Penguin Random House | New York, Toronto, Mexico City, 04/18/2017

Reading for a Good Cause

In the lead-up to World Book Day on Apr 23, the third "Readathon" organized by Penguin Random House kicked off in the U.S., Canada and Mexico yesterday. The #ProjectReadathon campaign, which Penguin Random House is jointly organizing with Save The Children this year, revolves around reading for a good cause. Penguin Random House US, Penguin Random House Canada and Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial are involved in the campaign.

Depending on the number of minutes Readathon participants read on the dedicated online platform, a given number of books is donated to children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. For example, 20 minutes of reading results in a donation of five books. If a participant reads for an hour, the donation increases to 20 books. The publishing group will make book excerpts from their range available free of charge until Apr 23 on the http://readwell.penguinrandomhouse.com/  website. Penguin Random House expects to donate as many as 300,000 books by the end of the reading campaign.

"We are thrilled to launch #ProjectReadathon in collaboration with our Penguin Random House colleagues in Canada and in Mexico for our first-ever coordinated reading and giving campaign across North America," says Claire von Schilling, Executive Vice President, Corporate Communications, at Penguin Random House US. "We look forward to reaching our Million Minutes goal by engaging with readers everywhere through our books, authors and charitable giving, during this special time of year when the world celebrates books and reading."

Reading, running and surfing for a good cause

During the week of this year's Readathon, reading isn’t the only way to collect minutes for book donations. The Charity Miles and Tab for a Cause organizations are #ProjectReadathon partners and are giving their users an opportunity to participate in the donations campaign.

Charity Miles is an activity tracking app that gives users the opportunity to donate the miles they have walked/run/biked/etc. to charity, triggering a donation from a corporate sponsor to the charity. During the Readathon, Charity Miles will offer its users the opportunity to convert their miles to minutes to add to the #ProjectReadathon tally and trigger book donations from Penguin Random House. Charity Miles users will also be able to read select content from our site embedded within their app.

Tab for a Cause is a browser extension that enables users to earn points for every new tab opened on their browser and then donate those points to a charity, triggering a corporate sponsor donation.