The Downlow

The Awesome Foundation isn’t your average foundation. We’re not a charity or a not-for-profit. We’re a group of local citizens who simply believe that the world, and specifically our city, needs more awesome. And we’re opening our own wallets to help Haligonians make that happen.

In total, there are 30 of us. Together, we are the Trustees of Awesome. Every month 10 Trustees get together and chip in $100 to form a grant of $1,000. Our groups of 10 rotate every month so that each of us gets to help make awesome happen four times a year.

Defining Awesome

So what exactly constitutes awesome? Truthfully…we don’t really know. That’s partly what makes this Foundation so great. But there is some general criteria that we’ve come up with to help define it. For us, awesome ideas have all or some combination of the following qualities. They are:

1. Memorable
2. Random/unexpected/out of the norm
3. Positive or will yield positive outcomes
4. Unique or take a unique twist on something common
5. Smile-worthy (the idea makes many people smile)
6. Awesome for more than just you
7. Worthy of the statement “Yes! That’s awesome!”