Our Blog
The stories behind the grants
Laura Lavigne, Happiness Sprinkling Project, Anacortes, Washington
I want to deeply thank The Pollination Project for granting us the funds to do this. To me, this means "forward motion" and the ability to say "yes" to more and more events, to let the movement of the Happiness Sprinkling Project grow without getting in its way, so...
Carrie LeBlanc & Adam Sugalski, Compassion Works International, Henderson, Nevada
In early 2013, The Pollination Project funded a project which enabled us to hold one of the largest circus protests ever conducted in Jacksonville, Florida, and it attracted a lot of attention! We have since created protest groups and have facilitated community-based...
Mary Ann Plummer, The Consoling Place, South Carolina
When a friend shared your link with me last year, I found it difficult to believe that there was such an altruistic organization; it seemed too good to believe. When I finally had enough information to submit for a grant, I found the application steps to be simple,...
Atitwa Vincent, Fortified Staple Flours, Mumias, Kenya
I do appreciate all that you have done to my community that I can’t forget to mention and applaud you for -The people and projects that I have directed towards you almost all are funded and if not are still waiting for positive results from TPP team. That shows much...
Kristina Hulvershorn, Be the Change Workshop, Indianapolis, Indiana
The Pollination Project was the first entity to really believe in this project. It really helped me, too, trust in the promise of this idea. That confidence allowed me to promote the concept, bring in new supporters, and really help it grow. Essentially, receiving...
Monica Brown, Lavender & Neroli, New York, New York
First let me just say how much this grant from The Pollination Project has meant for my business. I’ve gotten so much positive feedback and new interest between the Pollination Project’s Facebook and Twitter, and now with that recent Huffpost article. I am well on my...
Leah Wolf, the Seed House, Conneaut, Ohio
Building the Seed House gave me the opportunity to see how labor intensive projects build more than a building. They build community and social connections. As I worked on this project, I made new friends who wanted to see the experimental building in process and most...
Seed Money Sprouts Change for Tiny NonProfits: CBS Sunday Morning
CBS Sunday Morning- March 23, 2014 The 40-year-old Nessel created a foundation he calls the Pollination Project. Instead of writing a big check to an established charity, he chooses someone just getting started to receive his daily thousand-dollar donation. "One of...
Drive the District, Pollination Project Seed Funds Good Causes
Check out this great article about our work in Drive the District. The Pollination Project, a nonprofit founded by a Dallas-based businessman, is enabling activists to be the change they want to see. “We really want to get behind people and be their cheerleaders,”...
Ari Nessel & The Pollination Project on CBS Dallas A Thousand Dollars A Day
DALLAS (KRLD) – How much of a difference can $1,000 make? For almost 400 organizations around the world, a thousand dollars has been the start of something big. Dallas-based developer and philanthropist Ari Nessel gave away $365,000 in 2013, a thousand dollars at a...
Ari Nessel interviewed by Animal Rights Zone
Ari Nessel was interviewed on AR-Zone, a series of podcasts about animal rights and animal liberation. Listen Now.
The Daily Practice That Changed My Life, Huffington Post
Ari authored this inspiring Huffington Post piece about daily giving. About a year and a half ago I did something that some would say was outrageous. I made a pledge to give away $1K a day to an individual social change-maker, every day, for the rest of my life. This...
Pollinate Good, Janine Francolini, Huffington Post
On the morning after Thanksgiving, I woke up to one email that erased all of the “Black Friday” messages that were bombarding my inbox. The profound words of truth and light from Ari Nessel, the founder of The Pollination Project embodied the authentic essence of our...
Ari Nessel in Green Source DFW
Ari Nessel, Pollination Project founder and President, makes his living as a real estate redeveloper. Check out this article in Green Source DFW about his eco-friendly and mindful approach to his "day job." As a devoted yoga practitioner, Ariel Nessel understands the...
