Hypable spoke with YouTube sensation Tyler Oakley about his 2nd annual birthday campaign to benefit The Trevor Project. Find out how you can get involved and possibly win a night out with Tyler in L.A.!

The platforms available on the internet for crowd sourcing have taken over as the modern day telethon. With the click of a mouse more people than ever can donate to causes and find a way to get involved.

Tyler Oakley, a self-made YouTube sensation, understands the power of his audience. The numbers do not lie. Oakley’s candid personality draws in over 4 million subscribers and 2.2 million Twitter followers. His YouTube channel covers everything from swooning over photo shoots of Darren Criss, to challenging fellow YouTubers, to travel logs. His ambitious appetite, tackling any project he sets his sights on, has a charitable side as well. Working alongside The Trevor Project, Oakley is currently raising money for his second birthday campaign, surpassing $450,000 today.

The Trevor Project is the leading crisis intervention and suicide prevention program for LGBTQ youth.

The campaign is hosted through Prizeo, and for every donation received, the donor is entered to win a trip for two to L.A. for an evening with Tyler. Other perks on the site range from postcards to Skype calls, and vary by the amount donated. Although Oakley celebrated his birthday on March 22, the campaign continues through March 31. Be sure to check out Tyler’s campaign and read our interview about his involvement with The Trevor Project below!

Last year you set out to raise, a now seemingly measly, $24,000 for your 24th birthday. This year you were able to break that record in hours. What is it like having the type of reach that you do and being able to put a number out there and watch it be broken so quickly?

It’s incredible. I was so terrified I was being too ambitious and I had a lot of people telling me that it might not be reachable, that I might need to extend the deadline. It had been unprecedented.

So to see the passion within my little community and see them get passionate about something that I am so passionate about has been incredible. It has been a huge lesson in never underestimating people because I can say one thing and they are like, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’ Which is also a little bit intimidating because with that much influence it can go either way. I am really happy that my people are passionate about good causes and we’re trying to do as much good in the world as we can.

You definitely have a lot of loyal and supportive fans. I was reading some of the comments on the donations and people say things like, “I only have $10, but I am going to give it to you. I won’t drink Starbucks this week.”

Right. It is the one of the most humbling things because we’ve been doing these [challenges] every time we do a live stream just to kind of raise money. We’ve been doing one-minute donations where everyone tries to donate in the exact same minute just to see how much we can raise together.

And I always say, listen, it’s not about getting a few people involved that have a huge amount of money that they can donate without even thinking about it. It’s about getting the most people involved and letting them feel a bit of ownership in the campaign and what we are trying to accomplish.

When we do those one-minute donations it is usually hundreds and hundreds of people donating ten bucks, but when they come together and do it at the same moment, we have these huge donation chunks. One time we even had $12,000 in five minutes and a majority of those donations were ten dollars at a time.

It is a huge lesson in, ‘Look what we can do together that we wouldn’t be able to do alone.’

Let’s talk a little bit about your background with [The Trevor Project]. I know you began as an intern and you’ve been making YouTube videos for almost eight years now. How did you choose to go about helping out with Trevor?

So way back in the day, in 2008, there is an annual thing called The Project for Awesome. The first year that I got involved I was trying to find a charity that spoke to me and somehow stumbled upon The Trevor Project. I decided to make a video about them. It got featured on the front page of YouTube and The Trevor Project reached out. They sent me a postcard. And I still have it on my desk to this day as a reminder.

Back then it was just this thing where I was looking for a charity that I thought was cool and wanted to share with my audience and it kind of grew from there. After that I maintained a relationship with them and whenever they needed help with a campaign, I would share it.

It became more personal because I needed an internship, and I came out to West Hollywood and interned with The Trevor Project. I helped them with a lot of projects and campaigns that they were working on and again my relationship grew. I walked with them in my first pride parade and then I started to do their red carpet live streams every year for their December gala.

Every year they host what is called Trevor Live!, and I began to host the live stream with my friend Shira Lazar. She and I would interview the celebrities and get people at home to watch and donate and get excited about the cause. I’ve been doing that for three years now and starting last year was when I did the first birthday fundraiser, trying to raise $24,000 for my 24th birthday. My audience has grown since then, so I thought, let’s up the stakes try to do something bigger and as of today we have tripled our goal for this year. I couldn’t be more humbled and astonished and it blows me away that people can get behind something that I am in love with.

You certainly have a great relationship with The Trevor Project. Speaking about the red carpet for a little bit, as you said you’ve been hosting the red carpet for three years now and it is always important to bring celebrity faces to a cause. How does it feel to know that you have become, in a way, one of those faces alongside the people you’ve been interviewing?

It’s bizarre! It’s the weirdest thing in the world. I still don’t think like that, I just can’t acknowledge it because it’s so weird. But it is cool, because I will gladly go and speak about something like The Trevor Project and be a supporter.

You know what? Anyone can have an impact. I made that first video when I didn’t have that many views and I didn’t have that many subscribers. Just that little thing back in the day was the spark that I needed to ignite the passion that has grown and has hopefully impacted and influenced a lot of people to get involved in their own ways. Not even with The Trevor Project, but with whatever cause or charity that they are passionate about. Maybe it will spark them to think, ‘Well, maybe I can have an impact on something I believe in.’

You are doing an excellent job spreading the message to a younger audience that they can get involved and feel like they are part of something and tap into the potential that these internet communities have and the good that they can do.

Totally.

You have a bunch of prizes that you are giving away [as perks for donating], the grand prize being a date with you in Los Angeles. What does a dream date with Tyler Oakley entail?

Well, I use the term date loosely. It’s just a night out or dinner, or whatever it is going to be. I noticed a lot of my people are all around the world and that’s one of the things about YouTube. We get to go to conventions and we get to go around the world and try to meet as many of them as possible, but sometimes people just don’t have the resources.

So the cool thing about this campaign is that even for a small donation it enters you in a raffle to win [the trip]. So you could be the lucky person who wins the trip to L.A. for two, get put up in a hotel, then I take you out for a surprise. A little excursion. I don’t want to give away what it is quite yet, but I have big plans for it and a lot of people have been helping me put it together. It’s not a typical night at a restaurant; it is definitely going to be an adventure. Whoever wins is going to have a lot of fun.

Thank you so much for talking with us, and I am confident you will reach your new goal of $500,000!

Thank you so much.

You can check out Tyler’s YouTube channel here and be sure to follow him on Twitter for updates and livestreams that will happen throughout the remainder of the campaign!

You can check out The Trevor Project and donate to Tyler’s campaign!