Project for Awesome FAQ
What is the Project for Awesome?
The Project for Awesome is an annual event that sprung out of various YouTube communities to support charities and other ways of decreasing the overall worldwide level of suck. Ever year since 2007, thousands of people post videos to YouTube promoting charities on December 17th. We then come together as a community to promote those videos and raise money. Legally speaking the Project for Awesome is a project of the Foundation to Decrease World Suck, Inc. a Montana based 501(c)3 charitable organization (more info below).
Will there be a livestream?
Yes, at http://youtube.com/vlogbrothers. We will be using a Google+ Hangout, which will allow us to welcome on all sorts of special guests to help us host. Hopefully well be bringing on people who made really great videos as well.
Any tips on how to make good videos?
Karen Kavett had some great ones in a recent Tumblr post.
How do I use the Thumbnail?
We like to have all of the P4A videos have the same or similar thumbnails. You can download a thumbnail here, and edit it if you have software that can edit PSD (photoshop.) To upload a custom thumbnail, go to your video manager and click on edit. Then click on custom thumbnail and upload!
How do you raise money?
A bunch of different ways. Some products that featured the Nerdfighter logo donate a portion of proceeds to the Project for Awesome, including the Evil Baby Orphanage card game. There are also a number of fairly large anonymous donors who are...anonymous. But our biggest source of revenue is individual donations which, this year, will be coming through our IndieGoGo page, where donating can actually get you some pretty sweet stuff.
What percentage of the money raised goes to charity?
100%, less the cost of t-shirts, calendars, shipping materials, indiegogos fees, etc. Everything will be packed and shipped by volunteers, and no one is paid anything for any work related to the Project for Awesome, so we have no overhead.
Are my donations tax deductible?
They are not. But we're working on it! Maybe next year.
Who decides who gets the money?
You do! Or, well, actually we do, because of the weirdness of contest law. Heres how it works.
- People upload videos promoting charities to YouTube and submit them to the Project for Awesome website.
- People vote on which videos they think are the best.
- The charities promoted in the top five videos split all of the money we raise over the year. This is, however, subject to the approval of the board of directors of the Foundation to Decrease World Suck, partly because contest law is complex and partly to prevent a trolling group from coming in and hijacking the vote.
If you want to know all the dirty details, you can read them below.
What is the Foundation to Decrease World Suck?
The Foundation to Decrease World Suck was informally created in 2007, and became a real entity in November 2011, when it was incorporated as a non-profit corporation in the State of Montana. Federal tax exempt status is currently pending review by the Internal Revenue Service (update: the IRS designated the Foundation a 501(c)3 charity on January 23, 2013). The FTDWS is 100% volunteer operated and exists solely for the purpose of fundraising for the benefit of other non-profit organizations. The majority of fundraising is transacted through and during the annual Project for Awesome. The board members for the Foundation to Decrease World Suck are John Green, Hank Green, Mike Green, Michael Gardner, Benny Fine, and Valerie Barr.
But I have school / work on the 17th!
We go all day and night, so just show up whenever you can. Im not going to encourage you to call in sick, but there are worse reasons to miss a day.
What if the charity I want to promote is national / global / local / small / huge / the same charity everyone else does / the same charity I did last year?
Thats all fine! Of course, many people promote the same charities because theyre so great. And any size charity is eligible and will benefit from your promotion and possibly getting a portion of the money we raise. For us to donate to it, however, the organization does have to be a registered non-profit organization.
Why don't I just donate to the charity I want to donate to?
Please do! Our biggest goal is to get people excited about giving their money and lending their time and talent to non-profits.
How does the money get distributed?
However the charity wants. We get in contact with the winning organizations and either arrange a check payment or bank transfer. In the past, Project for Awesome funds have gone to many organizations, including Kiva, Save the Children, The Harry Potter Alliance, Partners in Health, and water.org.