scale?
** Stephanie: Close to half of projcets on Kickstarter are in the $1000-5000 range. 2/3 under $10k.
** Christina: A lot of international chapters ask how to translate currency and we say enough to get something done but not enough to fight over.

* Do people who are not online have an opportunity to get involved in things like small business development? Is there an option for people who don't have access or who are blocked by the digital divide?
** Jay: It's sort of a difficult question. At heart, we are a technology company. It's difficult for us to monitor and track funds that don't go through our system, building an offline platform that's scalable to small businesses is really difficult to do.
** Christina: Do stores advertise that they are running Smallknot campaigns in their stores?
** Jay: Yes
** Stephanie: There are ways to engage people offline, people throw parties and have donations for example. (examples of traditional fundraisers)
** Rick, Jay: We do see a lot of offline activity. It's a great side effect, collateral.

* Role of curation in the context of funding: you still have to be approved to have a Kickstarter campaign, there is vetting. How much gatekeeping, if any, should platforms be doing to be a democratic funding model?
** Rick: Our tolerance is pretty high. For Artprize there is a huge range, international art exhibits vs. chainsaw bear carving, there is a spectrum. Getting comfortable with that is important. We really have two channels: public vote and our team. Public vote has picked things that our team would never have chosen, and sometimes they see things we don't. If you're opening up to the point where you're a little bit scared, that's a good thing.
** Jay: The real point comes down to the idea of accountability. We let the crowd source the ideas as well as fund the ideas. The guidelines we set is between a business and not a business, we let a lot of the vetting process happen on the ground.
** Stephanie: People don't really realize how permissive Kickstarter is, ~80% acceptance rate. A lot of that 20% is people who have a vague idea, not an actual creative project. It's about the idea and doing something, not the content but whether or not it's resonating with people. We don't think of ourselves as a donation platform, so exchange of value. Community value. And if those things are happening we're happy to recommend it. It's about putting good energy into your project.

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

Grantee support

2012-07-23T17:45:08Z

Nkkl:

{{TOC right}}

== Should we help? ==
* Every chapter makes their own choices
* Balance between no strings and helping people out
** Don't want to build expectations
* It builds more structures, how does it look and how do you execute on that is a concern
* In the long view you can create a portal where people (media, for example) will know to go look to for information
* Sometimes the bar for choosing an application is set very high
** The $1000 can act as a catalyst, take care of phase 1, but project might require more after that
** Grantees often seem to need access to more people, more resources, people turn to Kickstarter and Indiegogo
** Keep in mind that $1000 is a catalyst
* It goes on a chapter by chapter basis
* Erhardt: I keep thinking of this as a data problem, if we could expose the data about the projects other people could go through and look at the ideas, create a resource of awesome ideas
* We already blog and talk about them, publish information on them - maybe we could set up aggregation of that to spread the good projects

* If we signal that we are becoming an incubator, is that going to crowd out things that are one-time events
** Keep it optional
** Yes, but we have to walk that line gently
* Keep it simple, "we're not the f*cking Ford Foundation"
** If people don't want or need to be incubated, don't do that

== Things we do already ==
* Using trustees and past winners as a resource for grantees
** Grantee-alumni relationships and mentoring
** People are always super excited to do that, past grantees have always opted-in
* AF NY has had people opt-in to stay connected, but other people just disappear

* A lot of grantees aren't as tech-savvy as trustees, just telling them about Kickstarter and such is useful

* Is it a good idea to say up front what resources are available? Could it become an obligation?
** Not in SF, "they drive the show", "we're here to help" but they are under no obligation

* Difference between local support and global support
** Adopting ideas from other chapters, if it's easy to re-create or share (so re-creating the results of a past project from another chapter)

* Toronto does a lot of networking and peer-to-peer connections

* Managing our involvement
** Toronto, for example, doesn't want to overburden themselves
** Seattle does it on an opt-in, one trustee does it for each grant, basis to provide support that is tailored to the project while keeping the burden on trustees low

=== Alternative practices ===
* Does anyone do a thing where they select a runner-up and work with them in some way?
** In Boston, there is a shortlist every month and often times there is a person who just needs a connection or a Kickstarter or something
** SF does the same
* Give them feedback, advice, connections

* Spreading ideas from other places, looking at other chapters
** SF finds inspiring projects from the general world and passes them around the list

* Does anyone give advice or guidance/feedback to ideas?
** Is it right to tell them how to change their ideas?
** Difference between manipulating projects and trying to give useful feedback
** Does that make people feel obligated to do things?
* Difference between doing this with grantees vs. people who don't get funded
* The feedback can be really helpful to people
* There is a big difference between sharing the opinions of an individual vs. sharing opinions as a chapter

== Things grantees might need ==
* Timing is an issue too - support/engagement during project vs. help afterwards
* Coaching on ideas/communication
* Connecting people to a network
* Global network of recipients, could make it an even bigger opportunity than $1000
* Initially in NY, just helped by throwing a big party and trying to get press for people with good ideas
** $1000 is great, but trustees' connections can be a much bigger contribution
* Pittsburgh added a question asking if it would be ok to promote a project, even if not funded, or refer to other organizations
** So far everyone says yes

== Ideas ==
* An aggregation of "projects we love" a la Kickstarter
** Boston has a tumblr of awesome projects, could become a collaborative project between chapters
** People like this
** Erhardt will own looking into this
* What if trustees could "like" projects on the AF site and go through periodically and highlight the top choices?

* Sending out a template to winner and runners up with information and resources and connections to network
** If we take it upon ourselves, we may lapse

* International awesome hours
* Facebook group for grantees

* Awesome event calendar

=== Awesome Hours ===
* Not everyone is tech-savvy, we should think more about how to support people especially with more chapters starting in developing areas
* Awesome Hours might be a really good solution to this
** Boston has these, just gets together and helps people workshop ideas
** Past winners have come as well, which is nice
** Seattle wants to start doing these
** Important to keep a friendly, open environment
* Overall people think Awesome Hours has the potential to grow into something really big
* This is ''community'' and helps ideas grow and spread, then we just have to be catalysts

== Willow's notes ==
Most conversation fell into topics of:
*Continued engagement
*Connecting to more than just winners
*Cross pollination across and within chapters
*Promotion of projects and individuals via the chapter
*Providing mentorship and connections
*Encouraging propagation of instructions for creation

[http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8434/7623606002_564f503c25.jpg Image]

[[category:Sunday]]
[[category:Operations]]

Open branding

2012-07-23T17:43:36Z

Nkkl: Initial dump (needs crosschecking against liveblogs)

{{TOC right}}

== The Awesome Foundation ==
=== The awesome ===
* Independently organized chapters
* Flexible definition bends to fit each locale, set of trustees, theme
* Innovative strategies for handling trustees + decision-making
* Lack of hierarchy and structure lets trustees focus on fun

=== The awkward ===
* What if chapter needs tax-exempt status to partner?
* What if a chapter or trustee goes rogue?
* What if our own TV Show tries to trademark Awesome Foundation?

* Trademark vs. T(rust)M(e)
** Don't solve problems we don't have yet

== Sunday Soup ==
* started in 2007 in Chicago
* charged $5 for a bowl of soup, collected emails and grant proposals, emailed out list of proposals and asked everyone to vote on who should get the money
* Switched from once a week to once a month to preserve bandwidth
* closed in 2009

=== Problems addressed ===
* Saw a lack of small scale, unrestricted funding
* Lack of funding for projects that didn't fit into existing "fundable" categories

* Presented at a exhibition in 2008, grew and spread
** STEW, Baltimore
** FEAST, Brooklyn
** Philly Stake, Philadelphia
* In 2010 met people doing it in other cities, talked about how to do things
* Created a website: [sundaysoup.org]
** collect applications
** automate money
** map of projects around the world
* In 2011, organized an International Day of Soup (collaborated across cities)
* Collectively created a poster on how to do it and distributed it at event
* Started it back up in Chicago in 2012

== Free Software ==
* Defining "free software" is a huge aspect of the free software movement
** multiple iterations of defining what this means
* "a big tent with clear boundaries"
* open source movement attempted to trademark/service mark the term (failed)

=== The problem ===
* It's not people misusing the brand
* For most people, it's that not enough people are using the brand
* We should strive to create brands that people care about enough to want to abuse them
* Attempts to block abuse will
** limit your brand's success
** probably fail

== Civic Media ==
* Occupy and the AF have overlap - decentralized decision making
* (get more notes from the livebloggers)

== Panel Q&A ==
* Reaching shared/values principles, how did each of your groups do that?
** Bryce: Haven't formally checked, but a lot of the values are the same because they're driven by necessity. Values become articulated around needs that are common to a lot of different cities, but that's just the US.
** Becky: Occupy tried to be decentralized, and that became a bit of a problem. For example, is the movement violent or nonviolent? Disagreement between subgroups, conflict of values. Other values had less agreement, but less of an issue.
** Mako: Identified a set of people to target and get buy-in from, collaborated with those people. Goal has not been to get everybody involved, the goal has been to set clear boundaries.

* What role do leaders play in this process? What do leaders look like? What is the importance of shared cultural background?
** Mako: Organization and principles should not be indistinguishable from personality of the leader.
** Becky: In Occupy, leaders looked like traditional leaders, which is a little ironic. In order to champion an idea amongst lots of people, you need to have lots of charisma (traditional leadership skills). Cultural background makes it easier in the outset, but part of being in a really popular movement means you will run into people with lots of different backgrounds and have to deal with that.
** Bryce: We've been really conscientious of inviting and encouraging people who aren't just our friends, get people who don't look like us. It's easy for more experienced people to fall into leadership roles, tried to fight this by deciding as a group how to divide up responsibilities.

* What is the value of the brand, and how important is that to recruiting new people to the movement?
** Bryce: (re: Sunday Soup has inconsistent naming) We don't expect people to call it something, so that empowers people more to do what they want with it.
** Becky: It was less a brand and more of a media event. At first that was helpful, because goal was to just get the word out. Has become more difficult to define as it's grown.
** Mako: Brands are attractive to people, and that's the point of them. But many successful brands are open and not trademarked (ex. Republican and Democrat). That creates flexibility and power of imagination.

* How does belonging to open brands affect people and change the experience from doing the thing without putting the brand on it?
** Mako: Prizes and association with the name matter more than just the money.
** Becky: Re 350 climate change event - having more people in the street means more people will notice and join and the impact will be bigger and change will be more likely. Big problem today is lack of participation, and seeing people makes participation more likely.

* Have we reached Peak Occupy? What's next? Is the narrative going to continue? Is the lack of coherent leadership bringing down the movement?
** Becky: I would love to be able to answer all of these. Everyone is asking what is going to happen next. There are groups of people who've broken off and are doing more targeted work and have gone after smaller goals. Networks were built, and those remain, so that's a way that it continues. I don't know what will happen with the 99% narrative.

* Mako, do you have examples of free software/OSS projects that petered out and were reborn?
** Mako: There's no lack of projects that have petered out. Ones that have come back later are more complicated... Inkscape has died three times, I can't even remember the original name (name changed each time). Some of the problems were around leadership, sometimes political and social disagreements. There were lots of people who thought that a good vector drawing program was a good idea, but disagreement on parts of that and variation in the vibrancy of the community.

* In the AF, we have a gap between Kitten Voltron and this amorphous blob of rogue funders... there is a balance between stepping in to help provide guidance and support without being an official structure, and it seems like your communities have navigated that, advice on navigating that transition? And fighting burnout while doing that?
** Bryce: Burnout is always a problem, to some extent we have mitigated that problem by being honest with ourselves and acknowledging that it's ok to not do it all the time. Everyone should be willing to work less if it means prolonging the project.
** Becky: Burnout is a huge issue with Occupy. Taking your time will pay off.
** Bryce: There is also a difference between internal bureaucracy and the expectations you externalize, and there are qualitative differences between ways of organizing.
** Mako: If you've built a movement with a set of principles, you create space for evolution over time.

* I think there is value to having some sort of foundational organizational structure - what do you think about that? Social capital is great, but so is financial capital.
** Mako: Don't get me wrong - I've created startups, been on the board of incorporated nonprofits with staff, I'm not saying there is no space for these things. Being dependent on a single organization is what worries me; I like small organizations. I'd rather have lots of small organizations that cover a broader area.
** Becky: (examples of intergroup collaborations and organized 501c3)
** Bryce: We avoided becoming a 501c3... we felt like we had questions, not answers. There were all sorts of legal liability and tax issues though, and we were serving food and alcohol without a license. Maybe there is some way in the future to handle that, we've been lucky that we haven't had to deal with police.

