The Project for Awesome was created in 2007 by John and Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel. It originally had the name “Nerdfighter Power Project for Awesome” as explained in this video. Their goal was to change YouTube’s front page for one day and make every video have the same thumbnail and be about a charity the Nerdfighter who made it cared about.
Each year the Nerdfighteria community has come together for the Project for Awesome which morphed into a 48 hour livestream of joy, charity, and absurdity. During the P4A, a wide variety of hosts from various corners of the internet find unique ways of raising funds for charities. After the 2019 P4A, it was decided to move the celebration from December to February. Because of this, there was no P4A in 2020, but it has returned stronger than ever in 2021 and 2022.
For the 2024 Project for Awesome, a few changes were announced. First, instead of donating the funds raised in the first half of the P4A to Save the Children and Partners in Health and the funds raised in the second half to community voted charities, this year the split will be numerical instead of time-based. 25% of the funds will go to Save the Children, 25% will go to Partners in Health, and the remaining 50% will be given to the top-voted community charities. Additionally, this year the livestream will not be a continuous 48 hours. Instead, there will be breaks.
In 2025, changes were made again. The charity voting period was extended from just during the livestream to 8 days of video watching and voting! Additionally, the voting rule was changed to 1 vote per charity per device. After 2024's success, the livestream is again taking breaks this year to let everyone rest. New this year, though, links to all parts of the P4A will be available to all.