Ed Norton along with nine of the nation’s largest and smallest environmental nonprofits are preparing. It’s for an unexpected payday today totaling more than forty-thousand dollars in crowd-sourced donations corralled by the interactive giving platform Crowdrise.com.

The “Moosejaw x Patagonia: $5,000 Charity Thing” started on April 7. All when Moosejaw asked its customers to nominate their favorite environmental charity. This was for the chance to win $5,000 by raising the most money on Crowdrise.com.

“We’re always asking our customers for input on our hairstyle or our new clothing line. That’s because it made so much sense to have them nominate their favorite charities. I mean and then vote with their wallet,” said Eoin Comerford. For Eoin is SVP of Marketing and Technology for Moosejaw. “We had no idea that it would take off this much and we’d raise over forty thousand dollars. It just shows you the power of passionate customers. Also, how creative marketing works and only with a little cash.”

“I love watching a campaign exceed expectations like this one did” said Crowdrise.com co-founder Edward Norton. “You make it fun, you throw in a little competition and at the end, no matter what each person raised, it’s added up to big success and everybody wins and realizes that we can really have impact when we rally as a crowd.”

When I asked further about why Ed Norton wants to do this project, he said:

“I love watching a campaign exceed expectations like this one did. You make it fun, you throw in a little competition and at the end, no matter what each person raised, it’s added up to big success and everybody wins and realizes that we can really have impact when we rally as a crowd.”

You can say that Edward is the co-founder of Crowdrise.com; as with every Crowdrise campaign, the real people responsible for its success are the people who believe in the campaigns and the causes they benefit, as well as Moosejaw and Patagonia for partnering—Patagonia for donating $5000 that really sparked a lot of action in this campaign.

They are making big waves in other areas including raising $1MM for Red Cross Japan Quake; Crowdrise is also underway with a campaign to raise more than $1 million per mile for the upcoming New York Marathon and NYRR.

There are many more outdoor/environmental campaigns happening on Crowdrise, including the “What’s Your Everest?” campaign with Erik Weihenmeyer (the only blind climber to conquer all seven peaks, including Mt. Everest!); the campaign supports Global Explorers, a nonprofit youth organization that combines students with and without disabilities on the adventure of a lifetime and our participation in the No Barriers Summit, a festival highlighting modern day pioneers who use adaptive technologies to adventure through life.

The winner of the contest, The Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve in Michigan will take home the $5,000 prize donated by Patagonia in addition to the over $12,300 in crowd-sourced donations.

The remaining $28,000 of $40,737 raised on Crowdrise.com will be sent to the eight other nonprofits, including top-performers: