Portland, OR
Portland Songwriters Guild: Holiday Hits
By Sam Pinkerton September 2024A Walk through Winter Wonderland
By Erika Schnatz September 2024The OK Challenge: A youth-led wellness movement
By Kathleen Lane July 2024The Banana Pitch Show
By Michelle A Kicherer July 2024H.O.P.E. (Honoring Our Precious Elders)
By Hen V Truong March 2024Hygiene for the homeless
By DC Bonavoglia March 2024WeBike Camping Trips
By Madi Carlson January 2024Selam Sunday
By Edom Daniel and Bethy Temelso November 2023Call Bubbie
By Bee Sheeler September 2023Pack Is Here
By Sosha Belle May 2023The Weary Wanderers Waystation
By Jenka Soderberg March 2023Push Movement
By Stevie Moe January 2023Kolyada: Slavic winter festival
By Astra Davalos November 2022Expressing Identity Through Self-Portrait
By Caleb Bourgeois November 2022BIPOC Book Fair
By K Tempest Bradford September 2022The Grand Diwali Musical
By Preeti Rao September 2022Hygiene 4 All Mural
By Dr. Sandra Comstock July 2022Petals and Thorns: A Spoken Word Journey
By La Toya A. Hampton aka The Poet Lady Rose July 2022мазанка (mazanka)
By Master Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr. March 2022Free English Classes - Afghan Refugee Community
By Lauren Esula, Fund Specialist with Torus January 2022Unity in Diversity: Community Dance Project
By Prashant Kakad January 2022Porch Pickles
By Theresa Q. Tran November 2021Sky Exchange II
By Brittany Vega September 2021Portraits of Them
By Holly Haney July 2021Community Art Night
By Tosha Sketo July 2021On the Inside book project
By Nikki Weaver May 2021BIPOC in Portland
By Humaira Tasneem May 2021RISE & ROLL Open Air Roller Disco
By William Best March 2021Blooming Portland
By Aubrey Russell January 2021Escuela Viva community mural
By Stephanie Renfro September 2020Black Futures Farm
By Malcolm Hoover July 2020Pedalpalooza
By Meghan Sinnott March 2020Colors of MS
By Lindsey Holcomb January 2020Mississippi Street Farm Stand Market
By Rachelle Dixon November 2019Greenhouse startup
By Michaela Freeby September 2019Roots and Beats Project
By Stephanie Collier September 2019Wooden Cutout Scavenger Hunts
By Mike Bennett August 2019Miss Anthology
By Emily Lewis May 2019Nat Turner Project: Drinking Gourd Fellowship
By Melanie Stevens May 2019OurBrella
By Colin Platt March 2019PPS Public Art Initiative
By Ronnie Lawton March 2019Paper Flower Installation at PDX
By Jessica Pezalla January 2019Learn to Build!
By Josh Jannusch November 2018Podcasting Program
By Levi Eads September 2018Domino Tournament in Dawson Park
By Jessica Rojas August 2018KB's Poise Parlor
By Lakeesha C Wallace July 2018Handmade Stories
By Arcadia Trueheart May 2018Finders Creatures
By Phoenix McNamara March 2018Brain Storm
By Sarah Vitak January 2018Hallway of 1,000 Cranes: An Interactve Display
By Amelia Ralston-Okabayashi November 2017Madison 34
By Christian Gabriel September 2017Young Gifted Artists
By Mulu Habtemariam August 2017Curious Ear
By Jocelyn Brady June 2017Nightingale
By Sana A Goldberg January 2017Puzzled Pint 2017
By Puzzled Pint Game Control November 2016Cat Traps for Clackamas County
By Kate Northington November 2016Making On-Demand Animal Law CLEs Accessible
By Kate Fechter November 2016Project POOCH, Inc.
