The following post is from the beautifully articulated TBD email by All Day Buffet.

Throughout the decades, one word has lasted to describe the unadulterated creative capacity of humanity: awesome. In a world increasingly overrun by the mundane, ordinary, and co-opted, who will defend the legacy of this essential quality?

The Awesome Foundation for Arts and Sciences awards a monthly $1,000 grant to projects “that support the interest of creating Awesome in the universe.” It’s a community organization, funded completely privately by micro-trustees around the country; payment comes in the form of cash, check, or gold doubloons.

The creators saw people with amazing ideas twisting and contorting them to conform to a grant system that devours creativity (and spirits) along the way. To combat this, the Foundation’s application takes ten minutes, and the only criterion is — you guessed it — awesomeness. Their approach offers much-needed support to small-but-genius projects. It’s also an expanding experiment in democratizing philanthropy: micro-trustees have now sprung up in London, San Francisco, New York City, Providence, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Austin.

But what IS awesome? From the Foundation: “Awesome creations are novel and non-obvious, evoking surprise and delight. Invariably, something about them perfectly reflects the essence of the medium, moment, or method of creation. Awesomeness challenges and inspires.”

Contributor Profile: Guest Author

Twitter: @SocialEarth

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