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

The Slow Funds Movement

2012-07-23T14:36:51Z

Nkkl: Initial dump

{{TOC right}}

== Participants ==
=== Rick Devos ===
* Grand Rapids, MI

==== ArtPrize =====
* giving away prizes to artists - have to be over 18, have to show art somewhere within a 3 sq. mi. area, public votes to allocate the prizes

==== Momentum ====
* YCombinator-like accelerator
* started a prototype called 5 by 5 night, team selects 5 ideas, each gets 5 slides + 5 minutes, a panel of judges selects how to allocate $5000 between those groups

==== StartGarden ====
* Building on previous ideas, put ArtPrize and Momentum on ice
* For-profit
* Start with $5000

=== Jay Lee ===
==== Smallknot ====
* just graduated out of TechStars New York, team of 5
* want to change small business financing through community
* Operating in NYC and Greenville, SC
* Want to spur small business growth in a grassroots, decentralized way
* Empower communities

* Smallknot works as a hyper-local crowdfunding platform
** Business puts up a page on Smallknot
** people donate
** Business takes the money and repays it in kind - with goods and services to the community
* win-win-win
** businesses repay in kind, for much cheaper ($0.30 or $0.40 on the dollar), investors get disproportionate repayment
** strengthens the community
* Small businesses are important, we need to support those
** We can send money across the globe
** But it's really hard to get it from you to someone down the street through traditional means (like bank loans)
** There's no way to build the community you want
* Reclaiming our neighborhoods, reclaiming our community
* Cash mobs: like flash mobs, but instead of dancing people give money to local businesses to show support
** Ex: show up at a local business and everyone spends $20 on something

=== Stephanie Pereira ===
Director of Art Program at Kickstarter

===== Kickstarter =====
* 13 categories
* "the cool thing about the internet is that it's redefining local"
* Kickstarter is a place to test ideas
* sharing some stories of Kickstarter projects
** international reach
** directly engaging with the people who care about what you're making
** connecting people over a topic area across the internet
** helping communities push and grow creative ideas

== Question and Answer ==
* Slow food movement gets critiqued for being too boutique - is that also true for your projects? (scalability)
** Jay: Demand is what drives scale, and once more people get engaged costs go down, and transport and prep issues don't apply to finance
** Rick: There are different levels of involvement, there are layers of involvement
** Jay: You can even argue now that the financial system doesn't scale
** Stephanie: What we're seeing is that everyone has an idea, small or big, which makes it very human-scale

* Do you think there is a point where we'll be saturated with these personal beyond-economic transactions? Ex: couchsurfing vs. air bnb, sometimes it's too tiring to deal with couchsurfing, sometimes people want a less entangled transaction
** Stephanie: Sometimes you want air bnb, sometimes you want the hotel. Sometimes you look at projects and you will just wait and see, sometimes you're really excited. It's about helping people connect on those many levels.
** Christina: So it's about offering that spectrum of choices
** Rick: Our desire for stories is bottomless
** Jay: If it happens, it's a good problem to have, if everyone is too engaged we're in a good place

* Another problem the slow food movement has encountered is elitism and silos that lock other people out, with the digital divide what demographics do you see missing from your platform and what is your plan to engage people?
** Rick: Startgarden just launched in April, we've been seeing a broader age range than we expected
** Jay: We see people recruited through businesses networks, so the demographics shift by project and they're driven by the offline world so we don't see that divide
** Stephanie: It's happening organically. the slow food movement analogy totally holds

* Jay, can you tell us about the slow money movement?
** Jay: It's tied to the slow food movement, setting up financing opportunities for slow food businesses. It's been around about 3 years, book by founder: Reflections on the Nature of Slow Money.

* I'd love to hear about your failure rates? Esp. Kickstarter, we always hear about success rates, how many fail, what happens to them?
** Stephanie: Comes up a lot, stats are published live. Average site-wide is ~44%, it varies from category to category. Some learn from it and go via another avenue, some immediately re-try (with pretty high success rate).
** Jay: From our part, we see people viewing crowd funding as magic. We have a high dependence on local networks, people who have put effort into building networks and doing outreach have a 100% success rate, those who expect it to just come to them have a harder time.
** Stephanie: What we do know from our stats is that if someone gets even 1 pledge they have over a 50% success rate, goes up even more if they get to 30%.

* Where did the money for Startgarden come from?
** Private investors

* Christina: Advice Joi Ito - always think about how much work it takes to say no. Sometimes it's easier to give a blanket yes.
** We don't need to plan for everything or mitigate the 5-year failure rate, let's just get things started.

* Scale vs. replication - do you want to grow nationally or have clones and things happening?
** Jay: Our real goal is replication, replicability. Initially aimed at large cities, but doing more research into hyperlocal, it's smaller cities where people are the most engaged in their community. We're trying to find ways to let the model replicate, not build a one-size-fits-all. Goal is to build self-sustaining communities.
** Rick: We're specifically about Grand Rapids, but we're open to hearing about ideas from other places. But we want it to benefit West Michigan.

* How would you feel about someone replicating Startgarden somewhere else?
** That would be great. We hear about people replicating artprize through Google alerts, it's great.

* Stephanie, what is your take? There are lots of Kickstarter-like services now.
** Stephanie: We're really focused on what we're doing, we're excited to see people making things in the world. Our attitude is that it's about enabling more opportunities for people, so if other services are trying to do the same thing as us all the better. I don't think it takes away from us.

* You can plead the 5th, but where would Kickstarter would draw the line?
** Stephanie: I think you'd have to ask our lawyer.

* One of the things I worry most about is long-term planning and sustainability. Are there ways to translate these ideas about crowdfunding into a long-term sustainability model?
** Stephanie: You're almost answering your own question. The process of running a campaign helps a lot with building the long-term sustainability model. Amanda Palmer is a great example of this, she goes to her fans over and over again to create something with them and continuously engages them and thinks about what they want. People have funded sequels on Kickstarter, if you manage a project well you are getting fans, not just money, and can keep engaging them.
** Jay: Engagement is the key. If you provide value to them, they will keep funding you. We require that people provide value, not just $100 t-shirt. There's no sense of a donation involved, it's a fair transaction. It's not about asking them to give money, it's a value exchange.

* You (Rick) do investment, and you do barter. What about donation?
** Stephanie: Getting something of value is important, we really want people to getting a return on their investment. It's like going to the movies - you pay $12 every time, you don't go "oh I already gave that movie theater money".
** Rick: We thought from our perspective, culturally it would make more sense to be a business investing in businesses. We didn't just want to give a whole bunch of grants at once.

* How are people held accountable to doing their projects?
** Stephanie: The thing that has impact on what people deliver is how invested everyone is in the project. If you talk with people and engage them along the way, they will support you with money and social capital.
** Rick: We were thinking about social collateral when we put together the 5 by 5 night. Soft agreement that people needed to come back with an update in a few months. Similar concept with Startgarden, contract includes making people come to an update night to check in.
** Stephanie: I really want to underscore that social contract thing. Comes up a lot at Kickstarter, especially when projects are overfunded. People are invested in the investment of their backers, they get excited about the enthusiasm of their backers.

* Startgarden has chosen $5000 amounts, I'm curious about what's typical for the other 2 platforms, what is the scale?
** Stephanie: Close to half of projcets on Kickstarter are in the $1000-5000 range. 2/3 under $10k.
** Christina: A lot of international chapters ask how to translate currency and we say enough to get something done but not enough to fight over.

* Do people who are not online have an opportunity to get involved in things like small business development? Is there an option for people who don't have access or who are blocked by the digital divide?
** Jay: It's sort of a difficult question. At heart, we are a technology company. It's difficult for us to monitor and track funds that don't go through our system, building an offline platform that's scalable to small businesses is really difficult to do.
** Christina: Do stores advertise that they are running Smallknot campaigns in their stores?
** Jay: Yes
** Stephanie: There are ways to engage people offline, people throw parties and have donations for example. (examples of traditional fundraisers)
** Rick, Jay: We do see a lot of offline activity. It's a great side effect, collateral.

* Role of curation in the context of funding: you still have to be approved to have a Kickstarter campaign, there is vetting. How much gatekeeping, if any, should platforms be doing to be a democratic funding model?
** Rick: Our tolerance is pretty high. For Artprize there is a huge range, international art exhibits vs. chainsaw bear carving, there is a spectrum. Getting comfortable with that is important. We really have two channels: public vote and our team. Public vote has picked things that our team would never have chosen, and sometimes they see things we don't. If you're opening up to the point where you're a little bit scared, that's a good thing.
** Jay: The real point comes down to the idea of accountability. We let the crowd source the ideas as well as fund the ideas. The guidelines we set is between a business and not a business, we let a lot of the vetting process happen on the ground.
** Stephanie: People don't really realize how permissive Kickstarter is, ~80% acceptance rate. A lot of that 20% is people who have a vague idea, not an actual creative project. It's about the idea and doing something, not the content but whether or not it's resonating with people. We don't think of ourselves as a donation platform, so exchange of value. Community value. And if those things are happening we're happy to recommend it. It's about putting good energy into your project.

[[category:Monday]]
[[category:Meta]]

Category:Monday

2012-07-22T20:50:18Z

Nkkl: added schedule directly into page

A list of all the sessions scheduled for Monday, July 23. The full schedule can be found below:

{| class="wikitable"
! Time
! Session
|-
| 8:30am-9:00am || Registration
|-
| 9:00am-9:30am || [[General sessions#Opening remarks 2|Welcome and Introductory Remarks]]
|-
| 9:30am-10:30am || [[The Slow Funds Movement]]
|-
| 10:30am-11:30am || [[General sessions#Lightning talks|Lightning Talks]]
|-
| 11:30am-12:30pm || Lunch
|-
| 12:30pm-1:30pm || [[Open branding|Decentralized Organizations and Open Brands]]
|-
| 1:30pm-2:30pm || [[Giving More Than Money]]
|-
| 2:30pm-3:00pm || Break
|-
| 3:00pm-4:00pm || [[The Age of Peak Guilt]]
|-
| 4:00pm-5:00pm || [[Ad-hoc sessions|Attendee-decided sessions]]
|-
| 5:00pm-6:00pm || [[Collaboration, not Calcification]]
|-
| 6:00pm-6:30pm || [[General sessions#Closing remarks|Wrap Up/Closing Remarks]]
|-
| 6:30pm-??? || Cocktails and Dinner off-site
|}

Category:Sunday

2012-07-22T20:47:22Z

Nkkl: added schedule directly into page

A list of all the sessions scheduled for Sunday, July 22. The full schedule is listed here:

{| class="wikitable"
! Time
! Session
|-
| 10:00am-10:30am || Balloon group portrait
|-
| 10:30am-11:14am || Discussion Groups
|-
| || Track 1: [[Event ideas|Awesome Event Ideas]]
|-
| || Track 2: [[Grantee support|Helping Fellows w/ More than Money]]
|-
| || Track 3: [[Ad-hoc sessions|Open Track]]
|-
| 11:15am-12:00pm || Discussion Groups
|-
| || Track 1: [[Submission quality|Getting Great Submissions]]
|-
| || Track 2: [[Deliberation|Painless Deliberations]]
|-
| || Track 3: [[Ad-hoc sessions|Open Track]]
|-
| 12:00pm-1:00pm || Lunch
|-
| 1:00pm-2:30pm || Working Groups
|-
| || Track 1: [[New chapter materials|New Chapter Orientation]]
|-
| || Track 2: [[Graphics|Graphic Design and Art]]
|-
| || Track 3: [[Website improvements|Website Hacking]]
|-
| 2:30pm-3:30pm || [[General sessions#Summary of discussion groups|Summary of Discussion Groups]]
|-
| 4:00pm-5:00pm || [[Future of awesome|The Future of Awesome]]
|-
| 5:00pm-6:00pm || [[General sessions#Summit 2012 Metagrant|Pitches and Awarding of the Metagrant]]
|-
| TBA || Awesome Boston grant party
|}

Future of awesome

2012-07-22T20:44:25Z

Nkkl:

{{TOC right}}

Let's just talk about AWESOME stuff for the future. Dream big and keep it positive.

== Growing the AF ==
* Let's just see an Awesome Foundation chapter in every city.
** What if everyone in America was a trustee
* Make the AF open source, more transparency and available documentation of what we have done right and wrong
** More publishing of process, should help with grant proposals because will people will see how do-able it is
* Chapters within existing orgs - companies, universities, etc.
* Christina wants to make a Reddit AF
* We should make barriers to entry lower and easier
* How will we handle geography and boundaries as we get more and more chapters
* More chapters in small, rural areas where it's a huge deal
** less competition with stuff that's happening already
** huge impact
* Let's make an unofficial goal of 100 chapters next year

=== Granting ===
* Trustees should lead be example and apply for Awesome grants!
** We should consider ourselves and grantees all part of the same community
* What if we made an AF-internal meta-grant?
** re: concerns of favoritism, higher barrier because trustees hold themselves to higher standards
* Or a chapter where only the trustees can apply, so the money gets shuffled around month to month
* Help grow things by occasionally funding projects from random places that aren't in cities with chapters

== Collaboration ==
* Awesome as a portal between small projects
** Like Kiva for Awesome
** Traveling projects that go between chapters
** Inter-grantee collaborations
* Develop an international grantee community
* global AF community couchsurfing
* source of video and pitches and promos and articles and other media

== Spreading the word ==
* Awesome museum exhibits
* Let's become The Example of how to do micro-funding and citizen philanthropy
* Foundations and institutions think we're cool already, we can leverage that
** But we should not worry about seeking those out, just make ourselves available
* Let's have an international holiday (suggestions: 4/4, 4/29, founding date of Boston chapter, something involving 8?)

