Amex Members Project
From espians
American Express has a top 50 worldchanging project game called The Members Project ending early august - the convergent timelines with espians next peaks (eg the 1000 person meeting at end of July) sound worth mixing - how?
First if you know a member of Amex - who will you ask them to vote for? Because of the yunus invitation, microcredit is one of our favorites but who else (and are any of them connecting with London or espians too)
Second, anyone know of some projects that could have made this top 50 or proud to have been in their company?
Amex top 50 becoming top 25 soon
Contents |
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TOP 50 PROJECT SUBMISSIONS
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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
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Bring Young Audiences to Live Theater
This program aims to bring young audiences to non-profit theaters through student matinees, rush tickets and other means of making theater accessible to those who may not otherwise have the opportunity to attend.
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Kid's International Peace Mural Exchange
Program to teach children conflict resolution and peer meditation through the creation of murals that are internationally exchanged.
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Preserve Music Education in Our Schools
While the infrastructure of music programs in schools already exists, this project proposes that The Member's Project supplements adequate funding to strengthen music education.
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Women Artists: Not in the Books? Put them Online!
With only 2% of paintings on museum walls comprised of works by female artists, this project proposes that we transfer the established library of existing female art into a universally accessible online database.
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BUSINESS & FINANCE
-- "Inspiring Kids to Become Entrepreneurs - Spearheaded by an
award-winning filmmaker and executive producer, this project aims to
create an innovative film with an interactive online component to
supplement it, which will aim to inspire city teens to start their own
businesses."
-- "Microcredit to Businesses in Developing Countries - This program aims
to support microfinance, one of the most sustainable and effective
tools in the fight against global poverty. Microfinance emerged in the
1970s as a way to offer financial services to the working poor who were
previously considered "un-bankable" due to lack of collateral."
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COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
-- "50,000 Families up From Poverty - The practice of microlending is
helping to lift many families from total poverty to self-sufficiency
and better lives. This project aims to help thousands of families."
-- "Bringing Water to the Poorest of the Poor - Project designed to
provide water to communities in India, Africa and impoverished areas
worldwide by drilling tube wells wherever needed."
-- "Help African Children Orphaned by AIDS - This project empowers
communities to care for orphans living with AIDS through education and
access to treatment. Additionally the program will provide food,
clothing, medicine, and counseling, while developing sustainable
solutions for each orphan family."
-- "Helping Heal our Returning Wounded Veterans - This project encourages
community support for our troops and supplies aid to financially
strained, wounded veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan."
-- "Helping Wounded Soldiers Return From Iraq - Many young women and men
have been shipped to Iraq only to return with crippling injuries. This
project aims to set up an organization that can teach these veterans
useful skills regardless of their disabilities."
-- "Microfinance Loans - This project provides seed money for a low
interest microfinance organization to grant loans that will circulate
money into poor villages. This project idea could provide a wide relief
effort for years which could then be branched out to more communities
in need."
-- "Microloans for Mothers in Third World Countries - Project provides
financial assistance, to mothers in poverty so that they can feed their
children, bring changes to their homeland and restore family values."
-- "Permanent Homes for American Foster Children - Statistics show that a
staggering number of kids who 'age out' of the foster care system in
America without being adopted often end up homeless, in prison, or on
welfare. This program proposes the creation of a neighborhood for
families willing to adopt kids out of the foster care system, including
senior citizen homes whose residents would act as 'grandparents' for
these kids."
-- "Railroad Dining Car Restoration Project - The goal of this project is
to restore historic dining cars, sleeping cars and lounge cars to
operate on a scenic railroad line. These railroad cars would be the
original cars running on their original route, providing historic
railroad food and service as it was in the 1950s and early 1960s. The
project would partner with a local college's hotel and culinary program
to provide a unique educational component."
-- "RightRides: A Free Safe, Late Night Ride Home - As a response to
physical assaults on women in North Brooklyn neighborhoods, RightRides
was formed in August 2004 to provide free late night rides to women in
high-risk and low-income areas. The goal of this project is to provide
proper funding to expand this project nationwide."
-- "The Clean Hub - In refugee camps and areas affected by natural
disaster, a common policy exists that most structures must be
temporary, even though they may be used for decades. This results in
substandard living conditions. The Clean Hub can solve this problem as
it is a self-sustaining source for clean water, electricity and
sanitation. In keeping with all policies, it can be deemed portable,
but since it is self-sustaining, it can function in one place for as
long as necessary with minimal maintenance."
