Portland group's direct funding project is an Awesome idea

There's a new model of charitable giving in Portland, and it's more direct, collaborative and zany than any of the options you might have checked on your tax return.

Awesome Portland, the newly formed local branch of the national Awesome Foundation, aims to promote all things, well, awesome in the Rose City.

"The motto is that we'll fund flame-throwers," says Awesome Portland founder Leslie Rodgers, 39, a social worker in the Hillsboro School District. "We want to do things that are good, but we also want those things to be fun."

The group is composed of 12 trustees who each donate $100 every other month to fund bimonthly $1,000 grants. But unlike your typical local charity, Awesome Portland's grants aren't geared toward specific do-gooder causes like river restoration or food banks.

Unless, of course, there's something particularly nifty about a specific river cleanup or food bank. More often, the money goes to projects that fit Portland's quirky, outdoorsy, artsy ethos.

Finding Portland
The Awesome Foundation spent two years spreading to cities across America and internationally before arriving in Portland.

It began in Boston in 2009, when then-22-year-old Tim Hwang and a group of friends decided to pool $100 each to fund a cool, small-scale giving endeavor in their community.

"There was no sense that we would expand to a city outside Boston, or even that we would be doing it more than one month," Hwang says. "When we got the news our second chapter in Mongolia is started, my mind was kind of blown."

Today, there are 66 Awesome chapters in 12 countries, with new chapters emerging nearly every month. The fervor spread to Portland by way of Interstate 84 to Oklahoma, where Rodgers was driving late at night on Christmas Eve 2011, listening to talk radio. A news bit highlighted the Awesome Foundation among a group of unusual charities.

"I thought it was about the coolest thing I'd ever heard," Rodgers says.

She was surprised to find the Rose City had no Awesome group, and set out to assemble one with co-founder Deidre DeMeritt. Five months later, Rodgers and her 11 fellow trustees awarded their first grant to School Yard Farms, a project to teach kids about sustainable agriculture.

A new model
The Awesome Foundation's appeal, members say, isn't just its creative, collaborative approach to philanthropy. It's also the expediency with which grant-seekers can apply for funds, get selected and implement their vision.

The application process is simple. Just tell the foundation what you'll do with the grant. The winner is democratically selected by a vote. If trustees like your idea best, the money is yours.

"Often when you apply for grant funding, the funder has a very particular mission fund-seekers must align with," Hwang says. "This is no strings attached."

The grants are simply meant to encourage well-meaning folks to go out and do. And in turn, trustees say, community-building happens.

"All of the trustees have a slightly different vision of what they think Awesome Portland represents," says trustee Adam Zucker, 38.

As a result, grant-winners range in focus from environmental projects and philanthropy to visual and performance arts.

Finding fun
Nina Montenegro used the $1,000 Awesome Portland grant she won in July to install her socially conscious art project, Free the Billboards, on street corners throughout the city.

"I wanted to re-envision our public spaces without advertisements," she says.

Montenegro asked people to submit drawings and photographs, then shrunk their images down and installed them into Viewmasters affixed to poles on the sidewalk. The eyepieces were aligned with nearby billboards so passers-by could look through the Viewmasters and see the billboards as public art, rather than eyesores.

LoveBomb Go-Go Marching Band spent its grant money on wireless-capable microphones to make their stage performance more interactive.

Other winners have included an effort to take cuttings from the Northwest's oldest apple tree, and one to commission an outdoor mural recognizing the struggle of farmworkers in Woodburn.

Trustee Alexsandra Stewart, 75, says Awesome Portland's focus on promoting joy and creativity is just as essential as more traditional philanthropy.

"I contribute to the Komen Foundation and volunteer at the farmers market and make traditional charitable contributions, and that's fine," Stewart says. "But it is the direct giving to something creative, encouraging people to think outside the box, that makes (Awesome Portland) worthwhile."

Getting more Awesome
Just as Portland's group matures, the international reach of Awesome continues to expand.

Hwang, the original trustee from the first group in Boston, says the Awesome Foundation's model is catching on. He recently met with members of a local group who plan to use Awesome's model of direct, out-of-pocket monthly donations to fund a writer's work for several months, effectively creating a reading club that commissions its own books.

Members of Portland's fledgling Awesome outpost also hope to increase their impact this year.

Rodgers says the group will seek nonprofit status in hopes of attracting donors with tax-deductible donations. Donations of any amount are always welcome, but spots on the board are limited and require long-term commitments of money and time. To make a donation or inquire about becoming a trustee, email the group.

Ideally the 12-member board will grow, potentially splitting into two boards to enable a grant every month.

The group is saving up excess funds to eventually dole out one mega-grant of $10,000.

Meanwhile, LoveBomb Go-Go's members are hoping to arrange a free public performance in downtown Portland on April 26. Former Mayor Sam Adams declared that date a city-wide holiday -- "Awesome Day" -- last year.

"That's what the Awesome Foundation is about," band member Bhajan Kester says. "Providing a little bit of funding to help projects get off the ground and enrich the world." --Kelly House