== Collaborations ==
* A team-up of something like the Awesome Foundation and the Gates Foundation
** Ellen and Nikki know people at the Gates Foundation
** What if the GF paid us to go places and do things?
** What if we just did that without the GF?
* certified Awesome stamps for venues and businesses that supports us

== Programs ==
* What if we had full-time Awesome Fellows whose job was to help people?
* Annual international Awesome Summit, and then regional summits
** next year's summit should have Awesome Awards
** and sharing craziest grants/applications
* Bigger events, like the Awesome Camping Trip
* Workshops and techniques and office hours to help people come up with better awesome ideas
** less self-serving project proposals
** maybe guest trustee programs will help, since people will have a better idea of how to do things

== Long-term thinking ==
* Willow: let's not grow out of our niche, because we're filling a space that needs to be filled
* We have a responsibility and a opportunity to build this way of thinking in our culture
** it's success if it replicated and spread and copied
* What's the role of artificially growing things and cultivating chapters instead of letting it grow organically?
** AF Rio was cultivated by Christina and Lee Sean being there simultaneously, inviting a bunch of people to dinner, and talking about Awesome
** It would be nice to do that under IHAS

[[category:Sunday]]
[[category:About the AF]]
[[category:Meta]]

Category:Saturday

2012-07-22T20:04:54Z

Nkkl: added schedule directly into page

A list of all the sessions scheduled for Saturday, July 21. The full schedule is below:

{| class="wikitable"
! Time
! Session
|-
| 9:00am-10:00am || Registration/Mingling (coffee will be served)
|-
| 10:00am-10:15am || [[General sessions#Opening remarks|Opening Remarks/Welcome]]
|-
| 10:15am-11:15am || [[General sessions#Chapter introductions|Chapter Introductions]]
|-
| 11:30am-12:00pm || [[AF origins|Origin Story]]: the founding members tell the history of the group
|-
| 12:00pm-12:30pm || [[State of the Awesome]]
|-
| 12:30pm-1:00pm || [[IHAS|WTF is IHAS]]
|-
| 1:00pm-2:00pm || lunch
|-
| 2:00pm-4:00pm || Working Groups
|-
| || Track 1: [[State of the Awesome]]
|-
| || Track 2: [[Press Materials]]
|-
| || Track 3: [[Summit 2013|Summit Planning 2013]]
|-
| 4:00pm-4:30pm || Break
|-
| 4:30pm-5:15pm || Discussion Groups
|-
| || Track 1: [[Dean Support Group]]
|-
| || Track 2: [[Trustee engagement|More Engaged Trustees]]
|-
| || Track 3: [[Ad-hoc sessions|Open Track]]
|-
| 5:30pm-6:30pm || [[General sessions#Important organizational decisions|Important Organizational Decisions]]
|-
| 7:00pm-??? || Dinner and Drinks
|}

Growing the Awesome

2012-07-22T19:37:46Z

Nkkl: /* Declaration of Awesomeness */ - adding intro to discussion question

{{TOC right}}

Initially we were unsure what the focus of this would be, but distilled it down to one question: How do we want to grow the Awesome? The Awesome Foundation wasn't initially conceived with a growth model; the original fear was that people wouldn't be interested. Now we have the opposite problem and need a plan for growth. The Summit gets a bunch of people in the same room, so it's a good time to figure that out. There are some issues to cover, specifically focused on the next year of the Awesome Foundation (for middle to long term planning, see [[Future of awesome]]).

== Declaration of Awesomeness ==
This is focused on one central question: is there some set of core values that we want to be able to give people? Following from that:
# Is it important for us to signal a set of core values?
# If yes, how should we do that?

=== Core values ===
Maybe just giving people some process guidelines is enough. For example, AF NYC has a simple set of 6 norms that each trustee adopts. These chapter operational norms are generally accepted, but what about broader values that are non-negotiable? This initially came up because new chapters have come up asking for more guidance. Bonnie provides an example from another organization she is in. There are 3 core principles: monthly, playful, reciprocity. So every group has to adhere to those principles - something like that might be a good balance.

In Boulder, the chapter realized about 3 months in that they needed to have a discussion about what Awesome meant to the group. It was very helpful for the chapter to specifically do that themselves. Overall, there is a balance and there are many positives to the fact that Awesome was left undefined. There is also some consideration of what these core values would be - the Awesome Foundation is a lot about what it means to participate a lot more than what gets funded. For example, if a group of 10 people wants to focus on giving grants to the elderly it's about the fact that 10 people want to get together and fund things that they think are Awesome, not the specific things they fund.

Maybe part of the magic is that there isn't a definition, and yet we're all still here now. It's analogous to hackerspaces, in that there isn't a central organization ''defining'' it, just facilitating networking and communication and conferences. "If more people have the ability to lead more fulfilling lives, that makes the world more awesome." - the AF is awesome because it gives people opportunities. Maybe we should worry less about trying to define it proactively, because it's so hard to describe. When it comes up, the same things surface in everyone's minds even if it's hard to explain it.

=== Open questions ===
* How do we get other people to understand our core values?
* Should we be focusing on defining core values, or is just advising on process enough?
* What is the role of creativity, and is there a minimum bar for something to count as Awesome?
* Should there be boundaries on how much funding a chapter can provide and still be considered part of the AF?
* Should there be other "guard rails" around behavior?
** For example, no giving money to campaigns. We should have some guidelines to protect the integrity of the Awesome name.

=== Conclusions ===
Overall, people are more or less agreeing around leaving it undefined, but providing examples and guiding principles. It sounds like the actionable item here is to send a summary of this discussion to the list. And instead of a core set of guiding principles, maybe we should collect a gallery of examples and send them to new chapters instead.

== When Awesome goes rogue ==
What do we do if any of these (hopefully unlikely) scenarios come up?

# Chapters blatantly violating principles.
# Individuals acting badly within Awesome chapters.
# Other forces co-opting Awesome name.

* What about if corporations try to take on our brand? What do we do?
* If any of those things come up, they will clearly not be Awesome. Can they really co-opt our name? What exactly are we afraid of?
* Look to open source software. Risk is bad press... Maybe there can just be an IHAS stamp of approval of something.
* Norms and precedents should help establish behavioral guidelines. And not everyone has to follow all of the same rules, but having examples should help.
* So if a whole chapter is messing up, we can kind of disown them. But what if a single person is a problem, or if there are multiple chapters in the same area can't agree?
* We're all adults, everything is opt-in and consent-based, should we really be worrying about this.
* Probability of a PR disaster is low, but still exists. But if something happens, we probably can't predict it. Maybe we can set up a group of trusted individuals to plan ahead for that and plan ahead.
* Well, what if a grant goes badly? Example: flamethrowers. If that went badly, it would be unintentional but still very bad press. Also, distinction lies between organization and a group of people.
* Problem also of people not understanding that it's a distributed network, not an integrated organization. If something really bad happens, it can fall on all of us.
* What if we deal by re-branding?
* But that's not a long-term solution...
* This came up because of conversations with the Berkman Center. When they found out that there's no trademark of the AF name, they flipped out, and then wrote a huge white paper about what it means. Rough consensus: that the name can be trademarked and enforced loosely.
* Hang on, what are the negatives of trademarking the brand? What's the sensitivity of that?
* Example: word caught on in Baltimore, a cafe got named after it and then a festival, owner trademarked and it turned into a huge mess. Not really analogous here, but...
* It's a question of what happens if something bad goes on. Do we trust Christina and Tim and company to handle it.
* Danger of someone trademarking Awesome under their own name is probably low.
* But what if a chapter tries to take on the name or trademark it out from under us? Or if, say, the TV show leads to the network or something trying to trademark it?
* Maybe we are worrying about this too much. Hackerspace adage: don't fix problems before they happen.
* Can we have a summary of the Berkman Center recommendations?
* Yes, it will get sent to the list. And the recommendation was basically to trademark it to protect the brand (for example, TV show scenario could be very real).
* How about if we can just trust Tim and Christina. This would give us a little bit of a blanket of protection and that it is highly unlikely that it would get abused.
* Maybe it's better that the community is so open and that there is uncertainty about this and that we talk about it, and that's something that makes the AF open and accessible.
* What is the jurisdiction of IHAS to intervene in things?
* Example: Reddit, and controversy over subreddits, and who draws the line.
* Personal scare story: a friend had a cool idea, told someone about it, ended up having it stolen by a beer company and spread around. Having the basic protection seems worth it.
* Yeah, and if something comes down we can mobilize quickly.
* Don't like the idea of having a (TM) or (R) after the AF name. That's a signal of some central reporting, and if something bad happens it could be even worse - like if a chapter does something bad, that mark points to something.
* This makes sense conceptually, but people are going to assume that there is a central control structure regardless. Don't overthink things, there should be a very small group of people doing the minimal needed things. Would feel comfortable with a small group that has the power to do things as needed, even if 90% of the time they do nothing.
* If we ended up getting a trademark, it doesn't mean anything more than if we didn't - we'd still have to lawyer up and protect our brand. For example, if Israel does something bad, if we gave them permission to use our name specifically it would be even worse. And we couldn't tell them no unless we went after them with lawyers.

General consensus: lots of people aren't necessarily opposed, some people are opposed, but general consensus is to have some kind of working group to handle this.

* Real fear of corporitization. Maybe that is a bigger concern for us than dealing with rogue chapters and such.
* Willow thinks we should all read the white paper before making decisions.

== Volunteers ==
How do we structure volunteers?

We have people volunteering to do things, for example group on shepherding in new chapters, hacking on the website, etc. Should there be incentive structure? Recognition?

* These things are already happening... is there a problem that has come up so far?
* There is generally a shortage of global volunteers in things.
* Right now web, for example, is a disparate group. There isn't really a system of accountability, and we are short-handed in a lot of ways, and this is a more real problem than the other issues discussed.
* IHAS is there to support the growth of more chapters, and there are chapters interested in helping grow new chapters in their areas (especially ones alone in their country). Facilitate chapters taking responsibility for that?
* Kara: The lack of system and structure and hierarchy is something we want to maintain to some extent, but there is a negative impact in the lack of response. And it's something I see over and over again and people are excited initially but lose steam. It's something I would like to see be more affirming.
* We have it almost too good, we just need more people to help out because lots of places need people.
* It's hard to know what is going on already, we have a lot of people but we don't collectively know what anyone else is working on. What if there was a wiki or something on the AF site.
* I didn't know you needed volunteers. I am on the mailing list but had no idea, although I could easily step up. What if one person was managing volunteering and taking on responsibility for helping disseminate that information.
* Yeah, having stuff on the website makes sense, because right now the mailing list is the main channel and it's hard to catch up if you miss something.
* What if there was an internal digest, as well as the external one.
* True, every time we put out a call for volunteers we get people.
* Something like a wiki or a basecamp, where it's clear that there are things to sign up to do and people can just sign up to do things and it's clear what their status is and then you don't need to have someone wrangling volunteers. We have a lot of self-starters, so maybe we don't need someone to manage the volunteers.
* Agreed, if there was a place where people could see what was going on that would be good.
* It's a matter of not having a pipeline in place, Kara has some ideas of what we could set up to get things going.

== General comments ==
* All 3 of these things... our success has been based on us being decentralized and loose, and these are all focusing on the downsides of that. There are lots of examples of communities that have done this, there are people who have done work to solve these problems, let's look towards those.
* Christina: great segue to a panel on Monday.
* Some of this is about problems we don't have yet, some about problems we do have. Let's be careful about the problems we don't have yet and be very specific about what problems we are trying to tackle.
* There should be a set of internal principles that we should all get, minimal things that we need to build those support structures, but keep the integrity of the organization and keeping it as amorphous as possible. Keeping bureaucracy as minimal as possible.
* Overall, let's trust the "leadership", they haven't steered us wrong. Maybe having a best practices/best guide, people are free to deviate from it, that's a good solution in the spirit of what we're doing.
* Good job moderating, Tim and Christina.

Growing the Awesome

2012-07-22T19:35:25Z

Nkkl: cleaned up Declaration of Awesomeness notes

{{TOC right}}

Initially we were unsure what the focus of this would be, but distilled it down to one question: How do we want to grow the Awesome? The Awesome Foundation wasn't initially conceived with a growth model; the original fear was that people wouldn't be interested. Now we have the opposite problem and need a plan for growth. The Summit gets a bunch of people in the same room, so it's a good time to figure that out. There are some issues to cover, specifically focused on the next year of the Awesome Foundation (for middle to long term planning, see [[Future of awesome]]).

== Declaration of Awesomeness ==
Is there some set of core values that we want to be able to give people?
# Is it important for us to signal a set of core values?
# If yes, how should we do that?

=== Core values ===
Maybe just giving people some process guidelines is enough. For example, AF NYC has a simple set of 6 norms that each trustee adopts. These chapter operational norms are generally accepted, but what about broader values that are non-negotiable? This initially came up because new chapters have come up asking for more guidance. Bonnie provides an example from another organization she is in. There are 3 core principles: monthly, playful, reciprocity. So every group has to adhere to those principles - something like that might be a good balance.

In Boulder, the chapter realized about 3 months in that they needed to have a discussion about what Awesome meant to the group. It was very helpful for the chapter to specifically do that themselves. Overall, there is a balance and there are many positives to the fact that Awesome was left undefined. There is also some consideration of what these core values would be - the Awesome Foundation is a lot about what it means to participate a lot more than what gets funded. For example, if a group of 10 people wants to focus on giving grants to the elderly it's about the fact that 10 people want to get together and fund things that they think are Awesome, not the specific things they fund.

