What is the community's charity drive for: attention for causes, money, or the community itself?
Since 2007 Hank and John have described the Project for Awesome as both raising money for charities and bringing the community together. Since 2022 John has stressed that attention counts too: viewers who cannot donate draw notice to a cause, and big funding partners follow. In 2025 John called it a serious fundraiser and the community he is proudest of.
Axis: attention and videos for causes ... money raised
Positions by date: 33 records in 31 videos. The position was refined (2008, 2010, 2014, 2026), never reversed, in these records.
John
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-12-18 | first on record | John values the Project for Awesome as people coming together to support each other and worthy organizations, and asks viewers to find charities they like and support them. | Dec 18th: The Project for Awesome and Question Tuesday!!! 00:00:39 |
| 2010-12-17 | restate | John says Nerdfighters keep the awesome going not only because it helps people in poverty but because it helps them too, reminding them not to see others as other. | PROJECT FOR AWESOME 2010: Save the Children and Partners in Health 00:02:00 |
| 2014-11-19 | refine | John: since comment spamming no longer drives discovery, the P4A should combine matchable money for proven causes with community-chosen charities and substantive discussion rather than spam. | The Future of the Project for Awesome: Pizzamas Day 8 00:02:55 |
| 2014-12-08 | refine | John frames P4A 2014 as doing both: raising matchable money for highly rated poverty-and-disease charities on day one, and keeping a place where small, community-chosen charities get funding. | I'm Home! Time to Get Ready for the 2014 Project for Awesome 00:01:39 |
| 2017-11-28 | restate | John says making a P4A video is also an excellent way to support a charity even if you can't afford to donate to it. | Let's Talk about Money 00:02:19 |
| 2018-11-08 | restate | John's second reason: revenue generated by Nerdfighteria should be spent in ways in keeping with Nerdfighteria's values. | Let's Talk Money: The Bank of Nerdfighteria's Semi-Annual Report 00:01:30 |
| 2018-12-11 | restate | The P4A weekend reminded John how the best of the internet feels; he felt grateful to be part of a vibrant, joyous community working together to make the world suck less. | When the Internet Came Home 00:03:08 |
| 2021-01-19 | restate | John asks viewers to make a P4A video introducing an organization they care about; votes on it at projectforawesome.com help decide second-half grants, so non-donors can raise money too. | let's go on a parts adventure 00:01:56 |
| 2022-02-08 | restate | John says such a video helps people learn about organizations doing good, and a selected organization could get quite a lot of money. | How Much Money Vlogbrothers Makes from YouTube (...and where it goes) 00:03:26 |
| 2022-11-15 | restate | John says even viewers who can't donate help: their attention and advocacy draw attention to the maternal and child mortality crises, which brings in big funding partners. | 3 Years In: What Happened, Why, and What's Next 00:06:49 |
| 2023-05-02 | restate | John says viewers who can't donate help with their attention: the project taught him that collectively we are much more likely to solve the problems we pay attention to. | GOOD NEWS 00:06:19 |
| 2024-01-16 | restate | How we spend our money is not the only thing that matters; how we spend time and attention matters too, and Nerdfighteria's TB advocacy made possible changes that could never have been bought or sold. | The Bank of Nerdfighteria 00:04:52 |
| 2024-11-26 | restate | John finds the progress against maternal deaths in Sierra Leone encouraging and says it can only be seen because the community has paid long-term attention to a long-term crisis. | Good News 00:03:56 |
| 2025-02-11 | restate | John says he needs the Project for Awesome every year but really needs it this year (2025): it is silly and fun but also a serious fundraiser. | What's at Stake 00:04:22 |
| 2025-02-18 | restate | John says the P4A is in-jokes and memes but also years of memories and familiar names: it is community, the thing built over 18 years he is proudest of, and thanks Nerdfighteria. | Gastrointestinal Hypermotility in Tuatara 00:03:24 |
| 2025-05-13 | restate | John says we solve the problems we pay attention to: long-term, open-ended attention can address long-term crises, from 1 in 17 to 1 in 74, and they are just getting started. | I Have the BEST News 00:05:30 |