By Joan Dalton November 2016Spaceness 2017
By Alison J Cole October 2016Youth Making a Change Screen-Printing Series
By Jennifer Phung September 2016Barter Market
By Andrea Lim August 2016The Johnson Creek College
By Kristina Dutton July 2016Cypher CURE
By Quincy Davis June 2016Parking Strips for Pollinators
By Sherrie Pelsma June 2016The Portland 'Puggy' Bank
By Heather Hawkins April 2016We Work We Win
By Steffannie Roache February 2016Taylor Electric Retrospective
By Portland Street Art Alliance [Tiffany Conklin + Tomas Valladares] January 2016The Numbers Community Studio
By Aaron Ornelas-Montes December 2015Teaching playwriting in MacLaren Correctional
By Francesca Piantadosi September 2015Portland Underground Grad School
By Douglas Tsoi August 2015Forest For The Trees
By Gage Hamilton May 2015The Incredibly Short Film Festival
By Chris and Eddie barnhart April 2015King School Neighborhood Museum
By Lisa Jarrett March 2015No Really, We Want You to Laugh
By Dave Mowry January 2015The Abundance Project
By Oh Prema / Sweethome Teacup January 2015Dignity Village Computer Lab + Storage Shed
By Katie Mays, from Dignity Village January 2015East Portland Bike Oasis
By Larry Kotan November 2014Futel
By Karl Anderson October 2014Diode Gallery for Electric Art - TUIO Jam
By Josh Michaels August 2014Street Books
By Laura Moulton June 2014Shrink Circuits Nomad Lab
By Travis Feldman April 2014Youth-Empowering Sewing (YES) (working title)
By Sarah Dee Ditson March 2014Dreamland
By Amy Conway November 2013Billboards O'Joy!
By Michele McKeag Larsen September 2013Piano! Push Play!
By Megan McGeorge August 2013XRAY.FM
By Jeff Hylton Simmons May 2013Super Hero Awakening Campaign
By Renee Mitchell March 2013The Gift that keeps on Giving (2.0)
By Sam Smith March 2013LoveBomb Go-Go Marching Band
By Jason Mauer January 2013Farmworker Struggle Mural
By Ranfis Villatoro November 2012The Old Apple Tree
By Farm School (Nolan Calisch and Molly Sherman) September 2012Free the Billboards!
By Nina Maria Montenegro July 2012Schoolyard Farms
By Courtney Leeds May 2012About Us
2024 grant deadlines:
- January 15
- March 17
- May 19
- July 14
- September 15
- November 10
How we work
Awesome Foundation Portland is made up of awesome individuals just like you who want to see Portland become even awesomer than it already is! We award a $1,000 grant every other month to a group or individual who is making an impact in our community.
We select five finalists from all applications and invite them to pitch their project in person or by video call. Trustees have a chance to ask questions, secret themselves away to vote, and then award the grant on the spot.
What we fund:
- Projects in the Portland, Oregon area. We will consider ideas from other areas in Oregon as well but keep in mind that this is the Portland Chapter. We are looking for projects that will make Portland Awesomer!
- We will consider all causes including art, culture, community, environment, animal welfare, human rights, diversity, & community events.
- Projects with a clear demonstration on how it will impact the Portland community.
What we don’t fund:
- Individuals and personal individual projects – this means funds for rent and bills, travel, or business start-up funds.
- Individual education/trainings
- General operating funds for nonprofits.
Additional tips
- Be sure to detail how your project will make Portland more awesome.
- Detail how you will spend $1,000. Project budgets are encouraged.
- Provide as many details as you can. Where will this project be located? Is it city-wide or in a specific neighborhood?
We prefer to fund projects that will make a difference, that demonstrate the ability to deliver, and where our $1,000 make a difference. We prefer applicants who are not able to acquire funds through more traditional funding streams because they are individuals or groups without non-profit status, completely new ideas that do not necessarily fit within other grant opportunities, and that are based on equity and inclusion.
Questions? Email us at info@awesomeportland.org.
Join us as an Awesome Portland trustee!
What’s a trustee? We’re glad you asked! Becoming a trustee is a low time-commitment, non-bureaucratic, and easy way to make a big difference. You get to decide where your funds go.
Contribution: Commit $100 every other month in the interest of awesome.
Participation: Help us review applications and decide who gets our $1,000 every other month and attend a total of 3 meetings every other month. Those are the basics, but if you want to do a little more, you can volunteer to help with the small amount of administrative and program growth work that we do. Due to COVID concerns, we’ve been meeting virtually since March 2020 — you don’t even have to take off your pajamas.
What's the time commitment?
While we prefer it, we do not require that trustees participate in all 6 funding cycles. If you want to talk about how you would be comfortable participating, we definitely want to hear from you!
Each cycle, we have 3 meetings:
- In the non-grant month, we hold a general business meeting.
- In the grant month, we have a meeting to decide which projects will be the 5 finalists.
- Next, we hold a meeting where the finalists to give a 3-minute presentation and answer our questions. We then go into a private room and vote. The project with the most votes is the winner!
Interested?
Sound like fun? Tell us a little about yourself...
A trustee will email or give you a call to give you background on our group.