Borgen Magazine: Small Grants Combine to Make Real Change
Borgen Magazine posted an article about our approach to making micro grants. Also profiled in the article is grantee, Ayla Schlosser. "We’ve heard of the big dogs in global philanthropy, those monster pocketbooks that shell out millions and billions of dollars to...
Philanthropy Journal- Permission to Dream
Permission To Dream: Taking the First Steps Towards Social Change Foundations often identify themselves as “grant-makers.” But by being grant-makers, we are also “grant-rejectors.” We love to focus on who and what we fund, often forgetting about all the groups and...
Project Backlash: YAY!
Imagine driving down a busy street in a bad mood and seeing a lighthearted happy flash mob holding signs that say, "It's going to be okay." The Happiness Sprinkling Project, one of our most recent grantees, has taken place pop-up style in 20 cities all over the US....
Report from the Plains: A Keystone XL Pilgrimage
This Spring, we funded Shodo Spring, a Zen monk, and a team of people walking from Hardisty, Alberta, Canada to Steele City, Nebraska (the route of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline/Great Plains section). The Compassionate Earth Walk is in its 16th day and Shodo is...
Pollination Philanthropy: More is More
"Pollination philanthropy focuses on seeding nascent social change projects and passionate and creative leadership. By dividing a large chunk of money into targeted micro-grants, more good work gets funded, and thus has a chance to grow and ultimately blossom in the...
Alissa Hauser on Broad Topics with Laura Nickerson
Alissa Hauser was a guest on LA Talk Radio's Broad Topics show with Laura Nickerson. Click on the June 18, 2013 show to hear the interview.
What it Means to Give Birth to a Dream
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. -Goethe Laura Weiss was awarded a Pollination Project grant his past winter to build a community garden for refugee populations in Omaha, Nebraska. On her blog, Laura admits...
The Hill & Dale Show – Interview with Alissa Hauser
Alissa Hauser, our Executive Director, was recently a guest on the popular LA Talk Radio Show, the Hill & Dale Show. Listen to the recording (Alissa's part is about 32 minutes into the May 22, 2013 show).
Bérangère Maïa Parizeau & Noam Chomsky
We gave Maïa a Pollination Project grant to help her make a documentary about Professor Noam Chomsky and his commentary on our planetary environmental crisis. See the original grant announcement. We enjoyed her update so much, we wanted to share it! "Meeting...
A Grantee Update from Nikki Myers
Pollination Project grantee, Nikki Meyers, recently wrote this post for Mind Body Green about her journey into addiction recovery through yoga. Nikki is the founder of Yoga for 12 Step Recovery and we loved the humanity, authenticity and love that comes through in...
Solutionaries!
Recently, grantee David Sidwell produced the first- ever Solutionaries Congress. Building on the amazing work of Zoe Weil and the Institute for Humane Education, David explains, "Solutionaries are people who transform unjust, unsustainable, and inhumane systems into...
Inspired by Jennie Kay, the Detroit Sanctuary Project
Jennie Kay, a Detroit native, set out to do something really ambitious. She is organizing an army of volunteers to photograph every single house of worship on every street of Detroit, Michigan. By documenting spaces of "sanctuary" Jennie hopes to create a new kind...
Meet our 100th Grantee: Thomas Ponce, Founder of Lobby for Animals
Our 100th Grantee of 2013 is Thomas Ponce, a Florida 12 year old who recently launched Lobby for Animals. Lobby for Animals is a website that provides timely, relevant, user-friendly tools and resources to animal rights activists of all ages to support them in...
Wisdom 2.0, Marianne Williamson and Community
This past weekend I attended parts of the Wisdom 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. The Conference, in its 4th year, is focused on the intersection of technology, wisdom and interconnection. It is a gathering of 1,500 people across the technology and "mindfulness"...
Fox & Friends Interview with Ari Nessel
http://www.youtube.com/embed/7RpR-R2eztY This short interview also featured grantees Melody Moore, Oscar Medina and Hashem Abushama.
Girlie Girl Army
How can you not love the title? "This Dude Gives Away $1,000 a Day to Things He Believes In"