The 'Squidoo Thanksgiving Cookoff for Charity' is a free online contest for anyone who wants to build a page about their favorite food or recipe. Entrants choose the charity they like best, and if their page gets selected by Squidoo's editors, that organization gets $1000.
Squidoo pages--called "lenses"--can be created for the Charity Cookoff on any and all foody topics ranging from great apple pie recipes to best locally grown squashes, from tried and true baking secrets to best coffeemaker recommendations.
"Raising money online for your favorite causes has never been easier," says Squidoo Editor in Chief Megan Casey. "Social media sites like Squidoo and Twitter and Facebook help you earn a following, publish great content, and then share it with people who care. Our twist is that you get a royalty for charity at the same time."
The Charity Cookoff is not the first time Squidoo has given away significant money to charity in a contest. In 2008 they ran the Holiday TwitterDrive and let their fans decide where they donated $80,000.
Squidoo's Community Organizer Kimberly Dawn Wells says: "The big win is when nonprofits mobilize their constituents to make lenses, thereby raising hundreds or thousands of dollars every month, for free, forever."
The Squidoo Thanksgiving Cookoff for Charity starts the first week of November and runs through Thanksgiving. To enter the contest with a food-related lens of your own, just visit www.squidoo.com/
Squidoo was founded in 2005 by bestselling author, noted blogger, speaker and Original Squid, Seth Godin. The stated function of the site is to make it easy for people to create free pages (called "lenses") on their interests, and to earn royalties for their good content. Nearly 40% of all Squidoo users donate the royalties they earn from the site to charity. There are more than one million handbuilt lenses on Squidoo.