-- "Water in Africa - Need for Wells & Clean Water - With over a billion
people lacking sanitary drinking water, this project aims to provide
wells and clean water to impoverished communities to promote proper
hygiene and prevent diseases. Ready access to clean water also allows
people to spend more time on other important tasks, such as farming and
gathering food."
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EDUCATION
-- "Adopt a Classroom to Support School Children - This project is
designed to motivate individuals, businesses and organizations to
contribute funds to specific school teachers nationwide to enable them
to purchase educational materials online which will enhance teaching
opportunities in the classroom."
-- "Aged Out - Kicked Out help Foster Kids Futures - With 20,000 children
aging out of foster care in the U.S. each year, this project aims to
create a network of mentors and programs to help children prepare for
life after foster care through education, job training and life skills
training."
-- "Connect Kids Around the World - This project connects kids in North
America and Europe with kids in Africa and Asia through video-
teleconferencing. One of the great inequities in the world is the
vastly different resources available to school children across the
globe. By connecting classrooms electronically, teachers in the
developed world can include students in poor classrooms in joint
projects and daily lessons."
-- "Interactive Museum for Children of ALL Abilities - This project
proposes an interactive museum for children of all abilities, providing
a safe, nurturing environment for them to learn and socialize. While
some programs will be tailored to special needs children, it will be a
place for all kids to come together and build strong social skills
through exhibits requiring them to work together."
-- "KidsWithGive - Teach Philanthropy & Change the World - This idea is to
create a nonprofit organization to inspire children to give back by
connecting them with kid-friendly charities around their passions. An
online gift registry will be created where children can contribute and
learn more about philanthropy."
-- "Life Skills Classes in High School - This plan proposes to create a
curriculum that prepares high school kids for life beyond the
classroom. Topics will cover skills that apply to real life ranging
from what a credit score is and a how a high and low score can affect
your life, to retirement savings and benefits of homeownership."
-- "Social Mobility for Youth in Low-Wage Jobs - This program takes a
comprehensive approach to ease common barriers for hardworking
low-income youth. The youth contribute a part of their paychecks to a
savings account, giving them access to support for employment training,
healthcare, logistical needs, workshops on asset building and financial
management, and planning to reach their education, career, and life
goals."
-- "Teachers ask. You choose. Students learn. - This program aims to
create a website where public school teachers can request specific
educational projects for their classrooms, and individuals can log on
to choose which projects to fund, in turn, providing educational tools
for students from low-income families nationwide."
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ENVIRONMENT AND WILDLIFE
-- "Harvest the Sun - Every day we get up in the morning to the largest
source of energy in our lives. Every roof on every building both
residential and commercial is a potential piece of real estate for
solar power generation. The goal of this project is to get 100%
self-sufficiency for the average household, depending on geographic
location."
-- "Plant A Million Trees - Global Reforestation - From forest fires to
rain forest destruction to natural water disasters to overdevelopment,
trees are disappearing in vast numbers all over the globe. This plan
suggests planting millions of trees where they are needed most."
-- "Restore our bee population! - This proposal propagates a replacement
for the honey bee. Approximately 85% of the fruits and vegetables that
are consumed rely on pollination."
-- "Save Lake Winnipesaukee! (Winni-Who?) - Lake Winnipesaukee needs
action to ensure it will always be available for drinking and
recreational enjoyment. Record development has caused impairments,
making this idea more urgent than ever. This project's vision is to
develop and implement community strategies which effectively stop
threats to water quality."
-- "Small Windfarms - This project aims to fund the installation of one or
more wind generators on many small farms in appropriate places. This
would place wind power towers in rural places with lots of wind,
produce power for small farmers who otherwise couldn't afford it and
also provide some income when excess power is sold to the grid."
-- "The Virtual Forest Project. 1 million trees. Easy. - This program will
help develop a virtual community to calculate and offset their own CO2
footprint by planting a virtual tree. 1 virtual tree = 1 real tree
planted in a reforestation project. Then let them invite their friends
to go carbon neutral too and invite corporate sponsors, local groups
and celebrities to start their own forests or to recognize the most
influential members of the virtual forest."
-- "Wind and Solar for Residential - This project plans to create a small
power generating unit that is small and powerful enough to be placed
into every residential home. The ultimate goal of the project is to
create a community of homes to help generate power for the power
companies to use."
