April showers got you down?  Re-energize with Awesome Kingston’s April Pitch Party and Awesome Hours!  Come out to the RCHA at 6:30PM on Thursday, 18 April and see what cool new ideas want a $1,000 microgrant to make our city even more awesome.  RSVP on the Facebook Event so we know how many people are going to be partying with us on the 18th!   Never been before? No worries! It’s really simple and rather informal. Every month, people apply to the Awesome Foundation for a microgrant. We select the ones that we think are the most awesome for the month and invite them to give an ‘elevator pitch’ to the audience, for which they have 90 seconds. Following that, they take 7 minutes of Q&A from the audience. Once all the pitches have presented, the ten trustees go and “scrum” – or, decide who walks away with the cash this month. It’s not only a free, fun, and inspiring event, it’s also a great place to meet and network with Kingstonians who are passionate about community and the continual improvement of our city. Invite your friends and come on out to the RCHA by 6:30PM to grab a drink and mingle before the pitches… read more →

March has some great days like Pi Day and the Ides of March, but the most awesome of them all is pitch night! Come out to Lone Star at 6:30PM on Thursday, 21 March and see what projects want $1,000 cash to make Kingston an even more awesome place.  Lone Star is generously waiving the requirements for us to rent the upstairs space, so if you don’t already have dinner plans, we invite you to come have supper there beforehand!  RSVP on the Facebook Event so we know you’re coming – it’s free and open to all.   If you’ve never been out to a pitch night before, the format is similar to Dragon’s Den: each project gets 90 seconds to make an “elevator pitch”, followed by a 7-minute open Q&A from the audience. After all the pitches have presented, the trustees ‘scrum’ to pick one project that’ll walk away with $1,000 cash in a designer paper lunchbag. Check out last month’s pitch party wrap-up!   But that’s not all!  Stick around after the microgrant is given away for Awesome Hours – a time to hang out with trustees, volunteers, past pitchers, and enthusiastic community members to chat about the Awesome… read more →

On Thursday, 21 Feb 2013, Awesome Kingston gathered at the beautiful Renaissance Event Venue to hear some great pitches from the community and host Awesome Hours. Check out how it went!

Need some more awesome in your February?  Join us at 6:30PM, Thursday, 21 February at the Renaissance Event Venue for our February Pitch Party!  Pitches kick off at 7:00PM, so grab a drink and a front row seat before then.  Spread the word, and make sure you RSVP on the Facebook Event so we know you’re coming!  Everyone is welcome, and the event, as always, is free.   Stick around after the event, because we’ll be having Awesome Hours after the $1,000 no-strings-attached microgrant is given away.  What are Awesome Hours?  They’re like office hours, but way more fun.  It’s a time for anyone to sit down with trustees, volunteers, past winners, and like-minded people to talk about anything – the Awesome Foundation, a pitch idea you’ve had, getting involved, or just chat about whatever’s on your mind. Awesome Kingston has been around for over a year in the Limestone City, having held its inaugural pitch party in November 2011.  Since then, we’ve funded some great projects geared toward making Kingston even more awesome.  We give away $1,000 no-strings-attached microgrants funded by 10 trustees from the community.  Got an idea yourself?  Come out to the pitch night to see what we’re all about, and apply through the website!… read more →

We’re always getting tons of questions about whether a specific project or idea is eligible for a monthly microgrant – and let’s be fair, awesomeness is pretty hard to define specifically!  We all have different ideas on what that means, so we’ve tried to narrow it down a little bit based on what we prefer (read: always exceptions to be made!) to see from applications to Awesome Foundation – Kingston.  We want you and your project to succeed, and we also want to be realistic about expectations.  When in doubt, get in touch with us!   Is Your Idea Awesome? We’re looking for awesome ideas – whether they come from companies, organizations, teams, or individuals. The project should be something new, exciting, and unique; not an existing, ongoing, or recurring project. It should have impact on the local Kingston community, and the more people it involves or affects, the better!   We’re not looking to fund fundraisers, long-term established projects, overhead, marketing, or administration. We’re looking for small, agile undertakings where $1,000 is all that’s needed, or at least the majority of it – not a drop in the bucket of a massive budget. $1,000 is not a huge sum of money,… read more →