Project For Awesome: Thank You!
The Rick Hansen Foundation would like to take time to thank all those on social media who supported us in our inaugural entry in the Project For Awesome, making it a memorable debut.
What is the Project For Awesome (P4A)?
The Project For Awesome (P4A) is an annual charity drive on YouTube, created in 2007 by vloggers John Green and Hank Green.
It consists of two parts: users donating to form a "pot" of money, and others creating videos advocating for their charity of choice.
Audiences view and vote on the videos they like, and the winning videos win a portion of the donated dollars for their chosen charities. There are usually ten winning charities, though in last year's edition, there were twenty.
Last year, P4A raised almost USD $850,000. The total of this year's donations is USD $1,282,844.
Rick Hansen Foundation participation in 2014
For the 2014 edition of P4A, the Rick Hansen Foundation made its debut through a video from its Multimedia Specialist's channel. The video (below) outlines what the Foundation does to help those with spinal cord injuries thrive, as well as the critical research that it funds to help improve care and find cures for spinal cord injury.
The video was also in support of the Rick Hansen Institute, the Rick Hansen School Program, and Planat.
The result
Throughout the 12th and 13th of December, we were able to spread awareness for spinal cord injury (SCI); our video was one of the few entries in P4A to specifically advocate for SCI. It competed in the Health category, which is the most competitive category in P4A.
This being our first year participating in the event, the amount of support exceeded expectations. Some highlights include:
- becoming the top trending charity in the Health category for a few minutes on Saturday morning and a few hours on Saturday night.
- becoming the top trending charity in all categories for a few hours on Saturday night.
- trending consistently in the top 25 to 50 percentile for almost the entire duration of the event.
Above image: The Rick Hansen Foundation trended in top spot among all categories on Saturday night.
In the end, among 937 videos participating in P4A, Rick Hansen Foundation finished in the top 25% in the Health category and top 33% among all categories.
This strong inaugural showing could not have been possible without your votes and your support. For that, we thank you.
We would like to give extra thanks to the following who helped make our first year particularly memorable through their support on social media by encouraging others to do the same and spread awareness about SCI:
- Foundation supporters, ambassadors, and 25th anniversary medal bearers
- Rick Hansen Institute
- Planat
- Boston Pizza Foundation Future Prospects
- Power To Be
- Todd Hancock, radio host (known for 99.3 CFOX)
- DisAbled Women's Network Canada
- Spinergy
- KurtzyClan (charitable group of the American Hockey League's Norfolk Admirals)
- Driven By Health (UK)
- Rehab Supplies (Germany)
P4A is over, but you can still help
You can still help the Rick Hansen Foundation through a donation – see rickhansen.com/donate to make a great holiday gift today, and help make life better for people living with paralysis.
We thank everyone again for a great P4A, and as the event's slogan goes, "Don't forget to be awesome."
