Amazon Drops Its Smile

 

by Pa Rock

On-Line Shopper

Amazon.com sent around a notification a couple of evenings ago saying that it would be dropping it's charitable-giving program, AmazonSmile, on February 20th.  The giant retailer said in its death notice for the program that while the company will continue to support many worthwhile projects of a charitable nature, it was supporting too many causes through AmazonSmile, and the charitable effort had been spreading itself too thin - whatever that means.  (I suspect that most of the charities being unplugged by Amazon would be happy to take any donations, "thin" or otherwise.)

(To the company's credit, Amazon did state that it would provide a parting donation to each charity equal to three months of benefits from the program that each had received in 2022.)

I joined Amazon Smile when the program first began in 2013.  There was no cost for being a member.  People who joined just had to do their Amazon shopping by accessing the shopping site through smile.amazon.com rather than just through Amazon's regular web portal.  New members were offered many choices of charities to support, and I selected the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.   

Over the years that I have been in the program, I have made 199 eligible purchases and donated a total of $29.99 to my charity, the ASPCA.  That same charity has received a total of over $15.7 million from AmazonSmile during the same period.  Thirty bucks isn't much, but I hate to see that effortless (on my part) giving go away - and I am sure that America's mistreated dogs and cats hate to lose that funding stream as well.

Overall, AmazonSmile has donated just over $400 million to US charities, and just under $450 million to charities worldwide.

But times are tough and Amazon.com just cannot afford to be as charitable as it once was.

Of course, MacKenzie Scott might disagree.  What a shame she is not running the company!