About - Gold Futures Challenge

About Gold Futures Challenge

Asian American Futures and Gold House are proud to host the annual Gold Futures Challenge, an online model for philanthropy that awards ten prizes ranging from $25,000 to $100,000 to AAPI-serving organizations that ensure our communities are Seen, Heard, Empowered, and United.

While AAPI people represent 6% of the U.S. population, our community nonprofits receive less than 0.2% of philanthropic dollars. The Gold Futures Challenge aims to address this disparity and unite AAPIs across the country behind common goals, inspiring increased participation among all generations of AAPIs in philanthropy, volunteerism, civic engagement and social innovation.

In addition to awarding grants and mentorship, the GFC builds an online community for showcasing organizations to new and existing donors, and allows a broad, grassroots audience to choose the winners of each challenge. Each completed application will be promoted on our website with buttons for direct donations and ways for people to get involved.

We are looking for bold, innovative, and creative proposals that activate new interest in supporting our evolving AAPI communities. Together, winning organizations will change the course of AAPI futures.

Challenge Prizes

The inaugural Gold Futures Challenge will award ten prizes totalling $500,000. The prize amounts will be determined by public vote from a pool of ten Finalists chosen by our Selection Committee.

10 Prizes

$100K

Grand Prize

$75K

2nd and 3rd place

$50K

4th, 5th and 6th place

$25K

7th, 8th, 9th and 10th place

In addition to monetary prizes, our winners will receive non-monetary awards and opportunities.

All TEN FINALISTS will receive membership into the Gold House Future Network
All TEN FINALISTS will be invited to participate in the Node Institute, a series of professional development workshops hosted by Node, a nonprofit social education network that empowers AAPI community leaders
All TEN FINALISTS will receive a 1-year subscription to Catchafire, an organization that strengthens the social good sector by matching professionals with nonprofits who need their skills

The Dinner Guys Giving Circle will offer a mini-grant of $2,000 to an LGBTQ+ led organization that provides services and/or advocacy efforts for AANHPI LGBTQ+ populations experiencing homelessness. The Dinner Guys seeks innovative and impactful projects that address the immediate needs of this population and promote lasting change.

In addition to providing the Top 5 subscriptions to their platform, Resilia will also sponsor a $1,000 mini-grant that will go to a Gold Futures Challenge Applicant.

Dinner Guys Giving Circle is sponsoring a mini grant for organizations that focus on AAPI LGBTQ+ Elders. This is an additional opportunity for organizations to receive funding who focus on this target population.

The Beyond 2 Cents Giving Circle is sponsoring a mini-grant of $2000 to fund to any LGBTQ+ AAPI paid staff organization with a focus on leadership development. All Gold Futures Challenge applications that fit this criteria will be eligible.

Manisha G. Bewtra, AICP

Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor to Tucson Mayor Regina Romero

Manisha Bewtra, AICP (she/her) is Mayor Romero’s Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor. In this role, she leverages her passion for planning for thriving, healthy, and inclusive communities with her love for policy-making and politics as the Mayor’s liaison on transportation and land use issues. Manisha is an experienced public process facilitator and project manager and works collaboratively with the Mayor’s team and city departments to apply an equity lens to all city initiatives.
Manisha has built her career on bringing divergent perspectives together, facilitating conversations around change, and generating data-informed solutions that move communities forward. She is driven by public service and champions equitable policies and inclusive community engagement.
Prior to her current role, she worked at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston as a senior regional planner and the manager of the analytics team, at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership where she was a statewide technical assistance provider, as an adjunct city planning instructor for Master’s degree program courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and at Arizona State University, and in municipal government and nonprofit community development organizations in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Chandler, Arizona.
Manisha has served on various equity-focused organizations and committees and is a graduate of Emerge Massachusetts, the Initiative for Diversity in Civic Leadership, and the Massachusetts Commonwealth Seminar, three organizations dedicated to training underrepresented groups to influence public policy and to run for office. She has a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a BA in Economics and Art from The University of Iowa, and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She currently serves as a member at large for the American Planning Association Arizona Southern Section and is a member of the executive team for the Asian American and Political Islander Caucus for the Arizona Democratic Party.
Before moving to Tucson in the summer of 2020, she lived in the Boston area for twelve years. During her years in Melrose, Massachusetts, she served as a Human Rights Commissioner and subsequently as a City Councilor. When elected to the Melrose City Council, she became the first person of color ever to serve in elected office in Melrose. She grew up in Iowa and identifies as Desi/Indian-American. She, her husband, and her son felt welcomed and right at home in Tucson when they moved here – even in spite of a pandemic and searing summer heat.

Arnie Saiki

research, writer, program director

Broadly focusing on regional economic and geopolitical themes in the Asia and Pacific regions, Arnie Saiki is currently leading a working group on data, statistics and valuation in the Pacific. His book “Economic and Ecological Accounting: Towards Intemerate Values,” was published last year by the Pacific Conference of Churches, the Pacific Theological College and the University of the South Pacific.

Since the publication, this campaign has been introduced to the Ecological and Economic Justice program at the World Council of Churches and he is participating in a G8 Interfaith forum for the inclusion of Wellbeing indicators into our economic accounts.

While national statistics and ecological accounting normally fall under the purview of government, academic or international institutions, Arnie has been campaigning in democratizing our ecological data, seeking support for a proof-of-concept accounting program that would enable poor, impacted, and indigenous peoples to actively participate in how we account for our socio and economic biodiversity. Intemerate Accounting is an equation that helps to correct accounting disparities that have, to a large extent, excluded the Global South. Revising our accounting system can provide access and opportunities that cross wide campaign sectors, bringing hope, action and efficacy to reverse climate change, restore our ecological biodiversity, and redistribute global wealth more equitably.

Arnie has been actively promoting and working on global justice campaigns since 2007 when he received a “We the People” grant from the Hawai’i Council of the Humanities for his work on Hawai’i Statehood. He has organized conferences with Hawaiian national independence groups, managed the Save Rapanui campaign after the Chilean military forced a lockdown of Easter Islanders. Arnie spoke at the World Bank representing the Pacific Island Forum, and participated in discussions around regionalism in the Pacific. He was recently appointed the US-Pacific Diplomacy and Solidarity Mission for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), and is on the management team of the Deep Seabed Mining Campaign.

In 2011, Arnie received the blessing from Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell to organize a counter-conference in Honolulu while APEC was there and coordinated the Moana Nui conferences, an international partnership between the International Forum on Globalization and Pua Mohala I Ka Po. For the last ten years he has been campaigning on issues around trade, development, ecological resources, indigenous issues and militarization in the Pacific.

His essays, “TPP at the End of the Line: a briefing on economic cooperation and capacity building” was published in American Quarterly by John Hopkins University Press, and “Manifesting the Liquid Continent,” was published by Yunnan National University, as part of the 1st International conference on Asia and Pacific Ethnology and Anthropology.