very simple

As both an American Express cardholder and a prior donor to DonorsChoose (which is an awesome charity, by the way, and you should go donate to them regardless of whether they win), I had been dutifully voting for them in each round of the American Express Members Project. I had noticed when I voted in the final round that they were in second place behind "Clean Drinking Water for Kids". I didn’t think too much of it at the time, both are certainly worthy causes, and I just hoped that my favorite charity got into the lead. Well, I just read over at Tomato Nation that apparently, the water for kids program isn’t exactly the "individual idea" that it claims to be.

One of the other five finalists, though, isn’t so much a non-profit organization, it seems. Sure, drinking water for children is a concept everyone can get behind, but the problem in this case is that "everyone" is actually Procter & Gamble, which is a for-profit corporation. P&G and Amex have both tried to claim that the project is the brainchild of a P&G employee, who is working in concert with Unicef, so the entry violates neither the letter nor the spirit of the contest’s terms.

Uh…no. Not buying it. First of all, the text of the clean-drinking-water proposal is nearly identical to the text found here, which touts P&G’s PUR water filters. Amex has stated in an official message that "the project idea Cardmembers are voting on is not the P&G’s clean water program with PSI," but given that the Amex/P&G web sites are for all intents and purposes indistinguishable, this is hair-splitting — if you’re feeling generous. If you’re not, it’s merely absurd.

Seriously. As Sars points out, P&G has plenty of dough. They could just as easily just donate water filters (that they manufacture!) themselves to UNICEF. But apparently, beating out a truly startup and incredibly innovative charity organization that fills a major gap in our educational system was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

So. Go vote for DonorsChoose. and regardless of whether they win or not, go buy some books or computers for kids.

Edited to add – I don’t want this to seem like the water program isn’t a worthy project.  It is.  It’s just that UNICEF is an organization with massive corporate underwriting and a $300 million per year budget.  When Amex touted the Members Project, they specifically marketed it as a way to help fund a possibly little noticed, underfunded, original idea.  It’s not that you shouldn’t give money to UNICEF or support them in some way.  It’s that, in this very particular circumstance, they (and P&G), are pretty much the antithesis of what this entire campaign would appear to be about.

Tags: blogging, good things