Here at reddit, one of the things that gets us out of bed every morning is knowing that we have the ability to help the world at a scale that was, until very recently, only imaginable. Remember that time we challenged Digg to see who could donate the most to Haiti earthquake victims through Direct Relief (spoiler: we won, raising over $185,000)? We’ve also been one of the most major participants in Extra Life’s annual gaming marathon for the past four years, where we have helped raise $278,604 to date. Thanks to all of you, we've been able to raise exponentially more funds since our first-ever attempt at fundraising back in 2008 in conjunction with xkcd. And it’s not only monetary donations, we also facilitate good as a platform through subreddits like /r/probono, /r/assistance, /r/favors, and /r/random_acts_of_pizza.For 2014 we decided to “decimate” our ad revenues to support the goals and causes of the entire community. That means for every $10 in ad revenue we received, we would be splitting $1 equally between 10 charities selected by our community.
We closed the books on 2014 and our total ad revenue was $8,276,594.93. Meaning we are donating $827,659.49! 10 charities chosen by our community will each receive $82,765.95.
We have partnered with Charity Navigator, who has graciously given us access to their charity database. This database includes all charities they have reviewed, as well as all charities that have a US tax identification number (EIN). If you’re unable to find a particular charity by searching by name, just type in the charity’s EIN. This number can usually be found on the charity’s website.
So how do you vote? Head over to reddit.com/donate and make sure you’re logged in. Your account will have to be created before 10 am today in order to reduce any potential shenanigans. You are allowed to vote for as many different charities as you like, but you are limited to one vote per charity.
Voting ends one week from today (February 25, 10 am PST) and we’ll announce the winners within 48 hours.
Do you have a favorite charity and want to tell the world about how awesome they are? Click the “Discuss this charity on reddit” link on /donate to create a post on reddit.com/r/redditdonate.
We look forward to seeing all of your votes tally up, and continuing to give back.