From December 9-11 two YouTube vloggers, who also happen to be brothers, were able to raise 2,151,285 dollars for charity in their tenth annual campaign they call Project for Awesome. Here’s how they did it.

John Green, yes the same guy who wrote The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns (those are just two of hisbooks so if you liked those check out his other works and definitely check out what I’m about to talk about), and his brother Hank Green, share a YouTube channel called vlogbrothers. Since they started this channel, about nine years ago, they’re main goal has been to have a positive effect on the world. They try to “decreasing world suck” and one of their favorite phrases is “DFTBA: Don’t Forget To Be Awesome”. The people in their community are called Nerdfighters, before you ask they are pro-nerd. If any of this is confusing here’s a video they made about six years ago that explains everything. Well, not everything but quite a lot.

Throughout the year they make videos about whatever the heck they want to. Sometimes they’re about the election, giraffe sex and occasionally it’s just John Green putting peanut butter on his face while he answers real questions from real Nerdfighters. But once a year they do a live stream that begins on December 9 and doesn’t end until December 11. Of course John and Hank aren’t on this live stream the whole time, they both have children and responsibilities and the biological need for sleep. So they hand off the baton to other YouTubers, like Hannah Hart, Rhett and Link, and Charlie McDonnell among others.

While live these YouTubers are able to see how much money has been raised and sets goals for the audience. For instance Hannah Hart, Grace Helbig, and Mamrie Hart said they’d shotgun a beer in a hot tub if they hit 550K, they weren’t able to raise that much so they pied each other in the face instead. Granted most of the goals were more along the lines of dancing, singing, or writing names of people who donated on their face. While all this sounds silly it worked. It really did. They’ve been doing this for ten years and anyone can see that the community is growing because every year they raise more and more money.

During the first part of Project for Awesome the money raised for to Save the Children and Partners in Health. The other half of the campaign is a little different. Actual nerd fighters make videos on their favorite charities like Thirst Project, National Coalition for the Homeless, Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, Against Malaria Foundation, and Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as plenty of others. Anyone can go to the website and watch these videos to see what the charity is and what it’s about. Then they can vote for the various charities. A lot of these charities are on the smaller size and when given a large sum of money, completely taken by surprise, they can do so many more things with their early budget than they ever thought possible.

People could just donate money to the campaign or they could buy perks that were posted to the website. These perks were things like socks, Project For Awesome collectible coins, t-shirts, and books along with plenty of other wonderful things. Some perks were donated by other YouTubers, including some that didn’t appear in the live stream.

That’s how two people were able to raise over two million dollars for charities across the world. The best part of this story is that John and Hank do exactly what they always wanted to, they’ve having a huge positive effect on the world. They’ve created a community of people who do their best to ‘decrease world suck’, and every year they all get together and do just that. So go forth and try to decrease world suck.

Don’t forget to be awesome.