Maybe part of the magic is that there isn't a definition, and yet we're all still here now. It's analogous to hackerspaces, in that there isn't a central organization ''defining'' it, just facilitating networking and communication and conferences. "If more people have the ability to lead more fulfilling lives, that makes the world more awesome." - the AF is awesome because it gives people opportunities. Maybe we should worry less about trying to define it proactively, because it's so hard to describe. When it comes up, the same things surface in everyone's minds even if it's hard to explain it.

=== Open questions ===
* How do we get other people to understand our core values?
* Should we be focusing on defining core values, or is just advising on process enough?
* What is the role of creativity, and is there a minimum bar for something to count as Awesome?
* Should there be boundaries on how much funding a chapter can provide and still be considered part of the AF?
* Should there be other "guard rails" around behavior?
** For example, no giving money to campaigns. We should have some guidelines to protect the integrity of the Awesome name.

=== Conclusions ===
Overall, people are more or less agreeing around leaving it undefined, but providing examples and guiding principles. It sounds like the actionable item here is to send a summary of this discussion to the list. And instead of a core set of guiding principles, maybe we should collect a gallery of examples and send them to new chapters instead.

== When Awesome goes rogue ==
What do we do if any of these (hopefully unlikely) scenarios come up?

# Chapters blatantly violating principles.
# Individuals acting badly within Awesome chapters.
# Other forces co-opting Awesome name.

* What about if corporations try to take on our brand? What do we do?
* If any of those things come up, they will clearly not be Awesome. Can they really co-opt our name? What exactly are we afraid of?
* Look to open source software. Risk is bad press... Maybe there can just be an IHAS stamp of approval of something.
* Norms and precedents should help establish behavioral guidelines. And not everyone has to follow all of the same rules, but having examples should help.
* So if a whole chapter is messing up, we can kind of disown them. But what if a single person is a problem, or if there are multiple chapters in the same area can't agree?
* We're all adults, everything is opt-in and consent-based, should we really be worrying about this.
* Probability of a PR disaster is low, but still exists. But if something happens, we probably can't predict it. Maybe we can set up a group of trusted individuals to plan ahead for that and plan ahead.
* Well, what if a grant goes badly? Example: flamethrowers. If that went badly, it would be unintentional but still very bad press. Also, distinction lies between organization and a group of people.
* Problem also of people not understanding that it's a distributed network, not an integrated organization. If something really bad happens, it can fall on all of us.
* What if we deal by re-branding?
* But that's not a long-term solution...
* This came up because of conversations with the Berkman Center. When they found out that there's no trademark of the AF name, they flipped out, and then wrote a huge white paper about what it means. Rough consensus: that the name can be trademarked and enforced loosely.
* Hang on, what are the negatives of trademarking the brand? What's the sensitivity of that?
* Example: word caught on in Baltimore, a cafe got named after it and then a festival, owner trademarked and it turned into a huge mess. Not really analogous here, but...
* It's a question of what happens if something bad goes on. Do we trust Christina and Tim and company to handle it.
* Danger of someone trademarking Awesome under their own name is probably low.
* But what if a chapter tries to take on the name or trademark it out from under us? Or if, say, the TV show leads to the network or something trying to trademark it?
* Maybe we are worrying about this too much. Hackerspace adage: don't fix problems before they happen.
* Can we have a summary of the Berkman Center recommendations?
* Yes, it will get sent to the list. And the recommendation was basically to trademark it to protect the brand (for example, TV show scenario could be very real).
* How about if we can just trust Tim and Christina. This would give us a little bit of a blanket of protection and that it is highly unlikely that it would get abused.
* Maybe it's better that the community is so open and that there is uncertainty about this and that we talk about it, and that's something that makes the AF open and accessible.
* What is the jurisdiction of IHAS to intervene in things?
* Example: Reddit, and controversy over subreddits, and who draws the line.
* Personal scare story: a friend had a cool idea, told someone about it, ended up having it stolen by a beer company and spread around. Having the basic protection seems worth it.
* Yeah, and if something comes down we can mobilize quickly.
* Don't like the idea of having a (TM) or (R) after the AF name. That's a signal of some central reporting, and if something bad happens it could be even worse - like if a chapter does something bad, that mark points to something.
* This makes sense conceptually, but people are going to assume that there is a central control structure regardless. Don't overthink things, there should be a very small group of people doing the minimal needed things. Would feel comfortable with a small group that has the power to do things as needed, even if 90% of the time they do nothing.
* If we ended up getting a trademark, it doesn't mean anything more than if we didn't - we'd still have to lawyer up and protect our brand. For example, if Israel does something bad, if we gave them permission to use our name specifically it would be even worse. And we couldn't tell them no unless we went after them with lawyers.

General consensus: lots of people aren't necessarily opposed, some people are opposed, but general consensus is to have some kind of working group to handle this.

* Real fear of corporitization. Maybe that is a bigger concern for us than dealing with rogue chapters and such.
* Willow thinks we should all read the white paper before making decisions.

== Volunteers ==
How do we structure volunteers?

We have people volunteering to do things, for example group on shepherding in new chapters, hacking on the website, etc. Should there be incentive structure? Recognition?

* These things are already happening... is there a problem that has come up so far?
* There is generally a shortage of global volunteers in things.
* Right now web, for example, is a disparate group. There isn't really a system of accountability, and we are short-handed in a lot of ways, and this is a more real problem than the other issues discussed.
* IHAS is there to support the growth of more chapters, and there are chapters interested in helping grow new chapters in their areas (especially ones alone in their country). Facilitate chapters taking responsibility for that?
* Kara: The lack of system and structure and hierarchy is something we want to maintain to some extent, but there is a negative impact in the lack of response. And it's something I see over and over again and people are excited initially but lose steam. It's something I would like to see be more affirming.
* We have it almost too good, we just need more people to help out because lots of places need people.
* It's hard to know what is going on already, we have a lot of people but we don't collectively know what anyone else is working on. What if there was a wiki or something on the AF site.
* I didn't know you needed volunteers. I am on the mailing list but had no idea, although I could easily step up. What if one person was managing volunteering and taking on responsibility for helping disseminate that information.
* Yeah, having stuff on the website makes sense, because right now the mailing list is the main channel and it's hard to catch up if you miss something.
* What if there was an internal digest, as well as the external one.
* True, every time we put out a call for volunteers we get people.
* Something like a wiki or a basecamp, where it's clear that there are things to sign up to do and people can just sign up to do things and it's clear what their status is and then you don't need to have someone wrangling volunteers. We have a lot of self-starters, so maybe we don't need someone to manage the volunteers.
* Agreed, if there was a place where people could see what was going on that would be good.
* It's a matter of not having a pipeline in place, Kara has some ideas of what we could set up to get things going.

== General comments ==
* All 3 of these things... our success has been based on us being decentralized and loose, and these are all focusing on the downsides of that. There are lots of examples of communities that have done this, there are people who have done work to solve these problems, let's look towards those.
* Christina: great segue to a panel on Monday.
* Some of this is about problems we don't have yet, some about problems we do have. Let's be careful about the problems we don't have yet and be very specific about what problems we are trying to tackle.
* There should be a set of internal principles that we should all get, minimal things that we need to build those support structures, but keep the integrity of the organization and keeping it as amorphous as possible. Keeping bureaucracy as minimal as possible.
* Overall, let's trust the "leadership", they haven't steered us wrong. Maybe having a best practices/best guide, people are free to deviate from it, that's a good solution in the spirit of what we're doing.
* Good job moderating, Tim and Christina.

Growing the Awesome

2012-07-22T19:16:27Z

Nkkl: Initial dump

Initially we were unsure what the focus of this would be, distilled down to one question: How do we want to grow the Awesome? The AF wasn't initially conceived with a growth model; originally fear was that people wouldn't be interested (now we have the opposite problem). Now we need a plan for growth. Now that we have a bunch of people in the same room, let's figure that out. There are some issues we want to cover, specifically for the next year of the Awesome Foundation (for middle to long term planning, see [[Future of awesome]]).

== Declaration of Awesomeness ==
Is there some set of core values that we want to be able to give people?

# Is it important for us to signal a set of core values?
# If yes, how should we do that?

Open discussion:
* Should we be focusing on defining core values, or is process enough?
* NYC has a set of 6 norms that each trustee adopts.
** Meetings last <= 90 minutes
** Trustees attend 2/3 meetings
** Trustees send short list if can't be there
** Everyone pays
** You replace yourself with one month notice
** No one pays if they haven't participated
* This sounds like chapter operational norms, what about broader values, what things are non-negotiable
* This came up because new chapters have come up asking for more guidance. How do we get other people to understand those values and understand them?
* What is the role of creativity, is there a minimum bar for something to count as Awesome?
* In another distributed organization, there are 3 core principles: monthly, playful, reciprocity. So every group has to adhere to those principles - are we talking more like that?
* In Boulder, after 3 months needed to have a discussion about what Awesome meant to the group. It was good for Boulder to do that specifically, do that themselves.
* Tim: That is a big balance; it's been good in many ways that Awesome was left undefined.
* Awesome Foundation is a lot about what it means to participate a lot more than what gets funded. For example, in NYC it is about putting things into New York that are awesome, and if another group of 10 people focuses into different areas it's about that 10 people want to get together and fund things that they think are Awesome, not the specific things they fund.
* Worry less about trying to define it proactively, it's hard to describe. When it comes up, the same things surface in everyone's minds even if it's hard to explain it.
* Maybe part of the magic is that there isn't a definition, and we're all still here now. Analogous to hackerspaces, that there isn't a central organization defining it, although there is a central organization facilitating networking and communication and conferences. "If more people have the ability to lead more fulfilling lives, that makes the world more awesome." AF is awesome because it gives people opportunities.

Sounds like everyone is more or less agreeing around this point... any strong opinions in other direction?

* Opinion: shouldn't be allowed to be an AF if giving away large sums of money.
* Maybe this hasn't come up yet, but maybe we want to establish some guard rails: for example, no giving to campaigns. We should have some things to protect integrity.

It sounds like the actionable item here is to send a summary of this discussion to the list. And instead of a core set of guiding principles, maybe we should collect a gallery of examples and send them to new chapters instead.

== When Awesome goes rogue ==
What do we do if any of these (hopefully unlikely) scenarios come up?

# Chapters blatantly violating principles.
# Individuals acting badly within Awesome chapters.
# Other forces co-opting Awesome name.

* What about if corporations try to take on our brand? What do we do?
* If any of those things come up, they will clearly not be Awesome. Can they really co-opt our name? What exactly are we afraid of?
* Look to open source software. Risk is bad press... Maybe there can just be an IHAS stamp of approval of something.
* Norms and precedents should help establish behavioral guidelines. And not everyone has to follow all of the same rules, but having examples should help.
* So if a whole chapter is messing up, we can kind of disown them. But what if a single person is a problem, or if there are multiple chapters in the same area can't agree?
* We're all adults, everything is opt-in and consent-based, should we really be worrying about this.
* Probability of a PR disaster is low, but still exists. But if something happens, we probably can't predict it. Maybe we can set up a group of trusted individuals to plan ahead for that and plan ahead.
* Well, what if a grant goes badly? Example: flamethrowers. If that went badly, it would be unintentional but still very bad press. Also, distinction lies between organization and a group of people.
* Problem also of people not understanding that it's a distributed network, not an integrated organization. If something really bad happens, it can fall on all of us.
* What if we deal by re-branding?
* But that's not a long-term solution...
* This came up because of conversations with the Berkman Center. When they found out that there's no trademark of the AF name, they flipped out, and then wrote a huge white paper about what it means. Rough consensus: that the name can be trademarked and enforced loosely.
* Hang on, what are the negatives of trademarking the brand? What's the sensitivity of that?
* Example: word caught on in Baltimore, a cafe got named after it and then a festival, owner trademarked and it turned into a huge mess. Not really analogous here, but...
* It's a question of what happens if something bad goes on. Do we trust Christina and Tim and company to handle it.
* Danger of someone trademarking Awesome under their own name is probably low.
* But what if a chapter tries to take on the name or trademark it out from under us? Or if, say, the TV show leads to the network or something trying to trademark it?
* Maybe we are worrying about this too much. Hackerspace adage: don't fix problems before they happen.
* Can we have a summary of the Berkman Center recommendations?
* Yes, it will get sent to the list. And the recommendation was basically to trademark it to protect the brand (for example, TV show scenario could be very real).
* How about if we can just trust Tim and Christina. This would give us a little bit of a blanket of protection and that it is highly unlikely that it would get abused.
* Maybe it's better that the community is so open and that there is uncertainty about this and that we talk about it, and that's something that makes the AF open and accessible.
* What is the jurisdiction of IHAS to intervene in things?
* Example: Reddit, and controversy over subreddits, and who draws the line.
* Personal scare story: a friend had a cool idea, told someone about it, ended up having it stolen by a beer company and spread around. Having the basic protection seems worth it.
* Yeah, and if something comes down we can mobilize quickly.
* Don't like the idea of having a (TM) or (R) after the AF name. That's a signal of some central reporting, and if something bad happens it could be even worse - like if a chapter does something bad, that mark points to something.
* This makes sense conceptually, but people are going to assume that there is a central control structure regardless. Don't overthink things, there should be a very small group of people doing the minimal needed things. Would feel comfortable with a small group that has the power to do things as needed, even if 90% of the time they do nothing.
* If we ended up getting a trademark, it doesn't mean anything more than if we didn't - we'd still have to lawyer up and protect our brand. For example, if Israel does something bad, if we gave them permission to use our name specifically it would be even worse. And we couldn't tell them no unless we went after them with lawyers.

