Grant-Making Contest Draws Critics

The leading entry in a $5-million grant contest by American Express has been loudly criticized by some people for its connection to Procter & Gamble, reports The New York Times.

American Express’s contest received 7,000 ideas for projects to support and tens of thousands of votes for the five finalists.

The Children’s Safe Drinking Water project had more than 18,000 votes as of this morning, on the contest’s Web site. The project’s poster, Gregory S. Allgood, is a Procter & Gamble employee who runs one of that company’s philanthropic programs, also called the Children’s Safe Drinking Water project.

A spokeswoman for American Express told the Times that no money would go to Procter & Gamble. Instead, Unicef would receive the money for its clean-water programs. But some said they still felt at a disadvantage.

“It feels like David and Goliath because not only is it a competition of ideas, but when you take into consideration that Unicef is a $300-million-plus entity combined with P&G — how do you compete with that?” says Neal Lurie, the marketing director at the American Solar Energy Society, affiliated with one of the finalist ideas.

See The Chronicle’s article on the American Express competition and other efforts to get the public involved in voting on the projects grant makers support.

(Free registration is required to view the Times article, and a paid subscription or short-term pass is required to view the Chronicle article.)