A colleague pointed out American Express' The Members Project to me yesterday, and I am pretty impressed with the concept. It's the only example I've seen of a major corporation launching an online community to execute a charitable activity in an unabashedly branded environment, with banner ads--and not seeming to pander to or exploit customers' altruistic instincts.
It's also only one of two great examples I've seen of a many-to-one modality in online community, where customers speak collectively to the corporation. (The other one is Dell's IdeaStorm.)
The basic idea is American Express will donate a dollar for every participant to a charitable project suggested by a participant and selected by the community. American Express pays a dollar for your attention, and you help decide what to do with the dollar.
And brilliantly, your dollar is pooled with the dollars of all the other participants. Collectively you decide how your dollars should be used. Collective intelligence identifies the worthiest idea, and your experience as a participant is of belonging to a group doing something wothwhile--which just happens to be branded. You're working in partnership with Amex to decide how to donate some money. You like your partner.
What works so well here for me is the comfortable relationship between the brand and the activity. American Express isn't trying to trick you into thinking it's a nonprofit foundation that only pretends to be a huge, wealthy corporation. It's simply buying your attention (pretty darn cheaply) and engaging you in an activity you can feel sort of good about.
A big part of the effectiveness of the idea is that American Express hands over some control to customers. It respects your collective ability to make a rational choice. Your participation feels meaningful, unscripted.
Amex gets eyeballs on its ads and collects goodwill, customers participate in a positive activity, and a good idea gets funded.
This, rarest of birds, is corporate Web 2.0 done well.
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