Rules and FAQ

Every year, millions of people fill out a bracket and the only thing on the line is bragging rights. Mad4Change puts something better on the line.

You make a buy-in donation, choose a charity in your city and fill out your picks. Once the games start you face a different fan each round. Pick more games correctly than your opponent and you win a share of their donation for your charity. In the end every dollar goes to a charity.

All money donated is for the purpose of donating to charity. This is not a gambling website. You never receive winnings for taking part. It is for giving to a good cause and having fun.

Anyone 18 or over in the United States. We start in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, each with their own local charities. If you live somewhere else you can still play: choose the city you want to raise money for.

Professional and college leagues: NFL football, NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball, NCAA college football, baseball, the NBA and NHL postseasons, and international soccer. Each has its own page with what you pick, what a stretch costs and when it runs.

We add a sport when it has a bracket or a weekly slate a fan can call ahead of time — that is the whole game — and when we can get the results reliably enough to settle money on them.

No. We run league sport only, and we have no plans to change that.

Two reasons, and the first one is the one that matters. The Olympic movement draws a hard line around its events being used to raise money or attract attention for anybody else, however good the cause, and polices it closely. We would rather be plainly outside that line than argue about where it sits.

The second is that the games themselves do not suit how this works. Our whole format is picking a bracket or a weekly slate ahead of time, against other fans who picked the same one. An Olympics is hundreds of events across thirty-odd sports, most decided in a single final, many on judging rather than a score — there is no equivalent of a round everybody plays at once, and no honest way to settle a battle between two people who followed entirely different events.

The same goes for anything run by a governing body rather than a league: college championships outside the sports listed above, and international competitions beyond the soccer tournament we already name on its own page.

A buy-in donation of at least $20, in whole dollars, and you can top it up until the first game. That is the whole of it — there is no other fee, and we never ask you to add anything for card processing. Card fees come out of the 10% overhead, which is on this page and on your receipt.

The one place you will see a card fee mentioned is on the give without playing page, and only as an optional tick box. A gift made outside the game pays no overhead at all, so without it the processing fee comes out of what the charity receives. Playing never asks you twice for the same cost.

Yes, at any time, from the donate page. You do not need an account and you do not need to know anything about basketball. The smallest card donation we can take is $5.

A gift is not a buy-in and the two behave differently, which is the point of keeping them apart: a buy-in is played, split into stakes and can be won for your charity or lost to another fan’s. A gift is never at stake. It reaches exactly who you chose, whatever happens in a battle.

Four words, from biggest to smallest. Only one of them is a thing you buy.

Season

A sport’s whole year: the 2027 NFL season, the 2027 college football season. We never sell a season. It is just the calendar everything else sits in.

Stretch — the thing you buy

A chunk of a season you play on its own, usually three weeks: weeks 1–3, then 4–6, and so on. Each stretch has its own buy-in donation of at least $20, its own charity and its own winner. The NCAA tournament is a single stretch, because it is over in three weeks anyway.

Round

One slice of a stretch, usually a week. A three-week stretch has three rounds; the NCAA tournament stretch has five. Each round puts part of your donation at stake.

Battle

You against one other fan, for one round. Whoever got more games right wins the round, and most of what was at stake is banked for their charity.

So: a season contains stretches, a stretch contains rounds, and a round is one battle against one person.

Because a football season is four months long, and asking you to remember it every week for four months is how people fall out of these things. Three weeks is short enough to finish.

It also means you can stop and start. Play weeks 1–3, sit out the next one, come back for weeks 7–9. Nothing is lost by missing one.

Yes, and most people probably should. Buy every stretch of the regular season in one go, make all your picks that evening, and there is nothing to come back for — the schedule is already published, so every game is there to pick.

It costs the same either way: at least $20 a stretch, so six stretches is at least $120. The playoffs are sold separately once the teams are known, for the obvious reason.

A group can do this together, so everyone is in for the same stretches.

No. Each stretch has its own charity, chosen when you buy it and changeable right up until that stretch starts. Your profile holds a default so you are not choosing from scratch every time. Once a stretch starts, its charity is fixed — nobody gets to switch beneficiary after they can see how they are doing.

Two things happen to your buy-in. A tenth is banked for your charity the moment the stretch starts, whatever happens afterwards. The rest is split across the rounds, and each round you win sends most of what was at stake to your charity as well.

Lose every round and your charity still keeps that first tenth. Win every round and it keeps far more than you put in, because it also keeps what your opponents put up.

The tournament has five battle rounds. Before it starts, your donation is split into seven blocks:

• 20% for round 1, 20% for round 2, 20% for round 3
• 10% for round 4, 10% for round 5 (semifinals and championship together)
• 10% banked for your charity straight away, guaranteed
• 10% for overhead: card fees, technology, administration

You have a block for every round, so losing one round never knocks you out of the next. After each round we count your correct picks and your opponent's. Win and you take their block for that round.

Win: you take your opponent's block for that round. Say your block was $100 and theirs was $120: your total for the round is $220. 70% ($154) is banked for your charity, and the other 30% ($66) carries into your next round. Banked money is guaranteed to reach your charity.

Lose: your block for that round goes to your opponent's charity. Anything already banked stays banked for yours, and you still have a block for every remaining round.

Draw: nobody takes anything. Each side banks their own block for their own charity.

In the last round there is no next round, so the winner banks everything.

When a pool has an odd number of players, three of them battle instead of two. Beat both opponents and you take both blocks, then bank 70% and carry 30% as usual.

If two of you tie on top, you split the third player's block between you and each bank and carry your share. If all three tie, everyone banks their own block.

Someone in your city who gave a similar amount, playing for a different charity, and ideally somebody you have not faced yet. If you are in a group, you battle inside your group first.