General consensus: lots of people aren't necessarily opposed, some people are opposed, but general consensus is to have some kind of working group to handle this.

* Real fear of corporitization. Maybe that is a bigger concern for us than dealing with rogue chapters and such.
* Willow thinks we should all read the white paper before making decisions.

== Volunteers ==
How do we structure volunteers?

We have people volunteering to do things, for example group on shepherding in new chapters, hacking on the website, etc. Should there be incentive structure? Recognition?

* These things are already happening... is there a problem that has come up so far?
* There is generally a shortage of global volunteers in things.
* Right now web, for example, is a disparate group. There isn't really a system of accountability, and we are short-handed in a lot of ways, and this is a more real problem than the other issues discussed.
* IHAS is there to support the growth of more chapters, and there are chapters interested in helping grow new chapters in their areas (especially ones alone in their country). Facilitate chapters taking responsibility for that?
* Kara: The lack of system and structure and hierarchy is something we want to maintain to some extent, but there is a negative impact in the lack of response. And it's something I see over and over again and people are excited initially but lose steam. It's something I would like to see be more affirming.
* We have it almost too good, we just need more people to help out because lots of places need people.
* It's hard to know what is going on already, we have a lot of people but we don't collectively know what anyone else is working on. What if there was a wiki or something on the AF site.
* I didn't know you needed volunteers. I am on the mailing list but had no idea, although I could easily step up. What if one person was managing volunteering and taking on responsibility for helping disseminate that information.
* Yeah, having stuff on the website makes sense, because right now the mailing list is the main channel and it's hard to catch up if you miss something.
* What if there was an internal digest, as well as the external one.
* True, every time we put out a call for volunteers we get people.
* Something like a wiki or a basecamp, where it's clear that there are things to sign up to do and people can just sign up to do things and it's clear what their status is and then you don't need to have someone wrangling volunteers. We have a lot of self-starters, so maybe we don't need someone to manage the volunteers.
* Agreed, if there was a place where people could see what was going on that would be good.
* It's a matter of not having a pipeline in place, Kara has some ideas of what we could set up to get things going.

== General comments ==
* All 3 of these things... our success has been based on us being decentralized and loose, and these are all focusing on the downsides of that. There are lots of examples of communities that have done this, there are people who have done work to solve these problems, let's look towards those.
* Christina: great segue to a panel on Monday.
* Some of this is about problems we don't have yet, some about problems we do have. Let's be careful about the problems we don't have yet and be very specific about what problems we are trying to tackle.
* There should be a set of internal principles that we should all get, minimal things that we need to build those support structures, but keep the integrity of the organization and keeping it as amorphous as possible. Keeping bureaucracy as minimal as possible.
* Overall, let's trust the "leadership", they haven't steered us wrong. Maybe having a best practices/best guide, people are free to deviate from it, that's a good solution in the spirit of what we're doing.
* Good job moderating, Tim and Christina.

Chapters in attendance (2012)

2012-07-22T19:03:58Z

Nkkl: formatting tweak, added TOC right

{{TOC right}}

This is a summary from the introductions of all the chapters at the summit!

==Ann Arbor==
Absent

==Austin==
There are 13 members (including the dean).

==Boston==
Boston has almost 20 trustees now, but didn't know how many until a year or two in. The chapter assumed 10, but actually had 11 or 12 (they are still not sure).

==Boulder==
Brandon heard about the Awesome Foundation on NPR and called someone who'd applied nine months before the chapter existed. He wanted to do photo-graffiti by installing photography random places.

==Calgary==
Around since April 2011 - Lori heard a CBC interview with the Toronto chapter, and immediately did an illegal U-Turn and registered the domain and blog. There are 15 trustees. A favorite grant so far was remote art so you could start art online and someone else could finish.

==Chicago==
There are five Chicago trustees at the Summit! 20% of funding so far has been to puppet themed projects. Noteworthy grants include little free libraries (small book exchanges), art hunt (hiding art in the city), open source scanning electron microscope (failed so far), QR codes linking to poetry, and a snow shoveling project which stopped snow this winter.

==Connecticut==
Barbara is the dean of AF Connecticut. It started in January this year (her husband heard it on NPR). Awesome Connecticut is all couples. They've given five grants so far - this months grant is a town wide scavenger hunt in New Haven, CT. It's to bring community together and teach history/culture of New Haven. Also did a grant between the symphony and the neonatal unit to make a lullaby CD for babies that are in the neonatal unit.

==Detroit==
Marshelle overuses Awesome, and is also very gullible. Christina called from "Institute of Higher Awesome Studies" and Marshelle assumed it was a joke. The second time Christina called, she Googled it, and upon realizing it's a real thing was convinced to start a chapter (in January). The chapter started from a Knight News Challenge Grant - so it's focused specifically on journalism, media, and civic engagement projects. They've given five grants so far, most recently "Real People, Real Stories." Also "Strong and Beautiful" stories recorded from a soup kitchen.

==Food==
They've never met each other in person. They started talking about it in 2010 and got serious last year. They have awarded 10 grants so far. A favorite grant was "randwiches" a random ingrediant sandwich delivery service in NYC. You sign up online, and pick a time, and you can mention allergies. You can't pick something. Comes in a paper bag, and from the Little Red Riding Hood of sandwiches (including the cape!).

==Halifax==
Most people know where Halifax is, largely because of the Awesome Foundation. Everyone bailed but Dave! Started on Feb 29 - "On the 29th day, God created Awesome." Halifax has 30 trustees. Every month 10 are off, 10 narrow down the apps to what happens at the event, 10 vote at the event. Favorite grant so far was space bagpipers that followed people around town. Two others are the Halifax ideas market, where they gave out like $2500 to ideas. They wanted to have a giant tug of war across a harbor, but the water police said no. So instead they're going to require the loser to jump in the Harbor. There will be 125 people on each side and they're hoping to get the mayor and other dignitaries (it'll be on Sept 15 at 2:00pm).

==Houston==
Houston's chapter has been around since last August. The Dean can't attend as she's past the flying window in her pregnancy. Our favorite grant was "Hear Our Houston" which was an audio tour from different peoples perspectives of the same place.

==Kingston==
"It's rare to be in a room with people as attractive as I am." Kingston is between Toronto and Montreal and has been around since October. Asad got started by pitching crazy ideas and then was invited to be a trustee. Kingston has a lot of unicycles and they gave a grant to @unicyclephil, who wanted to break the 100mi unicycle record. There are 14-15 trustees and 10 chairs, with some shared trustees (as long as each chair brings $100 it's ok). Kingston has had issues trying to define what Awesome means.

==Kitchener-Waterloo==
Kitchener-Waterloo is about an hour outside of Toronto. Tried to explain what the Awesome Foundation was while crossing the border was difficult (they gt a free car X-Ray!). The chapter has been around for 14-16 months. One of the cool ones was the Guerrilla Gardener - he rides a bike and plants things in public spaces near highways (like a giant smiley face). They are open to discussion about grants that slightly break the laws. The group is 12 trustees, so they give a $200 people choice award to another proposal.

==LA==
Los Angeles is 12 person chapter that started at the end of 2010. One of the most successful grants so far is a project called the Swings Project - an artist came down and put random swings around LA. He also did this in Bolivia, and found that all of the kids parks had swing structures with no swings so he put up hundreds of real swings. They are interested in supporting cool things in an easy way. Dan is trying to build a TV show of the Awesome Foundation, with celebrities/artists/influencers each giving $1000 three times per episode, and people need to do the projects immediately on TV.

==Maldon, Australia==
It's not Melbourne - Maldon is about 150km out of Melbourne in rural Victoria and has about 1500 people. It took them 48 hours to get here! They're board directors of a community bank where all the profits go back to the community and part of those profits fund the trustees of Awesome Maldon. The chapter has been going since May. It's an elderly town and they were looking to fund more exciting things than golf/bowling. They funded a local artist and author that have written a book that will be published (targeted at the children in the community) that is whimsical with slight anti-bullying theme. They also funded some people come in to talk about governance.

==Montreal==
They are just under a year old, on their fifth grant. Montreal has 11 trustees and is a bilingual chapter - in French it's le foundation formidable. All materials are in both languages, applicants are equal. They're still trying to find a strong identity within the city. They're most interested in hearing about surprises people have had along the way. What elements of Awesome appeal to how people work? Is there one type of person/org applying? Is that good or bad? How do we define Awesome? Are we reaching our higher goals? They also invite everyone to visit Montreal.

==New York==
There are 7 people standing up! New York has about 8 more trustees. Everyone goes to New York, so tell their chapter when you do! They have been around for about two years now and were founded by someone who met Tim while interning at Harvard. Some of their favorite grants include laser tweezers and a house for two famous iguanas. A recent one was inspired by the number of acres of empty lots in Brooklyn - it allows people to identify events owner by the city to community organize for those lots.

==Ottawa==
Ottawa has been going about two years and just gave their 24th grant. Ottawa is a government town, so it's conservative, results-based, focused on metrics and reports, etc. (everyone boos). The best thing about the Awesome Foundation is that it's whimsical. The risk factor is high, but you get things you don't expect. It varies between "That's cool." or "I don't get that at all." but either way you're part of it. Yarn bombing a city bus is happening in September - a big bus covered in crocheted pieces.

==Pittsburgh==
The chapter was launched in October 2011. Initially they tried to reach outside of the tech community and are now a very diverse chapter. The city of Pittsburgh declared "Awesome Day". The chapter also uses a tiny micro novelty check (which turns out to be a terrible photo op). Grants include restoring public staircases and a puppet photo booth.

==Portland==
The founder took a road trip to Oklahoma City to visit in laws for Christmas and at 5am heard the distant fuzzy signal of NPR talking about the Awesome Foundation. She got to Oklahoma and immediately emailed Tim (sorry in laws!) about starting a chapter. They've given two grants so far, one for scholarships for kids to go to Farm Camp and one for a project called "Free the Billboards" to try to get rid of Billboards in Portland. They're setting up Viewmasters with images people would rather see than Billboards. They are hoping to figure out how to get more proposals for lunchtime dance party, and fewer for "daily maintenance cost".

==Providence==
Absent.

==Rio==
Luciano and Ana are here to represent. The Rio chapter has 12 trustees with 2 more to come, and others trying to join. Christian and Lee-Sean visited Rio. Once they started they had a huge newspaper coverage, but people misunderstood and applied for wild ideas, not for actual projects. They just funded their very first project last week, called Social Dojo - a concept from software development for role playing games.

==San Francisco==
The chapter was founded in March 2010 because Jesse talked to Boston about why there weren't women trustees. Trustees at the Summit include Mitch Altman who co-founded noise bridge and is a world traveler, George was a recent grant recipient and is now a trustee, Tim co-founder of AF, Greg recently joined after being a long time fan. There are 10 trustees, but there is a revolving door of trustees. At one point they tried to redesign the entire website on their own (they are psyched about the new website). AF SF has given 12-15 grants so far, including Little Opera, an afternoon program for 4th grade wrote and performed their own opera (about 4 minutes), impromptu natural history walks in urban neighborhoods in San Francisco, scents of San Francisco (they wanted to collect all the scents and make them to oil - they assumed it'd be like burrito, but now it's about wild flowers and taking longer than anticipated). They say that hacker spaces are a good place to draw for trustees/projects - [http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/ hackerspaces.org] lists all of them (a thousand!). A favorite grant is a room full of balloons that light up when you hit them.

==Seattle==
Seattle has been going for about a year now. There is a guest trustee program where people join for a month and a "How to be a Trustee" doc to ramp people up. The program works well for converting guest trustees to full trustees. Cool grants include a homeless shelter that works with youth to create safe sex kits that were user-centric designed to be more discreet and the Pop-Up Museum done by a museologist to make a more welcoming museum that wasn't as focused on the artifacts in it as the people visiting it. Seattle guest trustee Willow wants to put together a travel chapter.

==St. Petersburg==
St. Petersburg Florida, not Russia. The chapter started recently and they want to put together an Internet chapter.

==Sukhbaatar, Mongolia==
Travis was a peace corps volunteer who started the first TedX event in Mongolia. He started Awesome Mongolia to try to start chapters all over. They didn't think Awesome could be real. The chapter has two peace corps volunteers and eight Mongolians. Their first grant was a dental hygiene project. There isn't a word for Awesome in Mongolia. They're connected to prime minister/president and trying to explain and get support.

==Sydney==
Absent.

==Tampa Bay==
Tampa Bay has a twin cities thing with Tampa/St. Petersburg. Now they're a virus - also Awesome Tampa Bay Music (bands going on tour) and Awesome Tampa Bay Youth (people under 18). Hampton was doing a micro arts funding program for underground art - they didn't have any money, so created the World's Largest Dream Machine and took a motor from a cement mixer for $500. "Awesome - like the government's definition of porn - you know it when you see it." Hampton recently acquired the largest painting in the state of Florida, and is going to turn it into a slip n slide. Next summer at a place in Florida they're doing a 50th anniversary show of people in the water pretending to be mermaids. They are looking at funding underwater contemporary art performance.

