What’s an Awesome New Orleans trustee? Basically, they are the folks who volunteer to read through the applications, and then meet, discuss and ultimately decide which project will receive the Awesome New Orleans $1000 grant for the month. On top of that, they also pitch in money every month to fund 4 months of grants per year. They are a pretty cool bunch of folks! (Dare I say… AWESOME?!)

This month, we caught up with one of our trustees – Megan Hargroder, who recounts her experience at the very first Awesome NOLA trustee meeting:

Megan Hargroder
Awesome NOLA Trustee

“As fun and AWESOME as it is to be a part of the Awesome New Orleans Trustee Board, choosing just one project every month to fund is HARD. Really hard. Because there are so many amazing projects and ideas submitted that there is never ever a clear winner right off the bat.

In fact, at our first meeting – we ended up at a dead stand still between two projects after two hours of discussion.

We didn’t have a process in place to deal with that, because no one expected the room to be divided so passionately on two different (but equally amazing) projects. We considered (only for a brief moment) to flip a coin, or play rock paper scissors, but those types of tie breakers were quickly vetoed by the group and we ended up establishing a fair protocol for re-voting whenever we had a tie.”

Awesome New Orleans trustees come together monthly with passion and conviction, and often as advocates for projects. But ultimately, we can only choose one per month. It’s a fun process, and it’s constantly evolving. Sound interesting to you? Awesome New Orleans is seeking new trustees! To apply, start by telling our current trustees about yourself.