Sept 12 | Deadline to apply for next $1,000 Awesome Foundation Grant
Have an idea to make DC more awesome? Watch this grant applicant guide, read our example grant guide, and apply for a $1,000 grant!
(Fysa, upcoming future monthly grant deadlines: October 24th, December 3rd.)
What is Awesome Foundation DC?
We are a giving circle collective of DC residents who help fund a wide spectrum of amazing arts, culture, and community experiences, ranging from the founding Funk Parade to the Indiana Jones and The Alley of Doom to seed-bombing Capitol Hill to DC Bike Party's Sound Bike to Hand-Dancing, a DC-originated style of Swing dancing to skateboarding Santa Clauses to recycled flower arrangements for senior centers, community groups and low-income housing to community hackathons to youth literacy programs at local laundromats to community gardens to human-dog communication training workshops to Floor Charts tracking Congressional charts (so DC!).
We are entirely volunteer-run and self-funded from Trustees and use the following four evaluation criteria for funding projects that help the city of Washington DC be more awesome. Any grant applicant should answer and address these four areas:
#1 - Is it awesome? (Is it unique? Interesting? Impactful? There's all sorts of types of awesome.)
#2 - Does it directly benefit the city of Washington DC? (We put heavy weight on supporting our tiny city/state and the awesomeness within. Fyi, there are Awesome North Virginia and Baltimore chapters, so if your project is focused on those regions you might consider applying there.)
#3 - Will $1,000 make an actual impact? (Some organizations are super-well funded so we focus on helping individuals and small groups to fund new, small but mighty projects that $1,000 will actually make a difference.)
#4 - Is it immediately actionable? (Similar to the actual impact, we heavily prefer projects that are a month or two away, so that the money can create immediate awesome impact in the community. If your project is a year away, wait to apply for a better chance at getting the grant.)