==Toronto==
AF Toronto has awesome shirts. They got started in February 2011 and have given 18 grants. There are 17 trustees. The chapter was really inspired by the swings project. For the first grant there were 250+ apps, but now applications are dwindling, and the quality isn't awesome enough. They've funded a kissing map of Toronto, writing love letters on postcards for people in Toronto, the wall of tics (for individuals with Tourette syndrome), flamethrowers, cardboard forts, etc. One month they used the $1000 to do a project themselves, and wanted to do swings - but then they did a bad thing and asked the lawyer about the liabilities. They also really liked Connect the T dots - paint giant white dots on the top of buildings so when you looked from above there would be a picture. They put in a bid for Awesome Summit 2013!

==Washington DC==
The DC chapter has been running since Nov 2010. Their first grant was out of the Fab Lab - there was a group moving in a mobile lab, but they helped them move to a physical space. In their first month they got an application from the Smithsonian to fund a new position at the museum. They had a picnic with a jazz festival was held in a vacant lot in North DC that was known for drugs/violence and turned it into a concert every Saturday night. Now the festival is in its second year and they get emails about the neighborhood being transformed and messages like "my baby learned to clap at the event". They are going to turn an alley in DC into the scene from Indiana Jones with someone else inside the boulder trying to catch you. They launched with a big party called the Awesome Science Fair and invited about 3,000 people. Everyone had a booth and people could walk around and talk to projects and put tokens into a bucket. Everyone bought a $20 ticket and got tokens worth $1, but people ran out and started putting in cash. Other projects include a group that made an irrigation system and got funding from an actual angel investor. They are having a new party that will be "The Price is Awesome" with people doing live pitching with audience enabled granting.

Chapters in attendance (2012)

2012-07-22T19:03:11Z

Nkkl: adding chapter introductions

This is a summary from the introductions of all the chapters at the summit!

==Ann Arbor==\nAbsent

==Austin==
There are 13 members (including the dean).

==Boston==
Boston has almost 20 trustees now, but didn't know how many until a year or two in. The chapter assumed 10, but actually had 11 or 12 (they are still not sure).

==Boulder==
Brandon heard about the Awesome Foundation on NPR and called someone who'd applied nine months before the chapter existed. He wanted to do photo-graffiti by installing photography random places.

==Calgary==
Around since April 2011 - Lori heard a CBC interview with the Toronto chapter, and immediately did an illegal U-Turn and registered the domain and blog. There are 15 trustees. A favorite grant so far was remote art so you could start art online and someone else could finish.

==Chicago==
There are five Chicago trustees at the Summit! 20% of funding so far has been to puppet themed projects. Noteworthy grants include little free libraries (small book exchanges), art hunt (hiding art in the city), open source scanning electron microscope (failed so far), QR codes linking to poetry, and a snow shoveling project which stopped snow this winter.

==Connecticut==
Barbara is the dean of AF Connecticut. It started in January this year (her husband heard it on NPR). Awesome Connecticut is all couples. They've given five grants so far - this months grant is a town wide scavenger hunt in New Haven, CT. It's to bring community together and teach history/culture of New Haven. Also did a grant between the symphony and the neonatal unit to make a lullaby CD for babies that are in the neonatal unit.

==Detroit==
Marshelle overuses Awesome, and is also very gullible. Christina called from "Institute of Higher Awesome Studies" and Marshelle assumed it was a joke. The second time Christina called, she Googled it, and upon realizing it's a real thing was convinced to start a chapter (in January). The chapter started from a Knight News Challenge Grant - so it's focused specifically on journalism, media, and civic engagement projects. They've given five grants so far, most recently "Real People, Real Stories." Also "Strong and Beautiful" stories recorded from a soup kitchen.

==Food==
They've never met each other in person. They started talking about it in 2010 and got serious last year. They have awarded 10 grants so far. A favorite grant was "randwiches" a random ingrediant sandwich delivery service in NYC. You sign up online, and pick a time, and you can mention allergies. You can't pick something. Comes in a paper bag, and from the Little Red Riding Hood of sandwiches (including the cape!).

==Halifax==
Most people know where Halifax is, largely because of the Awesome Foundation. Everyone bailed but Dave! Started on Feb 29 - "On the 29th day, God created Awesome." Halifax has 30 trustees. Every month 10 are off, 10 narrow down the apps to what happens at the event, 10 vote at the event. Favorite grant so far was space bagpipers that followed people around town. Two others are the Halifax ideas market, where they gave out like $2500 to ideas. They wanted to have a giant tug of war across a harbor, but the water police said no. So instead they're going to require the loser to jump in the Harbor. There will be 125 people on each side and they're hoping to get the mayor and other dignitaries (it'll be on Sept 15 at 2:00pm).

==Houston==
Houston's chapter has been around since last August. The Dean can't attend as she's past the flying window in her pregnancy. Our favorite grant was "Hear Our Houston" which was an audio tour from different peoples perspectives of the same place.

==Kingston==
"It's rare to be in a room with people as attractive as I am." Kingston is between Toronto and Montreal and has been around since October. Asad got started by pitching crazy ideas and then was invited to be a trustee. Kingston has a lot of unicycles and they gave a grant to @unicyclephil, who wanted to break the 100mi unicycle record. There are 14-15 trustees and 10 chairs, with some shared trustees (as long as each chair brings $100 it's ok). Kingston has had issues trying to define what Awesome means.

==Kitchener-Waterloo==
Kitchener-Waterloo is about an hour outside of Toronto. Tried to explain what the Awesome Foundation was while crossing the border was difficult (they gt a free car X-Ray!). The chapter has been around for 14-16 months. One of the cool ones was the Guerrilla Gardener - he rides a bike and plants things in public spaces near highways (like a giant smiley face). They are open to discussion about grants that slightly break the laws. The group is 12 trustees, so they give a $200 people choice award to another proposal.

==LA==
Los Angeles is 12 person chapter that started at the end of 2010. One of the most successful grants so far is a project called the Swings Project - an artist came down and put random swings around LA. He also did this in Bolivia, and found that all of the kids parks had swing structures with no swings so he put up hundreds of real swings. They are interested in supporting cool things in an easy way. Dan is trying to build a TV show of the Awesome Foundation, with celebrities/artists/influencers each giving $1000 three times per episode, and people need to do the projects immediately on TV.

==Maldon, Australia==
It's not Melbourne - Maldon is about 150km out of Melbourne in rural Victoria and has about 1500 people. It took them 48 hours to get here! They're board directors of a community bank where all the profits go back to the community and part of those profits fund the trustees of Awesome Maldon. The chapter has been going since May. It's an elderly town and they were looking to fund more exciting things than golf/bowling. They funded a local artist and author that have written a book that will be published (targeted at the children in the community) that is whimsical with slight anti-bullying theme. They also funded some people come in to talk about governance.

==Montreal==
They are just under a year old, on their fifth grant. Montreal has 11 trustees and is a bilingual chapter - in French it's le foundation formidable. All materials are in both languages, applicants are equal. They're still trying to find a strong identity within the city. They're most interested in hearing about surprises people have had along the way. What elements of Awesome appeal to how people work? Is there one type of person/org applying? Is that good or bad? How do we define Awesome? Are we reaching our higher goals? They also invite everyone to visit Montreal.

==New York==
There are 7 people standing up! New York has about 8 more trustees. Everyone goes to New York, so tell their chapter when you do! They have been around for about two years now and were founded by someone who met Tim while interning at Harvard. Some of their favorite grants include laser tweezers and a house for two famous iguanas. A recent one was inspired by the number of acres of empty lots in Brooklyn - it allows people to identify events owner by the city to community organize for those lots.

==Ottawa==
Ottawa has been going about two years and just gave their 24th grant. Ottawa is a government town, so it's conservative, results-based, focused on metrics and reports, etc. (everyone boos). The best thing about the Awesome Foundation is that it's whimsical. The risk factor is high, but you get things you don't expect. It varies between "That's cool." or "I don't get that at all." but either way you're part of it. Yarn bombing a city bus is happening in September - a big bus covered in crocheted pieces.

==Pittsburgh==
The chapter was launched in October 2011. Initially they tried to reach outside of the tech community and are now a very diverse chapter. The city of Pittsburgh declared "Awesome Day". The chapter also uses a tiny micro novelty check (which turns out to be a terrible photo op). Grants include restoring public staircases and a puppet photo booth.

==Portland==
The founder took a road trip to Oklahoma City to visit in laws for Christmas and at 5am heard the distant fuzzy signal of NPR talking about the Awesome Foundation. She got to Oklahoma and immediately emailed Tim (sorry in laws!) about starting a chapter. They've given two grants so far, one for scholarships for kids to go to Farm Camp and one for a project called "Free the Billboards" to try to get rid of Billboards in Portland. They're setting up Viewmasters with images people would rather see than Billboards. They are hoping to figure out how to get more proposals for lunchtime dance party, and fewer for "daily maintenance cost".

==Providence==
Absent.

==Rio==
Luciano and Ana are here to represent. The Rio chapter has 12 trustees with 2 more to come, and others trying to join. Christian and Lee-Sean visited Rio. Once they started they had a huge newspaper coverage, but people misunderstood and applied for wild ideas, not for actual projects. They just funded their very first project last week, called Social Dojo - a concept from software development for role playing games.

==San Francisco==
The chapter was founded in March 2010 because Jesse talked to Boston about why there weren't women trustees. Trustees at the Summit include Mitch Altman who co-founded noise bridge and is a world traveler, George was a recent grant recipient and is now a trustee, Tim co-founder of AF, Greg recently joined after being a long time fan. There are 10 trustees, but there is a revolving door of trustees. At one point they tried to redesign the entire website on their own (they are psyched about the new website). AF SF has given 12-15 grants so far, including Little Opera, an afternoon program for 4th grade wrote and performed their own opera (about 4 minutes), impromptu natural history walks in urban neighborhoods in San Francisco, scents of San Francisco (they wanted to collect all the scents and make them to oil - they assumed it'd be like burrito, but now it's about wild flowers and taking longer than anticipated). They say that hacker spaces are a good place to draw for trustees/projects - [http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/ hackerspaces.org] lists all of them (a thousand!). A favorite grant is a room full of balloons that light up when you hit them.

==Seattle==
Seattle has been going for about a year now. There is a guest trustee program where people join for a month and a "How to be a Trustee" doc to ramp people up. The program works well for converting guest trustees to full trustees. Cool grants include a homeless shelter that works with youth to create safe sex kits that were user-centric designed to be more discreet and the Pop-Up Museum done by a museologist to make a more welcoming museum that wasn't as focused on the artifacts in it as the people visiting it. Seattle guest trustee Willow wants to put together a travel chapter.

==St. Petersburg==
St. Petersburg Florida, not Russia. The chapter started recently and they want to put together an Internet chapter.

==Sukhbaatar, Mongolia==
Travis was a peace corps volunteer who started the first TedX event in Mongolia. He started Awesome Mongolia to try to start chapters all over. They didn't think Awesome could be real. The chapter has two peace corps volunteers and eight Mongolians. Their first grant was a dental hygiene project. There isn't a word for Awesome in Mongolia. They're connected to prime minister/president and trying to explain and get support.

==Sydney==
Absent.

==Tampa Bay==
Tampa Bay has a twin cities thing with Tampa/St. Petersburg. Now they're a virus - also Awesome Tampa Bay Music (bands going on tour) and Awesome Tampa Bay Youth (people under 18). Hampton was doing a micro arts funding program for underground art - they didn't have any money, so created the World's Largest Dream Machine and took a motor from a cement mixer for $500. "Awesome - like the government's definition of porn - you know it when you see it." Hampton recently acquired the largest painting in the state of Florida, and is going to turn it into a slip n slide. Next summer at a place in Florida they're doing a 50th anniversary show of people in the water pretending to be mermaids. They are looking at funding underwater contemporary art performance.

==Toronto==
AF Toronto has awesome shirts. They got started in February 2011 and have given 18 grants. There are 17 trustees. The chapter was really inspired by the swings project. For the first grant there were 250+ apps, but now applications are dwindling, and the quality isn't awesome enough. They've funded a kissing map of Toronto, writing love letters on postcards for people in Toronto, the wall of tics (for individuals with Tourette syndrome), flamethrowers, cardboard forts, etc. One month they used the $1000 to do a project themselves, and wanted to do swings - but then they did a bad thing and asked the lawyer about the liabilities. They also really liked Connect the T dots - paint giant white dots on the top of buildings so when you looked from above there would be a picture. They put in a bid for Awesome Summit 2013!

