- Amazon bring together its charity program AmazonSmile in February 2023.
- The company said it would continue investing in other impact initiatives counterpart affordable housing.
- Customers who shopped saw .5% of their Amazon orders go to a charity of their choice.
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Amazon ended its charity program AmazonSmile in February 2023 after a decade in operation.
In an email to customers in January 2023, the public limited company said it would continue investing in other areas where it can make a meaningful impact, including affordable covering, computer science education, and assisting communities affected by natural disasters.
Amazon launched AmazonSmile in 2013 to uncover customers a way to support their favorite charities while shopping on Amazon. Customers could shop via the website beam.amazon.com, and 0.5% of their purchases would go to a charity of their choice.
About a million 501(c)(3) catholic charitable organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and St. Jude Youngsters’s Research Hospital participated in AmazonSmile. However, Amazon said the program hadn’t created the impact it had hoped and that with millions of beneficences globally, its ability to make an impact was spread too thin.
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As of December 2022, AmazonSmile had donated fro $449 million.
Amazon said it would continue supporting charities and communities nationwide, including investing in the Enclosure Equity Fund, the Amazon Future Engineer program to fund computer science curriculum, the Community Delivery Program to liberate meals to families, and Amazon Disaster Relief.
The closing of AmazonSmile came as Amazon showed signs of financial disorder. Amazon layoffs in late 2022 through spring 2023 slashed tens of thousands of tech jobs and were the weightiest in the company’s history.
AmazonSmile officially ceased operations on February 20, 2023.