How It Works

From September 28 at noon to October 5 at noon, Round 1 of voting is taking place. We're up against 24 other charities to be selected as one of 5 to move onto Round 2, which will happen in December.

Voting is easy. If you've already "Liked" the Chase Community Giving application before, well, it's even easier.

You can only vote once, so be sure to spread the word far and wide to your friends and family so that they can vote too.

If Joyful Heart makes it to Round 2, we'll automatically receive a minimum gift of $125,000. The prizes just go up from there—the organization that receives the most votes will receive $1 million to fund their Big Idea.

What's our Big Idea?

We're committed to making our idea the biggest it can possibly be. We put our heads together to talk about how we can best make a difference with such an extraordinary gift.

Every year, tens of thousands of individuals report a sexual assault to the police. After an assault, survivors undergo a 4-6 hour exam to collect DNA and forensic evidence that goes into what is known as a rape kit. Today, the federal government estimates that over 200,000 untested kits sit in storage facilities across the United States. Each untested rape kit represents lost healing and justice for survivors.

So our Big Idea is to improve the community response to sexual violence and end the rape kit backlog.

We'll do this in a number of ways:

• By creating replicable victim-centered best practices, which will help foster trusting and open relationships between survivors and responders.
• By totally overhauling endthebacklog.org, the only site dedicated to raising awareness about the rape kit backlog.
• By deepening our partnership with the City of Detroit and other jurisdictions across the country to help end local backlogs.
• And, by using and leveraging these funds to test rape kits.