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Three weeks ago, Take Flight Microgrants, a part of the non-profit Kos Fellowship Program, made its public launch. TFM seeks to identify emerging, progressive, grassroots organizations, and to support those organizations through funding and networking. It is an organization that exists entirely to help your ideas for new grassroots organizations become a reality
Tonight, I have some important announcements about the Take Flight Microgrants. During the three weeks since the launch, I have been working to come up with ways of making Take Flight Microgrants more transparent and interactive. Now, I am excited to share them with you, because I believe they improve the program quite a bit:
- 101 Sample Submissions: First, I wanted to share with you the 101 ideas that were submitted to the BlogPac Infrastructure Contest two years ago (26 page PDF; the names and contact information of the applicants have been removed, of course). These were the ideas that made me, and the folks at the Kos Fellowship Program, believe in the need for an organization like Take Flight Microgrants. I was absolutely blown away that so many excellent ideas for new media, community organizing, activist tool development, and so much more came in over only a two-week period, based on only three diaries cross-posted on Daily Kos and Open Left. Deciding which ideas to fund was very difficult, and convinced me that I needed to find a way to support the great ideas bubbling up from the progressive grassroots on a regular basis. Check out the ideas for yourself--I think you will be impressed, too.
- Donors view, and comment on, all submissions first: Contributing to Take Flight Microgrants will give you a seat on the inside of the selection process. Before any decisions are made by the selection board, which is composed of one member from each partner organization, and before any finalists are revealed to the public, all donors to Take Flight Microgrants will receive a master summary list of all the grant proposals that were submitted. The format will be very similar to the "master summary list" linked in the above bullet point. All donors will then be given an option to comment on which proposals they most enjoy, and these comments will help the selection board determine the 30-40 finalists. If you want a say in which ideas Take Flight Microgrants ends up supporting, then you should donate today.
- Public comment period on finalists: After the 30-40 finalists have been chosen, summaries of those ideas will be posted online for a period of public commentary. Transparency of this sort is necessity for an organization like Take Flight Microgrants. Based on my past experience, trust me when I say that it is not easy to make these decisions. We simply need a broad range of input in order to make the decisions that will best fit the progressive grassroots. This is why we have a diverse selection board, input from our small donors, and input from the community at large. Without this interactivity, there is no way to know which ideas are the right ones to support.
- Submission deadline extended to Friday, April 10th: We would love to start out with as many submissions a possible (several dozen have already been submitted). As such, I am extending the grant proposal submission deadline to Friday, April 10th. This will allow more time for new proposals to come in, and for the proposals to come in from a wide variety of sources. So, if you haven't already, submit your grant proposal today!
Increasing transparency and interactivity are goals of the Obama administration, and we take them seriously at Take Flight Microgrants, as well. This is an organization designed to make your ideas for new progressive organizations become a reality. So, help them come to life by sending in a grant proposal, and donating to Take Flight Microgrants now. This is an organization that will not work without your ideas, and the ideas will not get off the ground without your financial support. Together, we can build the next great generation of progressive infrastructure.
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