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What We Actually Did.

2026-02-20 · letter vlog · Hank · 5:21 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook, fundraising ask, heavy topic

Hank tells John that the Paul E. Farmer Maternal Center of Excellence opened during the Project for Awesome, with 13 babies born on its first day, and says that the brothers did not give $50 million as a headline claimed: from John's pitch for a long-term project onward, they mainly turned people's attention toward it.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Why this is John's video; the P4A comment donation to Partners In Health; John's pitch for a long, hard project on a slow disaster

  • ★★ Hank says he always feels like a bit of a faker talking about this, as it should be John's video, but it is a big deal. — 00:00:00 · John Green
  • ★ Hank recalls that leaving comments on YouTube videos was long a big part of P4A because it confused YouTube's algorithms into promoting charity videos, but that had stopped working. — 00:00:00 · Project for Awesome, YouTube
  • ★★ Hank recalls that at the 2011 Project for Awesome they pledged $10,000 to Partners In Health for its work in Haiti for a number of comments, he thinks their first direct gift to PIH. (hedged) — 00:00:29 · Project for Awesome, Partners In Health
  • ★★★ Hank recalls that a few years later John told him of a big idea: responding not to a sudden disaster but to a long-term one that was just the way things had been. — 00:00:29 · John Green
  • ★★★ Hank says our minds struggle to focus on something bad that has been that way a long time, even one of the world's biggest disasters, if it is not sudden news. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Hank says John pitched the project as very long, very hard and not making them more popular, convincing him it was not about most views but most good with their views. — 00:00:58 · John Green
  • ★★★ Hank says the easiest thing to do with views or money is get more of them, but their whole point is to be turned toward something valuable. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ Hank says they promised Partners In Health to raise tens of millions of dollars and made a spreadsheet of how, which proved very wrong and which he cannot find. — 00:01:27 · Partners In Health

00:01:56 — The promise to Partners In Health, the wrong $50 million headline, and how the money was actually raised by orienting attention; Paul Farmer

  • ★★ Hank says some of their ideas did not work, but making the commitment forced them to innovate toward the goal. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ Hank says a Good Good Good headline claiming the brothers gave $50 million for the first NICU in Sierra Leone is wrong. — 00:01:56 · Sierra Leone
    • a number in question (doubtful): "$50 million" — check against the recording
  • ★★★ Hank says he and John are among the top individual donors to the effort, but not even 10% of the total raised. — 00:02:26 · John Green
  • ★★★ Hank says by far the biggest thing they did was simply orient people's attention toward the effort. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ Hank says they started the Awesome Socks Club and then Good Store, which gives all its profit to charity, much of it to the Maternal Center of Excellence. — 00:02:26 · Awesome Socks Club, Good Store, Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★ Hank says they oriented a lot of the Project for Awesome toward Partners In Health. — 00:02:55 · Project for Awesome, Partners In Health
  • ★★★ Hank says a huge amount of the money came from asking people to become small monthly donors to Partners In Health, which thousands did. — 00:02:55 · Partners In Health
  • ★★ Hank says recruiting Project for Awesome matching donors was a big part of it. — 00:02:55 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★ Hank says Partners In Health showed high-dollar donors what the community was doing, inspiring them to give more. — 00:02:55 · Partners In Health, Nerdfighteria
  • ★ Hank says Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health has also been part of the effort. — 00:02:55 · Sierra Leone
  • ★★ Hank says he wrote to the richest people he knew and learned how generous they were; the most generous, who prioritized mothers' health, sadly did not live to see this. — 00:03:24
  • ★★★ Hank says Paul Farmer, who inspired all this, started Partners In Health believing the idea that some lives are worth more than others is the root of all wrong. — 00:03:24 · Partners In Health

00:03:49 — The Maternal Center of Excellence opens during P4A: first baby, first-day cases and totals; Hank credits others; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank says Paul Farmer did not see this either, having died in Rwanda after a heart problem in 2022. — 00:03:49
  • ★★★ Hank announces that this weekend, during P4A, which was instrumental in building the Paul E. Farmer Maternal Center of Excellence at Koidu Government Hospital, the first baby was born in Sierra Leone's first NICU. — 00:03:49 · Project for Awesome, Maternal Center of Excellence, Koidu Government Hospital, Sierra Leone
  • ★★ Hank says 34 minutes after the center opened a woman arrived with dangerously spiking blood pressure, risking stroke, seizures and organ damage. — 00:03:49 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★ Hank says she was triaged first among other pregnant women, and her baby was born by C-section just after 1pm on Valentine's Day. — 00:04:18
  • ★★ Hank lists other first-day patients: a mother with chest pains who drove five hours, one past her due date who had the second C-section, and one rushed from a nearby clinic. — 00:04:18 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★★ Hank says by the end of the first day the center had its first ambulance referral and first vaginal birth, 27 mothers admitted and 13 babies born. — 00:04:47 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★★ Hank says he did none of this: at most he had fun ideas that turned people's heads, and they did the rest; John turned his head, and Paul Farmer turned John's. — 00:04:47 · John Green

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Maternal Center of Excellence · Partners In Health

Also: People: Paul Farmer

Projects: Awesome Socks Club · Good Store · Project for Awesome

Organizations: Good Good Good · Koidu Government Hospital · Ministry of Health and Sanitation (Sierra Leone) · YouTube

Concepts: Caesarean section · cognitive bias · neonatal intensive care unit

Places: Haiti · Rwanda · Sierra Leone

Events: Valentine's Day

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