Photo by Michael Bolden on Flickr.

A collection of small $1,000 ideas can go a long way toward improving community in San Jose, California.

At least that’s the motivation behind the Awesome Foundation’s San Jose chapter, which launched in June 2015 thanks to Knight support and plans to mark the occasion with an anniversary party this fall. The Awesome Foundation is a global community with more than 80 active chapters around the world that support community projects through $1,000 microgrants. Knight Foundation has provided $6,000 in startup funding for the San Jose chapter and has also supported the Miami chapter.

Since its launch last summer, the San Jose chapter has funded projects that span from helping create a community room inside a library, to supporting a free robotics program for underprivileged children, to helping put lights on the bikes of San Jose riders.

“I see the potential for [microgrants] making really big change,” said Jonathan Schuppert, dean of the Awesome Foundation San Jose chapter. “I think a lot of people … they have great ideas but they just lack the resources to be able to actually implement them.”

Awesome Foundation chapters generally have at least 10 local people get together and contribute $100 each so that the chapter can award a $1,000 grant. The chapter trustees review microgrant applications and decide which projects to fund. (San Jose chapter trustees include Knight Foundation San Program Associate Mark Haney.)

Often the $1,000 funding is the final catalyst someone needs to make a project happen, Schuppert said. “Hopefully with that success comes other successful projects and other ideas, and inspires other people to then do things,” he added.

The microgrants don’t have any strings attached, but trustees won’t fund personal expenses, for example, if someone wanted to pay off his or her own debt or build a pool at home. The first microgrant in San Jose went to Julie Kodama who, during a one-day event, handed out an assortment of flowers to people as a random act of kindness.

“One woman said, ‘This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,’” said Kodama, who is now a chapter trustee.

“Just as important was people who gave out the flowers – everyone came up later and told me what a great experience it was and how they wanted to do it again because they knew that they had made all these people happy,” added Kodama, who manages a co-working space in San Jose.

Each month, the chapter has meetings among trustees to discuss the grants and their potential impacts.

The San Jose chapter is seeking more community participation and is looking for ideas that can create change and awareness in the community. The ideas should ideally be within San Jose city limits and must be publicly accessible projects, Schuppert said.

Schuppert, who is an urban and transportation planner by day, believes San Jose has a lot of potential and is transforming from a bedroom community into a city trying to define its identity.

“We’re not San Francisco. We’re not Oakland. We’re our own city,” he said. “It’s really empowering to be part of that process of helping identify what is our identity?”

“The grants that we’re getting and the grants that we want to fund are a reflection of what that identity is – and hopefully in the long term, we’re helping shape that and creating that identity,” Schuppert added.

For more information about applying for an Awesome Foundation microgrant in San Jose, visit awesomefoundation.org. Proposals are due the last day of every month and winners are announced the following month.

Vignesh Ramachandran is a Bay Area-based freelance journalist. He can be reached via email at [email protected].