Hank: Good Morning John, it is December 17th.

Tyler: Today is the Project for Awesome.

Justine: Project for Awesome.

Craig: Project for Awesome.

Molly: Project for Awesome.

Ev: Project for Awesome.

Phil: Project for Awesome.

Hank: It is time for Project for Awesome 2012. And if you’re wondering what the Project for Awesome is, well, five years ago my brother and I decided that it would be a good idea to create a day, we chose December 17th, where people in online communities could come together and lend their money and their time – well not lend their money – give their money and their time and their talent to charities. But if you are, if you’re working with microfinance like kiva.org, you will be lending your money.

Like any good pitchfork, the Project for Awesome has four prongs.

Prong 1: People make videos supporting charities. Clever videos.

Rhett and Link singing: Mosquitoes suck.

Hank: Videos explaining how easy it is to give.

Shay: The thing I love about Toys for Tots is it’s simple. It’s so easy. Just get toys or sports equipment, you don’t even have to wrap it.

Hank: And videos explaining why we need to give.

Tom: If you don’t do it today because it’s going to take for ever, then the same excuse applies tomorrow and the day after and the day after, and soon enough time has passed that you could have made a difference, but you didn’t.

Hank: People then upload those videos to YouTube and submit them to projectforawesome.com.

Prong number 2: A constantly running twenty-four hour live stream oversees an effort to promote these charity promoting videos however we can, throughout social media and by commenting on them and rating them at youtbe.com which helps to promote them within YouTube’s promotion algorithms. Yes, we’re gaming the system for good.

Prong number three: People go to projetcforawesome.com and vote for the videos that they think are the best videos. Now the charities promoted are the videos that get the top number of votes. Those charities will get an equal share of the money that we raise during the Project for Awesome which leads me to

Prong number four: The money, which is why you are here. We’re raising money here for charities. Now you don’t necessarily know which charity is going to get the money, but you do know that you’re money's going to have a double effect. One, it’s gonna go to a charity. And two, it’s gonna encourage people to make videos promoting their charities. And those videos will have a larger and permanent impact as people will see those videos and realize that they can be a part of philanthropy and they will be on YouTube probably for all time.

But in order to encourage you to donate, if you need some encouragement, we’ve got some really amazing reward levels things donated by top tier creators like MysteryGuitarMan. This is a flash drive in the shape of Joe Penna, which I just love. And it’s signed by Joe Penna and yeah, it’s a flash drive. Uh, nope, yep, nope, not this part (legs), this part. This part, comes out of his abdomen there.

Oh, and what’s this on my floor? It’s a bunch of artwork made by Nerdfighters. This thing here was actually made by, uh, high school English teacher’s class. They made a bunch of these domino necklaces. This one says “Keep calm and DFTBA”. So you don’t know what you’re gonna get when you donate to that level, we just ask people to send us things that they made, because they don’t necessarily have money to give, but they have talent to give and so we encourage them to send us these things and they're all really amazing.

So we have prizes from tons of creators including Felicia Day, Annoying Orange, Wheezy Waiter, the Lizzie Bennet Diaries is donating one hundred copies of Pride and Prejudice signed by cast and crew. And I’m very proud to announce that I have managed to keep this a secret – The Men of YouTube charity calendar. It's The Men of YouTube charity calendar. You’ve got Freddy and Brandon, I’m not going to show you all of these cos I want some of these to be a secret. There’s a Tobuscus there, Tyler freaking Oakley is so cute. And yeah, I’m in there and I’m in a toga. We will only ever sell this to Project for Awesome related things so get it now. It is thirty dollars, it will always be thirty dollars, it will never be less than thirty dollars and yes, that might seem like it’s a for a calendar until you realize that you’re decreasing world suck anytime you get anything from this page. It’s a donation man!

If you’d like to get in touch with us for whatever reason, but more specifically, if you have something that you would like to donate to the project that you think would be a great reward, we’re at 2012@projectforawesome.com. For everybody else, be sure to visit projectforawesome.com, sign up for the mailing list there and there’s a frequently asked questions page if you have questions.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the Project for Awesome for the last five years and of course to the people who are supporting it right now, that’s you, so thank you very much. And as they say in my hometown, don’t forget to be awesome.