The Awesome Foundation isn’t technically a foundation.

Its monthly grants aren’t technically grants at all – not in the formal, legal sense, with lengthy applications and budgets and oversight and final reports.

And yet the six-month-old group is already making a difference in the community by presenting $1,000 checks to projects so awesome they catch their fancy, one really good vision at a time.

“We call them ‘grants’ and call it a ‘foundation,’” says Brandi Malarkey, who admits to being the instigator of the radically different approach here in Fargo-Moorhead. “But there’s no bureaucracy, no hard-and-fast rules, no red tape … what we’re giving are really gifts to people who want to make our community better.

“The Awesome Foundation is open to pretty much anything – big, little, helpful, crazy, all over the map – schemes that don’t fit into a neat prepackaged box,” notes the Fargo artist, who’s called the dean of the foundation.

Fellow trustee Ron Williams of Moorhead agrees: “It comes down to just one thing: Would this help the community?’”

The fledgling Awesome Foundation of Cass Claywas born a year ago, when Brandi, who operates a continuing education business, was browsing the Internet for art grants. She came across a quirky grass-roots effort dating back to 2009, when several Bostonians set out to do good things, a thousand bucks at a time … no strings attached. The movement has grown to more than 80 chapters around the world, 50 in the United States and the balance scattered as widely as Sweden, New Zealand, Chile, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.

Each is launched when 10 individuals and couples come together to pony up $100 12 times a year. They skip all the legal strings that tie legal foundations down – incorporation, nonprofit tax status, application forms, reports and oversight. Instead, the donors (whose gifts are not tax deductible) gather once a month to go over ideas submitted by individuals or groups, selecting one for that period’s grant – actually, a gift with no strings attached.

Brandi spent several months last year drumming up support among friends and friends-of-friends who appreciated the Awesome approach. Eventually she found the right blend of trustees – community-minded people open to innovation who could afford to earmark $100 a month to the little group’s granting pot. Her polyglot group mostly live in Fargo and Moorhead, though one couple participates via Skype from Israel. Among their number are a chiropractor, therapist, retired college professor, geneticist, banker, administrator and others, ranging in age from their 30s to their 60s.

Trustee Katie Diiro explains that their diverse group gets together every four weeks to pore through applications to select the month’s winner. “It’s like a group of good friends getting together. We have different ideas and come from different places, but we’re very diplomatic. It’s a real education to hear everyone’s points of view.

“We’re very diplomatic,” she adds. “In the end, I don’t think any of us care exactly where the money goes. We all trust that it’s awesome.”

The Cass Clay Awesome Foundation’s first grant last August went to purchase an adaptive running stroller for Ainsley’s Angels, a group of runners who share the excitement of racing with physically challenged children and adults.

Since then, they’ve awarded Awesome Grants to Heart-n-Soul Community Café, which offers pop-up dining for people who pay what they can, and Project Help, a fund at Southeast North Dakota Community Action, which helps clients with emergency one-time needs that the public agency can’t cover.

They have supported the MPX Kids Club, an after-school kick-boxing program that helps kids reduce stress and improve mental and physical health. They’ve given grants to F-M Rainbow Families and the Joy Project, both funding social events that bring children and parents together.

The most recent – announced this week – is called “Goats = Opportunities for North Dakota.” It will support a farmer’s retrofit of her Marion, N.D., pasture for raising them especially for area refugees, who consider fresh goat a delicacy.

Brandi says their awards of what the foundation world considers very modest grants help encourage fresh ideas and new approaches. “These are projects that need such small amounts that regular foundations aren’t likely to even bother with them,” she says. “The people who come to us aren’t necessarily eligible for those formal grants, nor do they have the skills and resources to apply and manage them.” Sometimes, the awesome checks for $1,000 may be seed money to develop a new enterprise that will grow. At others, they could be best described as serendipity.

The application process, Ron points out, is awesomely simple. People with a brainstorm that needs support go to awesomefoundation.org, select the chapter to which they’re applying, and enter brief answers to three questions: Who are you? How will you use the money? Tell us a little about yourself.

The local chapter has no firm guidelines but does follow a few general principles. They don’t fund religious or political groups (though those groups may generate ideas that qualify). They avoid operating budgets, like salaries and rent and travel. Other than that … well, they’re open.

“A lot of very good ideas don’t come in a neat, easily defined packages,” the retired MSUM professor says. “They could have to something to do with startup businesses, or kids’ activities, or art, or – whatever you’re excited about doing.” He says recent projects around the country highlighted on the national website address everything from raising native plants for natural dyes to vaccinating the homeless to saving bats (the furry, flying kind).

The Awesome Foundation thrives on that sense of adventure. While the founding F-M trustees aren’t out looking to add to their number, they welcome interest from others who are intrigued. They also stress their doors are wide open to new proposals. To get started, go to their website: awesomefoundation.org and select “Cass Clay.”

“It will be interesting to see how this grows over time,” Ron muses.

Brandi adds, “People are giving us the gift of awesome ideas about what will make our community better. We’re giving them the gift of helping it happen.”