Now and then your city runs out of opponents. Everyone left is playing for the same charity as you — and a battle between two fans backing the same cause moves money from it straight back to it, which is a waste of a round. So instead we send you out of town.

A rivalry battle puts you against a fan from another Mad4Change city. Win and you bring their stake home to your charity; lose and it stays in theirs. It is the only time money crosses between cities, it happens because there was no better battle to give you, and it is worth a badge for turning up and another for winning.

These are rare — a handful a round across the whole site. Everything else about the round works exactly the same way.

It depends on your picks. Win all five rounds against opponents with equal stakes, starting from $100, and your charity banks $244.83:

• Banked at the start: $10.00
• Round 1: $28.00 banked, $12.00 carried
• Round 2: $44.80 banked, $19.20 carried
• Round 3: $54.88 banked, $23.52 carried
• Round 4: $46.93 banked, $20.11 carried
• Round 5: $60.22 banked

That is the best case, not a promise. Lose every round and your charity still keeps the $10 banked at the start, and the rest has gone to other players' charities. Either way, 90% of every dollar reaches a charity.

You never go without picks. Everything stays editable until the first game of your stretch starts, and anything still blank at that moment is filled in by the backup rule you chose: the better seed or the better record. We never use betting lines. We remind you by email before that deadline, and by push or text if you turn them on.

No. When the first game of your stretch starts, every pick in it is fixed — including the later rounds and the weeks still to come. Everyone locks at the same moment with the same information, so nobody gains by checking back more often than anyone else. When you buy into the next stretch you make a fresh set of picks for it.

It happens — that is what a bracket is. You still battle every round, your picks just stop being right, and when you lose a round your stake for it goes to your opponent's charity. Which is almost always another charity in your own city: the money never leaves the cause, it only changes which one. The exception is a rivalry battle, where it can go to another city's list. The share banked for your own charity when the stretch locked is yours either way.

Pick one from your city's list when you register. You can change it until the first game. If you never choose one, we split your donation evenly across that season's charities in your city and tell you we have done it.

Yes. Create a group and invite people, and you battle each other first. A group needs at least four ready members by the first game; below that its members play in the city pool instead. A group can include friends in other cities.

Yes, in full, any time before the first game. After that the money is committed to charities and we cannot refund it.

Every donation and every battle is recorded. Your profile lists everything you have ever given, with dates and reference numbers, and you can download a copy for your records. Your battleground shows how much is banked for your charity and how much is still at stake.

Each charity’s page shows what has been raised for it, and the city totals on the home page are public. Money is held in a double-entry ledger in whole cents: nothing is ever edited or deleted, so a correction is a new entry rather than a quiet change to an old one.

Our EIN is 43-2654728. It is on every page, at the bottom, so you can look us up with the IRS or your own records whenever you want to.

An EIN is not the same as being tax-exempt, and we would rather say so than let the number imply something it does not. Mad4Change Incorporated is reapplying for 501(c)(3) status, and until the IRS grants it we are not asking anyone to treat a donation as deductible. When the determination arrives we will say so here and on the about page.

Badges and bragging rights. Players never receive money, prizes or gift cards. Winning a battle moves money to your charity, not to you.

There are badges for calling an upset, winning a rivalry battle, filling your whole bracket in yourself, banking a few hundred for your cause, and talking your friends into playing. Every badge and how to get it is on its own page. A badge has no cash value and never changes your stake, who you face, or how your picks are scored.

Yes. Tick the box on the donate page and the same amount goes out once a month until you stop it. The smallest monthly gift we can take is $5.

Monthly giving is the most useful kind for a small charity, because it is the only kind that can be planned around. It is also the easiest to forget about, which is why stopping it takes one press and needs nothing from us.

Every receipt we send you carries a link to your own page. It lists everything you have given, lets you download it, and has buttons to change the amount, pause for a while, or stop altogether. You do not need an account and you do not need to ask us.

That link is personal to you and works for about thirteen months, so an old receipt still gets you in. Anyone who has the link can stop your giving, so treat it like the email it came in. If you have an account, the same controls are on your profile.

We will never make you email us to stop giving.

Yes, as long as you create the account with the same email address you gave with. Your whole giving history then appears on your profile alongside anything you spend on playing, counted separately, because a buy-in and a gift are different things. If you use a different address they stay apart — write to us and we will join them up.

Yes. Choose one on the donate page and that money is held for them and never enters a battle, so no part of it can end up anywhere else. Or give without naming one, and it is unrestricted: we can spend it where it is needed most, including the running costs that would otherwise come out of what fans raise.

Unrestricted giving is more valuable to us than it sounds. It is what pays for the card processing, the email and the server, so that the overhead taken from players stays as small as it is.

Yes, by email, every time — including every month if you give monthly. It names the amount, the date, what it was for, and states that nothing was given to you in exchange, which is what the IRS requires an acknowledgment to say. Keep it with your tax records.

If you added something to cover the card fee, the receipt is for the total, because all of it was given and none of it came back to you.

Because the two are not the same. A buy-in pays 10% overhead, and that overhead is what card fees come out of — asking a player to cover them as well would be charging twice for one cost. A gift given outside the game pays no overhead at all, so without the tick box the processing fee comes out of what the charity receives. It is optional, it is never ticked for you, and we show you the figure rather than rolling it in.

Yes. Write to us and we will sort it out, including a gift matched against a season so that what fans raise is doubled.

Nobody is named publicly unless they have said yes, and the amount is never shown unless you ask for it. Being thanked by name on our site is an acknowledgment, not advertising: it carries no claims about your business and no prices, which is what keeps it a donation for both of us.

Write to us and we will refund it. If it was given to a named charity and we have already passed it on we will tell you so plainly rather than quietly refunding it out of something else. A refund is always recorded against the original gift; we never delete a record of money that arrived.