A Sad Goodbye to AmazonSmile...

Amazon leadership announced on Wednesday (1/18) that they will be retiring the AmazonSmile initiative at the end of February after almost 10yrs of operation. If you are unfamiliar, AmazonSmile is a program allowing customers to select a nonprofit organization as their charity of choice, I chose the Special Olympics, and then when an eligible purchase is made via AmazonSmile, a portion of the purchase price is donated to the selected organization. Unfortunately, leadership is has elected to terminate things on what they consider to be minimal impact and a lack of "meaningful change". Personally, I think if they really wanted to make a more meaningful impact then they would have offered a higher donation percentage than 0.5% of the purchase price. To give you a little quick mathematical representation, every $100 spent on AmazonSmile meant a WHOPPING $0.50 donation to your charity of choice. Numbers reported in the announcement referenced an average donation of roughly $230 per charity, much less than they had hoped at the programs inception, but certainly enough to do a little good no?

I know it's not much but I have seen how some charities stretch a dollar and I am certain that $230 could go a long way in the right hands. Decisions like Amazon's to stop giving due to a lack of impact is an unfortunate trend that I see repeating in today's society. Whether working individually or on behalf of an organization, donating time and resources means a lot and it can feel discouraging when the needs of the less fortunate continue to grow exponentially despite one's efforts. Hopefully Amazon will restructure the program instead of a full shutdown and commit themselves to making the impact they originally set out to do. Considering Amazon's 2022 revenue was a little over $502 billion, I think Jeff and the rest of the board can probably afford to give a little back to the people that can't buy their own Prime membership.

If you want to give AmazonSmile a shot for its last 31 days of existence you can use the steps below to get yourself set up!

1. Go to smile.amazon.com in your web browser.

2. Sign in to your Amazon account.

3. Search for and select the nonprofit organization you would like to support.

4. Confirm your selection.

Once you have selected a nonprofit organization, you will automatically be shopping on AmazonSmile every time you shop on Amazon.

To use AmazonSmile on the mobile app:

1. Open the Amazon App on your mobile device

2. Go to the main menu (Three horizontal lines)

3. Tap on 'Settings'

4. Scroll down and tap on 'AmazonSmile'

5. Turn on AmazonSmile

6. Select your charity of choice

Once you have completed these steps, eligible purchases made through the Amazon mobile app will also go to your chosen nonprofit organization...but not for long!