Win $50,000 for Your Cause

When asked what we’d do with a million dollars, most of us cite some pretty practical things—paying off debt, buying a home, paying for our children’s education or our parent’s retirement care. Sure, some people want to buy a race track or a dozen llamas (or wipe their butts with live rabbits and throw them out the window, as Louis CK suggests), but most of us would probably keep it on the practical side.

A lot of us would also give some—or a lot—of the money away to our favorite charity. Plenty of people leave their belongings, money, and even full estate to charities when they die; why not while we’re alive and filthy rich, right?

What if you could give your favorite cause $50,000 for free? What would you give the money to? I know I would spend my donation on human trafficking, as I think it’s the worst crime against humanity today. Real human slavery is the third largest industry in the world—and a blind eye is largely turned on it.

If I had unlimited money, I know I would spend it buying people their freedom—or buying assailants to rescue them and bring their kidnappers in for justice, Batman-style. Yeah, I’m a nonviolent pacifist, but when your own government allows forced prostitution, rape, murder and abuse—even with children, and even taking a cut of the profits—something has to be done.

You can get involved in America’s Giving Challenge, which is sponsored by the Case Foundation, PARADE magazine and Facebook Causes. Throughout the month of October, you can use your social network presence to recruit people to your cause and get them to make donations. The people with the most unique donations (not necessarily the most money—just the most number of people who donate) will win up to $50,000 for their charity.

It’s a pretty sweet deal overall—you’re raising awareness and money whether or not you win, and if you do, you can give a huge chunk of change to the cause you believe in most. To get involved, visit America’s Giving Challenge on Facebook here.

And I’m not one to judge other people’s causes—if you want to cure some rare, obscure disease that only occurs in 1 in every 5,000 giraffes, more power to you. But do you know what one of the leading causes is right now at the challenge? “Make abortion unthinkable.” That’s it. Um, how do you expect to do that—raise enough money to create a mind device that will control what the masses think about, in traditional Pinky and the Brain fashion? Create a squad of national Thought Police?

If you’d rather see the funds go to a cause with real measureable results, please enter the challenge today.