American Express Membership Rewards Project Winner

American Express Membership Rewards just held a contest to decide which of a selection of charities would be awarded $2 million. The runners up each received $100,000, which isn’t too shabby. After a vote by the card members, Children’s Safe Drinking Water was selected as the winning project to receive the big prize. The funds will be used to provide millions of children in the developing world with safe drinking water.

The Members Project was launched on May 15. I’m sure you saw the commercial at some point with Ellen DeGeneris and Andre Agasee? and that cute guy who “works next door.” That was the contest in which cardmembers submitted, discussed, rated and voted on the project ideas that would receive the dollars. American Express contributed $1 toward the winning idea for each cardmember who registered, with a minimum commitment of $1 million and up to $5 million in funding.

Over the last 2 months, 186,508 Cardmembers registered. More than 7,000 project ideas were submitted and 162,087 votes were cast. That’s a lot of support.

The runner up projects, who received $100,000 in funding are the following:

• Plant A Million Trees — Global Reforestation paired with American Forests
• Restore our U.S. National Parks paired with National Park Foundation
• Teachers ask. You choose. Students learn. paired with DonorsChoose.org
• Wind and Solar for Residential paired with the American Solar Energy Society

Great job American Express and Cardmembers everywhere!