Awesummit2014:Better Applications

Suggestions from Kingston: I. $1 million mark: that’s a story II. awesomefoundation.org III. local newspaper, TV, radio IV. radio: goes on air – what pitch is going to be about V. animation – short video. Each country makes their own video. Video can be generic (to avoid language barriers)

Terry (Orlando): workshop or inspiration shop Jeffrey (Seattle): have been discussing. Hasn’t happened yet. Hackathon weekend. Develop ideas that could be awesome projects. Partner with hacker groups. Collaborating with local organizations. 3 ideas to throw on table (Tina, Kingston): 1) To inspire the type of projects they wanted to get. pitch party – trustees pitch ideas. Did decision-making process in front of audience – show applicants and potential trustees and others how process works. 2) Ideas jar instead of a pitch.

Jerusalem: trustees advocate for the idea they like. Build consensus based on that. Ottawa: Good ideas generally come from other cool people that trustees know.

WHAT ARE PROBLEMS WITH APPLICATIONS?: - not having enough applications to choose from - not often an amazing standout application - too much from already-established organizations or charitable donations

Myopic. Same projects over and over again.

ANY filter: encourage more chapters to look through this.

If nothing great comes through: roll over to next month. Awesome hours.

Sarnia: pitch parties. Not on a regular cycle. If they don’t have enough, cancel it.

Ask: “What is the problem that this is a solution to?” to get people think more. It would generate different ideas.

Identify a problem in your city. Something that’s missing. Come up with a solution together.

Pitch Parties: (Kingston) rotate spaces. Drive new audiences to spaces.

Celebrity hosts - MC events Media personality gets interested

Presentations: - to tech meetups - student / university groups or leaders - hack days - co-working spaces - creative mornings (seattle did this) - pecha kucha

Trustees from diverse backgrounds – bring in own groups to the meeting

Kids pitches – even if youth can’t do it themselves, submit ideas and chapters helps make it happen

Sarnia: hosted pitch party during festival of good things. Vote by audience applause.

Filter up “best stories” – share awesome projects as inspiration. Share daily awesomeness – daily dose of awesome. Subscribe.

Orlando: One-year anniversary party. Presentations.

End of the year pecha kucha style public presentation from previous grantees to inspire?

Getting the Awesome name out there: produce and give one-pager or booklet to grantees – here’s how you can promote your project – reference Awesome Foundation (how to leverage your awesome foundation grant etc).

Orlando: Project list to trustees – with all projects, updates on projects. Sometimes share with other grantees as well.

WHY NOT? - is it that people don’t understand what the values of awesome foundation are? Or - there aren’t enough people doing “awesome” projects??

DEFINING AWESOME Kingston: Did a video with each of the trustees defining what awesome means to them. Awesome Seattle: website – no set rules but like things that are possible, projects that are not incremental, local, visible and have a clear community benefit, run by individual people not existing organizations. Make us stop in our tracks and say WOH that’s awesome. - How to communicate these as values?

Send some personal email to projects that we feel could be awesome if improved upon, or offer another way to support them (share their kickstarter, connect them with someone)

There’s a kickstarter awesome page!! To provide additional promotion and funding.

Mentoring for projects that don’t get selected.