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HEALTH AND FITNESS
-- "A Cure for Autism - One in 150 children are diagnosed with autism.
This project hopes to make people more aware of autism and drives to
donate funds to an organization that has an interest in curing autism."
-- "Alzheimer's Disease Research - At age 85, 50% of the population will
have Alzheimer's disease. Medicaid expenditures are threatening to
overwhelm state budgets. Sixty percent of family caregivers die before
the person for whom they are caring. These factors have created a
'perfect storm' that will devastate our healthcare systems, unless a
cure and/or prevention are found."
-- "Alzheimer's Research and Support - Alzheimer's early detection and
treatment/prevention is critical as is the affordability of
medications, in-home assistance and care facilities. This project
hopes to relieve the extreme emotional distress and financial burden
that can ruin a family."
-- "Aphasia Support Center (Cincinnati Area) - This project aims to create
a non-profit Aphasia Support Center in the Cincinnati area. Caused by a
stroke or traumatic brain injury, aphasia impacts the ability to speak,
understand others, causes difficulty with reading, writing and numbers.
The Aphasia Support Center would provide group therapy, activities,
caregiver support and community outreach."
-- "Children's Safe Drinking Water - Four thousand children die needlessly
every day from drinking contaminated water. This program aims to
address this issue through an innovative and low-cost technology that
effectively purifies and cleans water while removing bacteria, viruses,
and parasites."
-- "Cure for Alzheimer's - The cost of caring for an Alzheimer's patient
is expensive, and the number of people suffering from this disease
continues to increase. This project supports the research for a cure as
the disease afflicts more people every day."
-- "Help Stop ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) - This program seeks to provide
financial assistance to the research of Lou Gehrig's Disease, or ALS
(Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis). This fatal disease attacks the motor
neurons of a person's central nervous system as most patients live for
an average of 5 years after diagnosis."
-- "Helping Military Families with Deployment! - This program strives to
provide resources to hundreds of thousands of military children and
their families as they cope with the challenges of a parent's
deployment. This project will additionally provide resources for
families to address complicated transitions where a parent returns with
combat-related health conditions/injuries."
-- "Homeless Prevention for Vets from Iraq/Afghanistan - This program
strives to provide support and assistance to returning soldiers from
Iraq and Afghanistan. Services include outreach to newly separated
veterans and their families, outpatient counseling and case management,
inpatient residential treatment services and much more."
-- "Kids Alfresco - This program plans to inspire and enable young
children to enjoy active lives outdoors. Kids Alfresco promotes
purpose-driven activity through everyday play as well as planned
activities such as hiking, camping, biking and much more. From
passionate parents and volunteers to generous corporations, Kids
Alfresco, through education and collaboration, will accomplish the
incredible."
-- "Prevent Blindness in Millions of People Worldwide! - Millions of
people are going blind around the world because of disease or medical
complications of the eye. For only about five or six dollars, a person
can be treated to prevent the onset of blindness, cataracts and other
eye maladies. This winning project could literally save the sight of a
million people or more around the world."
-- "Simplify Medication Information - Medication instructions can be
especially difficult to follow because the names are hard to remember
and the instructions aren't always clear. This program aims to simplify
medication instructions in the U.S. by using pictures that everyone
could understand, regardless of age, education, language, or
background."
-- "Treating our Troops - This project plans to start a nationwide system
of rehabilitative specialists to bridge the gap in care for troops
returning from Iraq."
-- "The Return of Physician as Healer - This project looks to transform
the study and practice of modern medicine through integration with
traditional medicine, reviving the way of the physician as healer."
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MISCELLANEOUS
-- "1 Billion People, $10/year = $10B for Social Change - This project
strives to develop an online social network that enables individuals to
combine money, resources, and intellectual capital to end poverty and
injustice. Members join the community with a $10 commitment. If every
person tells 3 people, the program could reach the world in 16 days."
-- "Awareness Can Build a Family - An astonishing 90% of pregnancies
involving diagnosis of Down syndrome are terminated. This program will
use public service television, ads, booklets and more to share that the
lives of people with Down syndrome are just as valuable as everyone
else."
-- "Restore our U.S. National Parks - The United States National Parks and
Historic Sites are in disrepair and funding is needed to repair and
refurbish. This project aims to provide funding to the landmarks that
define our nation."
