JPMorgan Chase's retail banking arm is giving away $5 million to charity via a Facebook promotion.

The Chase Community Giving Facebook application encourages Facebook users to choose from more than 500,000 small and local charities to decide which community organizations they want to receive donations from Chase's corporate philanthropy fund. Chase is running media across Facebook and elsewhere online and in print to promote the initiative, according to a spokesperson for Context Optional, which created the application.

"Even though this is a Facebook-based program, we've already had over 100,000 visitors from Twitter alone," the spokesperson tells Marketing Daily.

Users vote for their favorite non-profits and then get friends and others on Facebook to do the same. Users can type in a ZIP code or name of a local charity and then vote. Each participant can vote once per round for an individual charity, but can vote for a total of 20 charities during Round 1 and a total of five charities during Round 2, per e-mail account and name.

Voting for Round 1 ends Dec. 11, and on Dec. 15, Chase will announce the top 100 vote-getters, who will receive $25,000 each. Final voting will take place Jan. 15-29, and on Feb. 1 Chase will announce the top charity that will receive $1 million grants with the five runners-up each receiving $100,000.

Within the application, users can see which charities their friends and other Facebook users have voted for. They can also search among the thousands of charities available and share their votes with their friends. User can add a personal comment to the charity's page, tweet about it on Twitter, add a post to their Facebook profile and invite friends to access the application.

The application also ties into Twitter for broad social sharing and has been an early success -- over 12,000 Facebook users signed in on the first day, Nov. 15.

An advisory board featuring members who are active in philanthropy, including actress Eva Longoria, Do Something founder Nancy Lublin and NBA Hall of Famer David Robinson, will allocate a total of $1 million to the nominated charities of its choice.

"Every year, our company donates more than $100 million to non-profit organizations in local communities, nationally and abroad, and our employees dedicate countless hours of their own time to helping those in need," said Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a statement. "The grassroots nature of Facebook will allow us to hear directly which local charities matter most to our communities, hopefully creating an even bigger impact."

San Francisco-based Context Optional was also responsible for Target's "Bullseye Gives" $3 million giveaway earlier in the year, as well as PayPal's "Regift a Fruitcake" charity promotion through which more than $120,000 was donated to charities.

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