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Next grant deadline: November 19, 2023

Applications after that date will be considered in the following cycle in January 2024.

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.