Amazon’s killing off their “Smile” charity program this February

AmazonSmile’s getting axed over disappointing impact, despite over £380 million in global donations

Amazon has announced that they will be closing down their AmazonSmile program on February 20th, a charitable program that allowed charitable donations to be made that are equivalent to 0.5% of the proceeds of purchases from customers who join the program. 

Despite the fact that the program has generated over £380 million for charity, Amazon are disappointed in the impact that the program has had. Moving forward, Amazon wants to “pursue and invest in other programmes that we know will have more impact”. Below is what Amazon had to say about their closure of AmazonSmile. 

     Ten years ago, we launched AmazonSmile to make it easier for customers to support their favourite charities. However, since launch, the programme has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped.

AmazonSmile represents a very small portion of the total charitable contributions made through our other programmes, which we estimate at more than £100 million in 2021.

We are writing to let you know that we plan to wind down AmazonSmile by February 20, 2023. We will continue to pursue and invest in other programmes that we know will have more impact—from providing support to families in need, to using our logistics infrastructure and technology to assist communities impacted by natural disasters.

We recognise that these are difficult times for everyone, including charities, so we are providing an additional one-time donation to participating charities equivalent to six months of what they earned through the programme in 2022, and they will also be able to accrue additional donations until the program officially closes in February. Once AmazonSmile closes, charities will still be able to seek support from Amazon customers by creating their their own wish lists.

 

AmazonSmile launched 10 years ago and has so far raised over £380 million for charities worldwide, which is around £38 million per year of operation. Charities will continue to receive donations until AmazonSmile’s closure on February 20th, and receive a one-off payment that is equivalent to six months of what they earned through the program in 2022. 

(AmazonSmile’s impact)

 Amazon has stated that AmazonSmile only accounted for “very small portion” of the company’s charitable giving, estimating that the company had made charitable contributions that are estimated to be more than £100 million in 2021.

The news of AmazonSmile’s closure has been met with disappointment from charities globally, as they will soon no longer be able to generate donations through the program. Above, you can see that Cancer Research UK had raised over £1.4 million pounds from AmazonSmile as of November 2022, which is a huge amount of funding that. After February 20th, charities will no longer be able to rely on funding through AmazonSmile, a change that will strain these organisations.

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