announced the project March 17, 2003 as an online project on her blog. She invited other poets with blogs to join her in the project and listed the participating poets. Thorson has continued to run the project each year on her blog with more poets participating as the word has spread about the project.

In 2009 the American Academy of Poets tied the project to a fund-raising drive for the Academy. The Academy had announced the fund-raising drive in honor of NaPoWriMo's "fifth anniversary"