| 2026-02-13 | restate | John says the P4A makes meaningful change: community health workers hired in Lesotho, Save the Children's work in refugee camps he visited on the Syrian border, and small charities like This Star Won't Go Out. | Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff! 01:24:38 |
| 2026-02-14 | restate | John says the Project for Awesome slowly became a fundraiser and a way to draw attention to charities and get people excited about what we can accomplish together as a species. | Project for Awesome 2026 part 4! 01:34:38 |
| 2026-02-15 | restate | John asks people not to donate if they cannot afford it: deciding where the money goes matters as much as raising it, since the P4A has always crowdfunded the money and crowdsourced its destination, from big organizations to small ones. | Project for Awesome 2026 part 5! 03:01:29 |
Hank
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-12-17 | first on record | Hank presents the Project for Awesome as taking over YouTube with hundreds of videos that each promote a charity its maker believes reduces the amount of suck in the world. | Project for Awesome: Explanation and Humane Societies 00:00:40 |
| 2008-12-11 | restate | Hank says the Project for Awesome is not just about talking about charities but about giving to them. | The 2008 Project for Awesome!!! 00:02:38 |
| 2008-12-17 (said on 2008-12-16, implied) | refine | Hank frames the P4A as a chance to feel part of a community, hang out with friends, meet new people and also do good things. | One More Day Until the P4A!!! 00:01:14 |
| 2010-12-20 | refine | Hank says P4A is for people who want to help without feeling depressed about a broken world, and that this year (2010) it raised money as well as awareness. | Thoughts on the Project for Awesome 00:01:18 |
| 2011-12-12 (said on 2011-12-11, implied) | restate | Hank says P4A has always been about using the community's power to make great content for non-profits and to promote and curate the best videos. | Our Grandfather 00:02:19 |
| 2021-02-19 | restate | The P4A will send a lot of money to many charities, but Hank thinks it also has real-world impact on participants: stitchers, donors, chat, meme makers, idea makers and singers. | Bean Meme Review 00:12:30 |
| 2023-02-17 | restate | Hank says a 48-hour livestream about humanity's hard problems is goofy because, when people work on hard problems together, the problem's magnitude remains but it also becomes human community, silly, sad and joyful. | COUNTDOWN TO THE PROJECT FOR AWESOME 00:01:35 |
| 2024-02-16 | restate | Hank says the P4A is amazing because it is huge, impactful and important, but not only because of the money raised. | How Much Does it Cost to be a Nerdfighter 00:01:56 |
| 2025-01-17 | restate | Hank explains that the P4A has taken various forms but is mostly a 48-hour livestream raising money and awareness for organizations, with people worldwide helping decide where money goes. | How the P4A is Changing in 2025! 00:00:15 |
| 2025-09-30 | restate | Hank says the community realized early that the internet responds well to sudden disasters but not to ongoing ones, such as very high maternal mortality in parts of Sierra Leone. | WHO ARE WE AND WHAT ARE WE DOING 00:02:55 |
| 2026-01-16 | restate | Hank says it is time to prepare for the 19th annual Project for Awesome, a charity event raising money and awareness for charities doing important work worldwide. | 2026 P4A Changes! (Plus...GAMES!) 00:00:00 |
| 2026-02-14 | refine | Hank says resources are not equally distributed, but when everyone joins in, some give $30,000, some $100 and some only vote and hang out, and none of these is much better than the others: it's just people. | Project for Awesome 2026 part 4! 02:50:14 |
| 2026-02-15 | refine | Hank says many viewers have no money to give and many do, but everyone is focusing attention on the Project for Awesome at once, and the focus is the thing that does the work. | Project for Awesome 2026 part 5! 04:20:57 |
| 2026-02-20 | restate | Hank says by far the biggest thing they did was simply orient people's attention toward the effort. | What We Actually Did. 00:02:26 |
Dates are upload dates, which set the order. Where the speaker gives a different recording date in the video, it is added as "said on YYYY-MM-DD, implied" (derived from the date said in the video).