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9 Jun 2010 15:40
Chase announced today it has kicked off its Chase Community Giving Summer 2010 program on the Facebook® platform. The program will award more than $5 million to be shared among 200 charities with grants ranging from $20,000 to $250,000. Participants can begin voting for their favorite charities June 15.
The first Chase Community Giving program, held earlier this year, was the most popular corporate philanthropy crowdsourcing campaign of its type. More than 2 million users on the Facebook platform became fans of the program and helped decide which, of more than 500,000 charities, should receive a share of $5 million. More than 100 winners from 31 states were selected. Chase Community Giving is back again - and improved. The number of charities eligible to receive awards has doubled and several new tools have been introduced.
"As a company, we're highly committed to serving our local communities, and Chase Community Giving has proven to be an innovative approach to philanthropic giving at the local level. We've now seen that when corporations listen to the communities they serve, they can learn a great deal and, in turn, help worthy causes achieve goals that would have never been possible," Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said.
Chase Community Giving provides an opportunity for small and local organizations to build awareness of their causes on a national level. And it allows individuals to help direct where the Chase donations should go through the power of the Facebook platform.
"This initiative is a new paradigm for corporate giving because it removes logistical barriers for small non-profits, provides a national platform for small and newly established charities to be heard, and allows individuals to have a voice in our philanthropic giving," Kimberly Davis, President of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, said.
Based on feedback from participants, the program has been updated and improved. Charities will be able to edit their charity profiles and add meaningful media to help tell their stories in the form of videos and photos. Badges have been introduced, which users earn to indicate their commitment to their community; in addition a Gift Vote feature has been added, which lets users earn the right to give additional votes to a friend. The Leaderboard is a returning feature, which has been improved, and will be used throughout the program. It will reflect the charities' standings based on total votes received and will be updated at least once daily.
The site for the Summer 2010 Program is live now and can be found at http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving. Charities can start personalizing their pages and voting begins June 15 and ends at 11:59 PM EDT on July 12. Winners will be determined on or around July 13.
To underscore the smaller and local focus of the program, 501(c)(3) public non-profits with operating expenses of $1 million or less will be eligible. The top vote-receiving charities meeting the eligibility and other requirements of the program rules will receive the top grants. The eligible charity with the most votes receives $250,000; the top 4 runners-up receive $100,000 each; and the remaining eligible charities in the top 200 will each receive $20,000. There will be one round of voting. Winning charities chosen by voters in the last program are not eligible for the Summer 2010 program. Like the previous round, the $5 million to be granted in Chase Community Giving is in addition to the bank's regular philanthropic giving. JPMorgan Chase donates more than $100 million annually to charitable giving.
Earlier this year, Chase Community Giving fans selected Invisible Children, a San Diego-based charity focused on returning child soldiers in Africa to school, to receive a $1 million grant in the final round of the program. The 100 recipients of Chase Community Giving grants supported a wide range of meaningful causes from charities supporting the families of U.S. Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, to helping the homeless, to providing education for disadvantaged students, to supporting families and children battling illnesses.
As before, Chase Community Giving will have an Advisory Board for the program, which is a panel of individuals from a diverse range of philanthropic backgrounds to lend their knowledge and experience to the program. Further details about the Advisory Board and its members will be announced later this month.
For more information and program requirements, visit http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving. To learn more about what Chase is doing to serve its communities, visit www.jpmorganchase.com/thewayforward.
About Chase
Chase is the U.S. consumer and commercial banking business of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), which operates more than 5,100 branches and 15,000 ATMs nationally under the Chase brand. Chase has 146 million credit cards issued and serves consumers and small businesses through bank branches, ATMs and mortgage offices as well as through relationships with auto dealerships and schools and universities. More information about Chase is available at www.chase.com.
Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.
JPMorgan Chase & Co.Ann Marie Hauser, 212-622-0293annmarie.hauser@jpmchase.com
Copyright Business Wire 2010
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