Rules

Official drawing rules

Everyone who enters agrees to these rules.

1. No gift necessary. Entering is free. Giving money to TMDP never enters you, never adds entries, and never improves your chance of being picked.
2. Sponsor. The drawing is run by The Million Dollar Project, LLC, [address], Missouri, a for-profit company. TMDP keeps none of the gifts it collects.
3. Who can enter. Legal US residents 18 or older. [Void in New York and Florida, unless TMDP registers and bonds the drawing in those states.] TMDP owners, staff, contractors, and the people in their households can't enter.
4. How to enter. Fill out the entry form with your full street address, including any apartment or unit number. Each household may enter once, under one email address. Before each drawing, extra entries from the same address or email are removed, as described in One payoff per household.
5. Entries carry over. An entry stays in every weekly drawing until that household is picked or asks to be removed.
6. The weekly drawing. Every Sunday at 7:00 PM Central, one household is picked live on the TMDP podcast by RANDOM.ORG's Third-Party Draw Service. Each eligible entry has the same chance. The odds depend on how many entries there are that week. The drawing record is posted on the website, and entrants can check it with their email address.
7. Being picked. TMDP contacts the household by email only, within 24 hours. All communication between TMDP and the household happens by email, so every step is documented for the safety and clarity of everyone involved. TMDP never calls or texts about a payoff. The household has 72 hours to reply by email and 14 days to finish verification and sign the payoff authorization. If it doesn't, it loses its turn, and that week's gifts go to the next household drawn.
8. What the household receives. The gifts made between that drawing and the next, paid directly to the household's verified creditors under How payoffs work, up to $300,000. Gifts beyond what the household needs go to the next household drawn. No cash, check, or gift card is ever given to anyone.
9. One payoff per household. A household is everyone living at one street address, including the apartment or unit number, and roommates count as one household. Once a household has been paid, no one living there can enter again from that address, and no adult who was part of that household can be part of a payoff for another household, even after moving.
10. Taxes. A payoff may be taxable income to the household helped. TMDP can't promise how the IRS will treat any one case. The payment processor may send a Form 1099-K, and TMDP explains how to report it. Households should talk to a tax professional.
11. Publicity is optional. Each household picked chooses whether its first name, city, and story are shared on the show and website. Saying no never affects the payoff.
12. Disqualification and fraud. TMDP can remove an entry or cancel a payoff for false information, fake bills, more than one entry per household, or threats or harassment toward staff or other entrants. Anyone disqualified for false information or duplicate entries is removed from all future drawings, along with everyone in their household. If a payoff is canceled before money is sent, that week's gifts go to the next household drawn. If fraud is proven after money has been paid, everyone who took part in the fraud must pay back every dollar paid on their behalf and pay all legal fees, court costs, and fines needed to resolve the matter, and TMDP will take legal action to recover all of it. TMDP may also report the fraud to law enforcement. Money recovered goes to the next household drawn, never to TMDP.
13. If something goes wrong. If a drawing can't be held or completed fairly (a technical failure, for example), TMDP holds it again as soon as possible and explains what happened on the show.
14. Privacy. TMDP uses entry information only to run the drawing and contact the household picked. Entrants' email addresses are shared with RANDOM.ORG only to run each drawing. TMDP never sells entrant information. See the privacy page.
15. Disputes. These rules are governed by Missouri law. [How disputes are handled will be added here.]

How payoffs work

TMDP pays real, verified debts in the household's own name, directly to the company owed.

Home comes first

TMDP believes everyone needs a secure place to live, so the cost of the home is always taken care of before any other debt.

• Homeowners: the mortgage is paid first. Then the other debts are paid from smallest to largest.
• Renters: up to 12 months of rent is paid first, sent to the landlord month by month. Then the other debts are paid from smallest to largest.
• If the money runs out first: TMDP pays down debts in that order until the full amount is used.

What we suggest for any debt that's left. Once the home is covered, the money you used to spend each month on rent or the mortgage is free. We suggest putting that whole amount toward your remaining debts, smallest first, until they're gone. The free Debt Take Down tool shows how fast that works. This is a suggestion, not a requirement.

What you send after being picked

• A photo ID for each adult named on a debt
• Proof of address, such as a lease, utility bill, or mortgage statement, matching the address on your entry
• The latest statement for every debt to be paid
• A signed payoff authorization, which lets TMDP contact each creditor and includes your agreement, if fraud is proven, to repay all funds and pay all legal fees, court costs, and fines to resolve it

What TMDP does

1. Contacts each creditor to confirm the balance and get an official payoff letter.
2. Pays each creditor directly, by the method the creditor accepts.
3. Gets written confirmation that each debt is paid or paid down.
4. Emails you copies of every confirmation.

The cap. TMDP pays up to $300,000 per household, and never more than the verified balances.

Never send account numbers or Social Security numbers through the entry form. TMDP collects them only after a household is picked, through a secure channel.

One payoff per household

We check every entry before each drawing, and we check the household picked fully before paying anything. No Social Security numbers or account numbers are collected when you enter.

Before every drawing, TMDP cleans the entry list

1. Standardizes every street address, so "123 Main St Apt 2" and "123 Main Street #2" count as the same home.
2. Keeps one entry per address and one per email address, and removes the rest.
3. Removes every entry at an address that has already received a payoff.
4. Removes TMDP owners, staff, contractors, their households, and their relatives.
5. Sends the cleaned list to RANDOM.ORG, one line per household.

