Welcome to another year of Foolanthropy, our 10th!

What is Foolanthropy? It's an interactive, cooperative charity drive -- the Internet's first and longest-running. And this year, we're very proud to announce that Hilton Family Hotels (NYSE: HLT) is partnering with us to help make the 2006 campaign as successful as possible.

So far, The Motley Fool community has raised more than $2.5 million for a very wide range of charities that do phenomenal work here at home and around the globe. Last year, Fools came together and raised $290,000 for Heifer International, the Humane Society of Louisiana, Mercy Corps, Doctors Without Borders, and DonorsChoose. You can read up on how those charities have utilized this money as part of our commitment to due diligence. (Also check out an interview discussing Mercy Corp's recent operations in Beirut, and get an update on the Humane Society of Louisiana on the one-year Katrina anniversary.)

As many of you know, The Motley Fool's continuing mission for 14 years and counting has been to help our members make better investment decisions to secure their future. Starting in 1997, it occurred to us that we couldn't provide our members with a complete solution for investing in the future if we didn't help them make better charitable investment decisions as well. We also felt we wouldn't be the most effective guides at this if we didn't work on a completely voluntary basis -- and that includes our employees. So for 10 years now, Foolanthropy has been a volunteer-operated venue for people seeking to donate to some of the most efficient, effective charities in America and around the world.

Who decides what makes a charity worthwhile? You do. Our volunteer committee fields nominations from our membership and readers and selects five of the most Foolish, according to our Foolanthropic tenets, to be the recipients of the year's campaign.

In recent years, it has become apparent that Foolanthropy also serves to increase awareness about charitable organizations our members might otherwise never have known about, since we tend to have a slight bias toward "small- and mid-cap" charities, if you will. So these organizations also stand to benefit from Foolanthropy long after the year's drive has officially ended.

At The Motley Fool, we tend to gravitate toward sustainable solutions, and Foolanthropy is no different. We try to make effective decisions about how and whom to give to make the most of our donations. Because unfortunately, if we make poor decisions when we give, we risk wasting our donations. And when there's so much need in the world, it's irresponsible to let that happen when just a little bit of knowledge could prevent it.

That's why Foolanthropy also aims to further The Motley Fool's general goal of offering our members education about how to make the most of their money -- to make every dollar count, whether it's saving for retirement, making the right stock decisions, or giving to charity.

Our 2006 campaign kicks off on Oct. 16 with a call for nominations, so get your best philanthropic ideas together and join us then to make a nomination. Then, in November, join us when we announce this year's five Foolanthropy charities in making a donation to the one(s) that speak to you.

Foolanthropy Discussion Board
We encourage you to discuss any ideas, news, or thoughts on the topic of Foolanthropy or philanthropy in general at our board. We'd love to hear from you!