==Washington DC==
The DC chapter has been running since Nov 2010. Their first grant was out of the Fab Lab - there was a group moving in a mobile lab, but they helped them move to a physical space. In their first month they got an application from the Smithsonian to fund a new position at the museum. They had a picnic with a jazz festival was held in a vacant lot in North DC that was known for drugs/violence and turned it into a concert every Saturday night. Now the festival is in its second year and they get emails about the neighborhood being transformed and messages like "my baby learned to clap at the event". They are going to turn an alley in DC into the scene from Indiana Jones with someone else inside the boulder trying to catch you. They launched with a big party called the Awesome Science Fair and invited about 3,000 people. Everyone had a booth and people could walk around and talk to projects and put tokens into a bucket. Everyone bought a $20 ticket and got tokens worth $1, but people ran out and started putting in cash. Other projects include a group that made an irrigation system and got funding from an actual angel investor. They are having a new party that will be "The Price is Awesome" with people doing live pitching with audience enabled granting.

Summit 2013

2012-07-22T17:27:38Z

Nkkl: /* Future planning */

{{TOC right}}

It's going to be so fun that we'll definitely want to do it again!

== Precedent (2012 Summit) ==

=== Attendee motivations ===
Why did people decide to attend Awesome Summit in the first place?
* cross-pollination/learning from others
* getting inspired
* curiosity

=== Purpose ===
Meta-Question: What's the purpose of the Awesome Summit? In fact, are we actually even an organisation or just an emergent entity based on some shared interests?

* do we need to have an annual one that incorporates as many people from all chapters as possible vs. regional events, some other models etc.
* based on a completely non-scientific and sub-optimal participatory process, seems like the general consensus of the discussion group feels that there should be another summit next year (roughly around this time of year)

=== Boston's process for 2012 ===
* started in Jan, but bulk of work to organize has been in the last 2 months leading up
** necessity of establishing venues and contracts at least half a year ahead of time however (MIT Media Lab booked in Dec)
* $25,000 in donations which certainly helped but should not expect to exist for all future summits
** also ticket sales for the public component of the summit
** 124 tickets sold for the public event this time round
* need to be aware that fewer people will generally be able to attend than desired or planned for
** $10,000 was used to subsidize travel for this summit
* the MIT Media lab was made available gratis, which was very helpful, otherwise would cost ~$1000/hour
* agenda was decided by fiat more or less by small group of people, major driving reason was just to get everyone together
* '''Need to establish a feedback mechanism for this summit to determine what people liked, disliked, would recommend'''

== Future planning ==

=== Goals of 2013 Awesome Summit ===
* get everyone together
* learning from each other
* making sure we're on the same page (or at least knowing such a page exists)
* celebrate getting to $1,000,000 total grants, as forecast by the data mining team
* recurring themes:
** helping with trustee turnover or expanding pool
** soliciting good applications/getting through application slumps)

=== Where's the AWESOME in these summits? ===
* leaving increased capacity behind in the city i.e. stronger proposals
* Awesome Connect--bringing together network or resources + applicants + award mega-grant
* invite former grantees
* storytelling
* disruptive philanthropy

=== Looking forward ===
Towards the future:
* IHAS can play a continuing role to seek sponsorship/funding for future summits
* point of connection for entrepreneurs that want to give back'''

=== Location ===
Deciding on a process for determining location (brainstorming)
* letter of intent?
** Boston's process

=== Decision-making process ===
* a lot of existing models have competing pitches presenting at the end of the current summit and then a decision is made there
* is it at the level of a vote per(active) chapters, per trustee, what?
* having a committee struck to help lead to a decision on venue
** would they decide by fiat, would they make a decision after a collaboratively decided short-list, vice versa?
** have the committee include a rep (or multiple reps) from each short-listed location
*** potential conflicts of interest that result from this
*** potential of the summit planning cannibalizing the vitality of the host chapter's standard activities

=== Summit Commitee ===
Creating a Summit Committee?
* <strike>separate from a committee to help decide the summit location</strike>
* help to ensure that the summit happens each year
* '''BUT''' do we want to duplicate the effort and resources required to have two separate committees?
** perhaps having a sub-committee that works to decide a location
* '''NEEDS:''' a group to determine location, a group to work on logistics, a group to work on programming/content; whether these be separate groups or sub-groups

=== Selection Process ===
1. Pitches made by interested chapters/locations
2. Mandatory submission of info to committee
3. Committee vets submissions and creates short-list of viable possibilities
4. Vote by active chapters based on the short-list
5. Committee takes the vote into consideration and then decides
6. Announcement of next year's location at the summit

=== Tentative Selection Timeline ===
* Application process opens
* Close of application process
* Vetting of applications by committee
* Deliberation by committee on short-list (Vetting)
* Submitting groups publish their "pitch page"/Voting begins
* Voting closes
* Announcement of location of summit

=== Pitches ===
The pitch should:
* demonstrate solidarity and commitment of chapter (or hosting group if it's a different body)
* demonstrate of strength of chapter and ability to execute
* mandatory submission component to committee to demonstrate that the capacity to implement exists
** form/questions to be designed by committee
* video or other excitement building pitch would be optional

=== Potential Criteria ===
* (or at least considerations)
* urban vs rural areas? environment that leads to retreat style or otherwise

=== Value of hosting a summit ===
* potential capacity building for the hosting group
* branding/marketing
* improve number/quality of submissions
* exposure
* potential collaborations and expanded network due to all of the above

=== ISSUES ===
* up till now Awesome XX:YY's have all been pretty ad-hoc groups; summits require much greater level of organization and dare-we-say, structure
* no particular failsafe on this right now, but that's okay--worst thing that happens is there's no summit that year
** is that actually okay? potential damage to brand/chapters/etc.
* this tentative process is, of course, a work in progress and subject to change due to good arguments (that could also be part of pitches, especially with regards to dates, etc.)
* an actual pre-defined agenda, or a structure by which participants can create large chunks of the agenda?
* looking towards the future, if IHAS wants to expand Awesomeness internationally in a major way, imperative to involve reps from international chapters as part of future Summit Commitees

== Resources ==
To be uploaded

[[category:Saturday]]
[[category:Summit 2013]]
[[category:Meta]

Summit 2013

2012-07-22T17:26:24Z

Nkkl: /* Why did people decide to attend Awesome Summit in the first place? */

{{TOC right}}

It's going to be so fun that we'll definitely want to do it again!

== Precedent (2012 Summit) ==

=== Attendee motivations ===
Why did people decide to attend Awesome Summit in the first place?
* cross-pollination/learning from others
* getting inspired
* curiosity

=== Purpose ===
Meta-Question: What's the purpose of the Awesome Summit? In fact, are we actually even an organisation or just an emergent entity based on some shared interests?

* do we need to have an annual one that incorporates as many people from all chapters as possible vs. regional events, some other models etc.
* based on a completely non-scientific and sub-optimal participatory process, seems like the general consensus of the discussion group feels that there should be another summit next year (roughly around this time of year)

=== Boston's process for 2012 ===
* started in Jan, but bulk of work to organize has been in the last 2 months leading up
** necessity of establishing venues and contracts at least half a year ahead of time however (MIT Media Lab booked in Dec)
* $25,000 in donations which certainly helped but should not expect to exist for all future summits
** also ticket sales for the public component of the summit
** 124 tickets sold for the public event this time round
* need to be aware that fewer people will generally be able to attend than desired or planned for
** $10,000 was used to subsidize travel for this summit
* the MIT Media lab was made available gratis, which was very helpful, otherwise would cost ~$1000/hour
* agenda was decided by fiat more or less by small group of people, major driving reason was just to get everyone together
* '''Need to establish a feedback mechanism for this summit to determine what people liked, disliked, would recommend'''

== Future planning ==

=== Goals of 2013 Awesome Summit ===
* get everyone together
* learning from each other
* making sure we're on the same page (or at least knowing such a page exists)
* celebrate getting to $1,000,000 total grants, as forecast by the data mining team
* recurring themes:
** helping with trustee turnover or expanding pool
** soliciting good applications/getting through application slumps)

=== Where's the AWESOME in these summits? ===
* leaving increased capacity behind in the city i.e. stronger proposals
* Awesome Connect--bringing together network or resources + applicants + award mega-grant
* invite former grantees
* storytelling
* disruptive philanthropy

=== Towards the future: ===
* IHAS can play a continuing role to seek sponsorship/funding for future summits
* point of connection for entrepreneurs that want to give back'''

=== Deciding on a process for determining location (brainstorming) ===
* letter of intent?
** Boston's process

=== Decision-making process ===
* a lot of existing models have competing pitches presenting at the end of the current summit and then a decision is made there
* is it at the level of a vote per(active) chapters, per trustee, what?
* having a committee struck to help lead to a decision on venue
** would they decide by fiat, would they make a decision after a collaboratively decided short-list, vice versa?
** have the committee include a rep (or multiple reps) from each short-listed location
*** potential conflicts of interest that result from this
*** potential of the summit planning cannibalizing the vitality of the host chapter's standard activities

=== Creating a Summit Committee? ===
* <strike>separate from a committee to help decide the summit location</strike>
* help to ensure that the summit happens each year
* '''BUT''' do we want to duplicate the effort and resources required to have two separate committees?
** perhaps having a sub-committee that works to decide a location
* '''NEEDS:''' a group to determine location, a group to work on logistics, a group to work on programming/content; whether these be separate groups or sub-groups

=== Selection Process ===
1. Pitches made by interested chapters/locations
2. Mandatory submission of info to committee
3. Committee vets submissions and creates short-list of viable possibilities
4. Vote by active chapters based on the short-list
5. Committee takes the vote into consideration and then decides
6. Announcement of next year's location at the summit

=== Tentative Selection Timeline ===
* Application process opens
* Close of application process
* Vetting of applications by committee
* Deliberation by committee on short-list (Vetting)
* Submitting groups publish their "pitch page"/Voting begins
* Voting closes
* Announcement of location of summit

=== Pitches ===
The pitch should:
* demonstrate solidarity and commitment of chapter (or hosting group if it's a different body)
* demonstrate of strength of chapter and ability to execute
* mandatory submission component to committee to demonstrate that the capacity to implement exists
** form/questions to be designed by committee
* video or other excitement building pitch would be optional

=== Potential Criteria ===
* (or at least considerations)
* urban vs rural areas? environment that leads to retreat style or otherwise

=== Value of hosting a summit ===
* potential capacity building for the hosting group
* branding/marketing
* improve number/quality of submissions
* exposure
* potential collaborations and expanded network due to all of the above

=== ISSUES ===
* up till now Awesome XX:YY's have all been pretty ad-hoc groups; summits require much greater level of organization and dare-we-say, structure
* no particular failsafe on this right now, but that's okay--worst thing that happens is there's no summit that year
** is that actually okay? potential damage to brand/chapters/etc.
* this tentative process is, of course, a work in progress and subject to change due to good arguments (that could also be part of pitches, especially with regards to dates, etc.)
* an actual pre-defined agenda, or a structure by which participants can create large chunks of the agenda?
* looking towards the future, if IHAS wants to expand Awesomeness internationally in a major way, imperative to involve reps from international chapters as part of future Summit Commitees

== Resources ==
To be uploaded

[[category:Saturday]]
[[category:Summit 2013]]
[[category:Meta]

Summit 2013

2012-07-22T17:25:52Z

Nkkl:

{{TOC right}}

It's going to be so fun that we'll definitely want to do it again!

== Precedent (2012 Summit) ==

=== Why did people decide to attend Awesome Summit in the first place? ===
* cross-pollination/learning from others
* getting inspired
* curiosity

=== Purpose ===
Meta-Question: What's the purpose of the Awesome Summit? In fact, are we actually even an organisation or just an emergent entity based on some shared interests?