After a household is picked, TMDP confirms the people

1. Photo ID for each adult named on a debt to be paid.
2. Proof of address matching the address on the entry.
3. Every debt must be in the name of someone who lives at that address. Debts belonging to relatives or friends at other addresses aren't paid.
4. Each adult's name and date of birth is checked against our list of households already paid. If anyone in the household was part of an earlier payoff, the household doesn't qualify, and that week's gifts go to the next household drawn.
5. Each creditor confirms the balance in writing before any money is sent.

After a payoff, TMDP adds the household's street address and each adult's name and date of birth to a private list of households already paid. The list is kept secure, used only to check future entries, and kept for 7 years.

Cheating: a household that gives false information or enters more than once loses its turn or its payoff, and everyone in it is removed from all future drawings. If fraud is proven after a payoff, the people responsible must repay all funds paid on their behalf and pay all legal fees, court costs, and fines needed to resolve the matter, and TMDP will take legal action to recover them. Recovered money goes to the next household drawn.

Giving terms

Everyone who gives agrees to these. The short version: your gift goes to a real household's creditors, TMDP keeps none of it, and you get nothing back except a thank-you.

1. What a gift is. A gift to the household drawn in the week you give, paid directly to that household's creditors. If that household needs less than the week brings in, your gift goes to the next household drawn.
2. TMDP is for-profit. TMDP is not a charity, and gifts are not tax-deductible. TMDP takes no cut of any gift and earns its money only from ads, ebooks, and the show.
3. Card fees. You pay the card fee on top of your gift, so the full gift reaches the household. Today that's $1.34 for $1 a week, $5.46 for $5 a month, or $53.86 for $52 a year.
4. Giving doesn't enter you. Giving never enters you in a drawing or changes anyone's chances. To be considered, enter for free.
5. No perks. Givers receive nothing of value in return. This keeps gifts as true gifts for the households helped. A thank-you by first name on the show is the only recognition, and only if you agree to it.
6. Canceling. Cancel a weekly or monthly gift anytime; it stops before the next charge. A yearly gift covers 52 weeks and renews once a year unless you cancel before the renewal date.
7. Refunds. Gifts are usually paid to creditors within days, so they can't be refunded once sent. If you were charged by mistake, contact TMDP within 7 days and TMDP will refund any amount not yet paid out.
8. See your money at work. The weekly report shows every dollar given and every bill paid.

Advertiser rules

Affordable advertising for everyone. Advertising is one of the biggest expenses for any business, and our goal is to offer advertising every business can afford. Every ad spot is priced and structured with that in mind.

First come, first served. The 30 ad spots go to businesses in the order they pay. When all 30 are taken, the next open spot goes to the next business that asks.

Our audience is people working their way out of debt, so every ad has to be something we'd recommend to a friend in that spot.

• What an ad includes: your logo, name, a tagline of up to 45 characters, and a link, in one of the 30 homepage spots, plus a thank-you on the weekly podcast.
• Price: $300 a month, or $3,600 for a full year with the spot guaranteed. All ad money is TMDP's business income; none of it goes into gifts.
• Getting started: pay through the Advertise page, then send your logo and link. Your ad goes live within 2 business days.
• Canceling: monthly ads can be canceled anytime and run through the end of the paid month. Yearly ads are refundable for unused full months only if TMDP removes the ad.
• TMDP can decline or remove any ad that breaks these rules, and refunds the unused time when it does. An ad is not an endorsement by TMDP.

The show and our community

The show celebrates the households it helps without ever exposing them.

How we protect households on the show

• We use first name and city only, and only with written permission.
• We never show account numbers, full addresses, balances tied to a full name, or anything a scammer could use. Bills are blurred before they go on screen.
• A household can ask us to take down its story at any time, and we remove it from the website within 7 days.
• If a household says no to publicity, we announce only "a household from [state]."

Watch out for scams. TMDP will never ask you to pay a fee, buy anything, or send money to receive a payoff. We only contact households by email, from our official email address, and we never call or text about a payoff. Anyone asking for money in TMDP's name is a scammer.

Comments and the Facebook Group

• Be kind. People here are dealing with something hard.
• Don't share anyone's personal details, including your own account numbers.
• No selling, recruiting, or promoting other offers.
• No shaming people for their debt.
• We remove comments that break these rules and ban repeat offenders.

TMDP is education and encouragement, not financial, legal, or tax advice.

Our promises

These are the rules we hold ourselves to. Hold us to them.

1. We never touch gift money for ourselves. Gifts are held in each household's payment balance and paid only to that household's creditors. Never for production, ads, salaries, or loans.
2. No insiders. TMDP's owners, staff, contractors, their households, and their relatives can't enter or receive a payoff.
3. Every drawing is independent. RANDOM.ORG picks the household. We never choose, re-draw, or skip a household except under the official drawing rules, and we say so on air when it happens.
4. The entry list is cleaned the same way every week, following One payoff per household, and nothing else is removed. Every eligible household has one line on the list.
5. A weekly public report. Gifts in, money paid, which creditors were paid (by company name only), and the RANDOM.ORG record link, every week.
6. Records kept for 7 years. Entry lists sent to RANDOM.ORG, the list of households already paid, verification files, payoff letters, payment confirmations, and the weekly reports.
7. A yearly outside review. An independent CPA reviews gift money in and out once a year, and we post the result.
8. Mistakes are fixed in public. If we get something wrong, such as a payment to the wrong account or a bad entry list, we fix it, make the household whole, and explain what happened on the next episode.