About Us

We love funding projects that make Sydney more awesome.

The Awesome Foundation is a global network of micro-giving chapters that give $1,000 of their own money every month to awesome projects. We're the Sydney chapter!
We fund out-there ideas that make Sydney more awesome. The ideas sometimes aren't so absurd: they can be super sensible, too. The catch? There isn’t one: there are no strings attached.
Since our foundation in 2011, the Sydney chapter has received more than 1,600 micro-grant applications and given away over $100,000. We also helped put on the first-ever Australian Awesome Summit. That's a whole lot of awesome.

Tips for your application:

There aren’t any rules, but we suggest that you read through our guide to give your grant the best chance at being funded.

1) We have a preference to fund applications that:

• Make us say ‘that’s awesome!’
• Clearly show us how you will spend the $1,000 - here's an example of a grant recipient with a great itemised budget breakdown
• $1,000 will be the “make it happen” or tipping point of the project going forward
• Make Sydney more awesome - this can mean being more inclusive, creative, safe, exciting, more interactive… you can define what is awesome!

2) Things we do not fund:

Exceptions are made, but we tend to prefer to fund projects that do not include:
• Marketing/advertising: we won’t fund digital campaigns or your publicity spend. We understand design work needs to be done, flyers need to be printed and passed around, but this should be a line-item, not the whole project cost we are funding
• Websites/apps: we will fund great work made possible/accessible through technology, but we’re not a fan of funding website updates, app builds, or features for your e-commerce store
• Subscriptions, insurance and similar: we understand that these can be essential, but we aren’t a business-setup grant fund, and as such, we are unlikely to fund applications that include these items
• Salaries: we value the contribution of good humans to good projects, we do. We have funded costs for artist work, but we are more likely to fund costs like creative materials, participation fees, space hire, etc.
• Prizes or travel: As exciting as both of these are, these are not funded via our grant applications. This includes reimbursing volunteers for travel costs, prizes for participation, raffle prizes, etc. We may consider funding group travel for students to an art exhibition, but we will not fund your ticket to the Toronto Film Festival, sorry.

3) Budgets are important!

Often when we are deciding between two projects to fund, we lean toward the project with the clear budget. Why? It gives us an indication that the project is likely to go through and the project and funding will be managed thoughtfully. We want to fund your awesome idea, so make sure you let us know exactly what we’re funding. Check out a great budget example.

Application deadline

Applications close at 6.30pm on the first Tuesday of every month (but do check our Facebook in case we move the deadline a day or two).

Join Awesome Foundation Sydney

We’d love to hear from you. Express interest in joining as a Trustee and we’ll be in touch when a spot opens.

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