* do we need to have an annual one that incorporates as many people from all chapters as possible vs. regional events, some other models etc.
* based on a completely non-scientific and sub-optimal participatory process, seems like the general consensus of the discussion group feels that there should be another summit next year (roughly around this time of year)

=== Boston's process for 2012 ===
* started in Jan, but bulk of work to organize has been in the last 2 months leading up
** necessity of establishing venues and contracts at least half a year ahead of time however (MIT Media Lab booked in Dec)
* $25,000 in donations which certainly helped but should not expect to exist for all future summits
** also ticket sales for the public component of the summit
** 124 tickets sold for the public event this time round
* need to be aware that fewer people will generally be able to attend than desired or planned for
** $10,000 was used to subsidize travel for this summit
* the MIT Media lab was made available gratis, which was very helpful, otherwise would cost ~$1000/hour
* agenda was decided by fiat more or less by small group of people, major driving reason was just to get everyone together
* '''Need to establish a feedback mechanism for this summit to determine what people liked, disliked, would recommend'''

== Future planning ==

=== Goals of 2013 Awesome Summit ===
* get everyone together
* learning from each other
* making sure we're on the same page (or at least knowing such a page exists)
* celebrate getting to $1,000,000 total grants, as forecast by the data mining team
* recurring themes:
** helping with trustee turnover or expanding pool
** soliciting good applications/getting through application slumps)

=== Where's the AWESOME in these summits? ===
* leaving increased capacity behind in the city i.e. stronger proposals
* Awesome Connect--bringing together network or resources + applicants + award mega-grant
* invite former grantees
* storytelling
* disruptive philanthropy

=== Towards the future: ===
* IHAS can play a continuing role to seek sponsorship/funding for future summits
* point of connection for entrepreneurs that want to give back'''

=== Deciding on a process for determining location (brainstorming) ===
* letter of intent?
** Boston's process

=== Decision-making process ===
* a lot of existing models have competing pitches presenting at the end of the current summit and then a decision is made there
* is it at the level of a vote per(active) chapters, per trustee, what?
* having a committee struck to help lead to a decision on venue
** would they decide by fiat, would they make a decision after a collaboratively decided short-list, vice versa?
** have the committee include a rep (or multiple reps) from each short-listed location
*** potential conflicts of interest that result from this
*** potential of the summit planning cannibalizing the vitality of the host chapter's standard activities

=== Creating a Summit Committee? ===
* <strike>separate from a committee to help decide the summit location</strike>
* help to ensure that the summit happens each year
* '''BUT''' do we want to duplicate the effort and resources required to have two separate committees?
** perhaps having a sub-committee that works to decide a location
* '''NEEDS:''' a group to determine location, a group to work on logistics, a group to work on programming/content; whether these be separate groups or sub-groups

=== Selection Process ===
1. Pitches made by interested chapters/locations
2. Mandatory submission of info to committee
3. Committee vets submissions and creates short-list of viable possibilities
4. Vote by active chapters based on the short-list
5. Committee takes the vote into consideration and then decides
6. Announcement of next year's location at the summit

=== Tentative Selection Timeline ===
* Application process opens
* Close of application process
* Vetting of applications by committee
* Deliberation by committee on short-list (Vetting)
* Submitting groups publish their "pitch page"/Voting begins
* Voting closes
* Announcement of location of summit

=== Pitches ===
The pitch should:
* demonstrate solidarity and commitment of chapter (or hosting group if it's a different body)
* demonstrate of strength of chapter and ability to execute
* mandatory submission component to committee to demonstrate that the capacity to implement exists
** form/questions to be designed by committee
* video or other excitement building pitch would be optional

=== Potential Criteria ===
* (or at least considerations)
* urban vs rural areas? environment that leads to retreat style or otherwise

=== Value of hosting a summit ===
* potential capacity building for the hosting group
* branding/marketing
* improve number/quality of submissions
* exposure
* potential collaborations and expanded network due to all of the above

=== ISSUES ===
* up till now Awesome XX:YY's have all been pretty ad-hoc groups; summits require much greater level of organization and dare-we-say, structure
* no particular failsafe on this right now, but that's okay--worst thing that happens is there's no summit that year
** is that actually okay? potential damage to brand/chapters/etc.
* this tentative process is, of course, a work in progress and subject to change due to good arguments (that could also be part of pitches, especially with regards to dates, etc.)
* an actual pre-defined agenda, or a structure by which participants can create large chunks of the agenda?
* looking towards the future, if IHAS wants to expand Awesomeness internationally in a major way, imperative to involve reps from international chapters as part of future Summit Commitees

== Resources ==
To be uploaded

[[category:Saturday]]
[[category:Summit 2013]]
[[category:Meta]

Dean Support Group

2012-07-22T17:14:57Z

Nkkl:

{{TOC right}}

* Other dean long term
* Chat dean title
* Tips and tools to keep track with trustees
* Maintaining engagement in trustees
* Setting up extra chapters
* Learning about starting
* Growing
* How to scope trustees to get involved and project ideas, share flow
* Communication
* Get more chapters created, spread the culture, get fully functional
* Engage on followup
* Work distribution
* How to vett people on the board
* How to get more deans

* Buddy system
* Email list
* Google docs
* Google group or Facebook group
* Conference calls, google moderator

[[category:Saturday]]
[[category:Operations]]

Grantee support

2012-07-22T15:49:39Z

Nkkl: /* Ideas */

{{TOC right}}

== Should we help? ==
* Every chapter makes their own choices
* Balance between no strings and helping people out
** Don't want to build expectations
* It builds more structures, how does it look and how do you execute on that is a concern
* In the long view you can create a portal where people (media, for example) will know to go look to for information
* Sometimes the bar for choosing an application is set very high
** The $1000 can act as a catalyst, take care of phase 1, but project might require more after that
** Grantees often seem to need access to more people, more resources, people turn to Kickstarter and Indiegogo
** Keep in mind that $1000 is a catalyst
* It goes on a chapter by chapter basis
* Erhardt: I keep thinking of this as a data problem, if we could expose the data about the projects other people could go through and look at the ideas, create a resource of awesome ideas
* We already blog and talk about them, publish information on them - maybe we could set up aggregation of that to spread the good projects

* If we signal that we are becoming an incubator, is that going to crowd out things that are one-time events
** Keep it optional
** Yes, but we have to walk that line gently
* Keep it simple, "we're not the f*cking Ford Foundation"
** If people don't want or need to be incubated, don't do that

== Things we do already ==
* Using trustees and past winners as a resource for grantees
** Grantee-alumni relationships and mentoring
** People are always super excited to do that, past grantees have always opted-in
* AF NY has had people opt-in to stay connected, but other people just disappear

* A lot of grantees aren't as tech-savvy as trustees, just telling them about Kickstarter and such is useful

* Is it a good idea to say up front what resources are available? Could it become an obligation?
** Not in SF, "they drive the show", "we're here to help" but they are under no obligation

* Difference between local support and global support
** Adopting ideas from other chapters, if it's easy to re-create or share (so re-creating the results of a past project from another chapter)

* Toronto does a lot of networking and peer-to-peer connections

* Managing our involvement
** Toronto, for example, doesn't want to overburden themselves
** Seattle does it on an opt-in, one trustee does it for each grant, basis to provide support that is tailored to the project while keeping the burden on trustees low

=== Alternative practices ===
* Does anyone do a thing where they select a runner-up and work with them in some way?
** In Boston, there is a shortlist every month and often times there is a person who just needs a connection or a Kickstarter or something
** SF does the same
* Give them feedback, advice, connections

* Spreading ideas from other places, looking at other chapters
** SF finds inspiring projects from the general world and passes them around the list

* Does anyone give advice or guidance/feedback to ideas?
** Is it right to tell them how to change their ideas?
** Difference between manipulating projects and trying to give useful feedback
** Does that make people feel obligated to do things?
* Difference between doing this with grantees vs. people who don't get funded
* The feedback can be really helpful to people
* There is a big difference between sharing the opinions of an individual vs. sharing opinions as a chapter

== Things grantees might need ==
* Timing is an issue too - support/engagement during project vs. help afterwards
* Coaching on ideas/communication
* Connecting people to a network
* Global network of recipients, could make it an even bigger opportunity than $1000
* Initially in NY, just helped by throwing a big party and trying to get press for people with good ideas
** $1000 is great, but trustees' connections can be a much bigger contribution
* Pittsburgh added a question asking if it would be ok to promote a project, even if not funded, or refer to other organizations
** So far everyone says yes

== Ideas ==
* An aggregation of "projects we love" a la Kickstarter
** Boston has a tumblr of awesome projects, could become a collaborative project between chapters
** People like this
** Erhardt will own looking into this
* What if trustees could "like" projects on the AF site and go through periodically and highlight the top choices?

* Sending out a template to winner and runners up with information and resources and connections to network
** If we take it upon ourselves, we may lapse

* International office hours
* Facebook group for grantees

* Awesome event calendar

=== Awesome Hours ===
* Not everyone is tech-savvy, we should think more about how to support people especially with more chapters starting in developing areas
* Awesome Hours might be a really good solution to this
** Boston has these, just gets together and helps people workshop ideas
** Past winners have come as well, which is nice
** Seattle wants to start doing these
** Important to keep a friendly, open environment
* Overall people think Office Hours has the potential to grow into something really big
* This is ''community'' and helps ideas grow and spread, then we just have to be catalysts

[[category:Sunday]]
[[category:Operations]]

Grantee support

2012-07-22T15:45:23Z

Nkkl:

{{TOC right}}

== Should we help? ==
* Every chapter makes their own choices
* Balance between no strings and helping people out
** Don't want to build expectations
* It builds more structures, how does it look and how do you execute on that is a concern
* In the long view you can create a portal where people (media, for example) will know to go look to for information
* Sometimes the bar for choosing an application is set very high
** The $1000 can act as a catalyst, take care of phase 1, but project might require more after that
** Grantees often seem to need access to more people, more resources, people turn to Kickstarter and Indiegogo
** Keep in mind that $1000 is a catalyst
* It goes on a chapter by chapter basis
* Erhardt: I keep thinking of this as a data problem, if we could expose the data about the projects other people could go through and look at the ideas, create a resource of awesome ideas
* We already blog and talk about them, publish information on them - maybe we could set up aggregation of that to spread the good projects

* If we signal that we are becoming an incubator, is that going to crowd out things that are one-time events
** Keep it optional
** Yes, but we have to walk that line gently
* Keep it simple, "we're not the f*cking Ford Foundation"
** If people don't want or need to be incubated, don't do that

== Things we do already ==
* Using trustees and past winners as a resource for grantees
** Grantee-alumni relationships and mentoring
** People are always super excited to do that, past grantees have always opted-in
* AF NY has had people opt-in to stay connected, but other people just disappear

* A lot of grantees aren't as tech-savvy as trustees, just telling them about Kickstarter and such is useful

* Is it a good idea to say up front what resources are available? Could it become an obligation?
** Not in SF, "they drive the show", "we're here to help" but they are under no obligation

* Difference between local support and global support
** Adopting ideas from other chapters, if it's easy to re-create or share (so re-creating the results of a past project from another chapter)

* Toronto does a lot of networking and peer-to-peer connections

* Managing our involvement
** Toronto, for example, doesn't want to overburden themselves
** Seattle does it on an opt-in, one trustee does it for each grant, basis to provide support that is tailored to the project while keeping the burden on trustees low

=== Alternative practices ===
* Does anyone do a thing where they select a runner-up and work with them in some way?
** In Boston, there is a shortlist every month and often times there is a person who just needs a connection or a Kickstarter or something
** SF does the same
* Give them feedback, advice, connections

* Spreading ideas from other places, looking at other chapters
** SF finds inspiring projects from the general world and passes them around the list

* Does anyone give advice or guidance/feedback to ideas?
** Is it right to tell them how to change their ideas?
** Difference between manipulating projects and trying to give useful feedback
** Does that make people feel obligated to do things?
* Difference between doing this with grantees vs. people who don't get funded
* The feedback can be really helpful to people
* There is a big difference between sharing the opinions of an individual vs. sharing opinions as a chapter

== Things grantees might need ==
* Timing is an issue too - support/engagement during project vs. help afterwards
* Coaching on ideas/communication
* Connecting people to a network
* Global network of recipients, could make it an even bigger opportunity than $1000
* Initially in NY, just helped by throwing a big party and trying to get press for people with good ideas
** $1000 is great, but trustees' connections can be a much bigger contribution
* Pittsburgh added a question asking if it would be ok to promote a project, even if not funded, or refer to other organizations
** So far everyone says yes

== Ideas ==
* An aggregation of "projects we love" a la Kickstarter
** Boston has a tumblr of awesome projects, could become a collaborative project between chapters
** People like this
** Erhardt will own looking into this
* What if trustees could "like" projects on the AF site and go through periodically and highlight the top choices?

* Sending out a template to winner and runners up with information and resources and connections to network
** If we take it upon ourselves, we may lapse

* International office hours
* Facebook group for grantees

=== Awesome Hours ===
* Not everyone is tech-savvy, we should think more about how to support people especially with more chapters starting in developing areas
* Awesome Hours might be a really good solution to this
** Boston has these, just gets together and helps people workshop ideas
** Past winners have come as well, which is nice
** Seattle wants to start doing these
** Important to keep a friendly, open environment
* Overall people think Office Hours has the potential to grow into something really big
* This is ''community'' and helps ideas grow and spread, then we just have to be catalysts

[[category:Sunday]]
[[category:Operations]]

State of the Awesome

2012-07-21T21:36:10Z

Nkkl:

{{TOC right}}

== The current state of the Awesome ==
Goal: Better aggregate all of the information available. This was explicitly called out as an issue. Seriously, we don't even know how many chapters are there (definitively between 30 and 47. we think.)

1. What is the Awesome Foundation? (What is the big picture?)

2. How are chapters different? How they are similar?

3. How do we define "Awesome"? (This is what an Awesome project is.)

AF Founded, hits 100 application month.

Three months later, second/third chapter.

1000 application mark.

Gave away $10,000 by mid-2010.

International presence/ first European chapter (London).

IHAS (2011).

first Australian chapter (Melbourne).

$100,000 mark

10,00 apps received

Dollars funded over time continues going up over time- exponentially. If we keep going at the current rate, we'll give away $1,000,000 by Aug. 2013.
We like funding: cost specifics, materials, food.

What data to we collect? Organizational, chapter, trustee, attempted chapters, application/applicant -- what our project completion rate is / and timeline for projects finishing.

Definitive short term goals: Definitive list of chapters w/ founding dates, clean the data we have and fill in holes, launch a survey of trustees, begin work on capturing AF impact beyond $.

How can I help? We're having a working session from 2-4. Join our team, volunteer to help with qualitative work, become a point-person for chapter data questions, encourage your chapter to submit to IHAS.

== Moving forward ==
What is awesome from the grants?

=== Defining Awesome ===

* Add your chapter to the [[list of chapters]] - then add in some information about it.
* [[Awesome|What is awesome]]? Update this page with what you think is awesome

[[category:Saturday]]
[[category:About the AF]]
[[category:Meta]]