Live notes from the intro session to the Awesome Summit, by Rahul Bhargava and Ethan Zuckerman
Christina Xu welcomes a varied and enthusiastic crew to the Awesome Summit at MIT's Media Lab. For two days, the trustees of various different Awesome Foundations have been meeting to discuss internal affairs. Today, the conversation opens up to the general public, where the topic at hand is the future of philanthropy and social change.
Awesome Foundation is now three years old. The pink "fast forward" logo, designed by founder Tim Hwang, is a really good example of organizational philosophy. It is created by simply typing 8 in the Webdings font. Awesome Foundation is all about having a great idea. People may not be the most professional at it - but they just do it.
The "standard" model is to involve a group of 10 trustees, each of whom contributes $100 per month. The group gives out a $1000 monthly grant, with no strings attached. Some examples of recent grants include: