Amazon Smile Closing by Feb 2023

[dm123]

Just got the following email that amazonsmile will be closing in February 2023.

Dear customer,

In 2013, we launched AmazonSmile to make it easier for customers to support their favorite charities. However, after almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped. With so many eligible organizations—more than 1 million globally—our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.

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 areas where we’ve seen we can make meaningful change—from building affordable housing to providing access to computer science education for students in underserved communities to using our logistics infrastructure and technology to assist broad communities impacted by natural disasters.

To help charities that have been a part of the AmazonSmile program with this transition, we will be providing them with a one-time donation equivalent to three months of what they earned in 2022 through the program, 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 own wish lists.

As a company, we will continue supporting a wide range of other programs that help thousands of charities and communities across the U.S. For instance:
Housing Equity Fund: We’re investing $2 billion to build and preserve affordable housing in our hometown communities. In just two years, we’ve provided funding to create more than 14,000 affordable homes—and we expect to build at least 6,000 more in the coming months. These units will host more than 18,000 moderate- to low-income families, many of them with children. In one year alone, our investments have been able to increase the affordable housing stock in communities like Bellevue, Washington and Arlington, Virginia by at least 20%.
Amazon Future Engineer: We’ve funded computer science curriculum for more than 600,000 students across over 5,000 schools—all in underserved communities. We have plans to reach an additional 1 million students this year. We’ve also provided immediate assistance to 55,000 students in our hometown communities by giving them warm clothes for the winter, food, and school supplies.
Community Delivery Program: We’ve partnered with food banks in 35 U.S. cities to deliver more than 23 million meals, using our logistics infrastructure to help families in need access healthy food – and we plan to deliver 12 million more meals this year alone. In addition to our delivery services, we’ve also donated 30 million meals in communities across the country.
Amazon Disaster Relief: We’re using our logistics capabilities, inventory, and cloud technology to provide fast aid to communities affected by natural disasters. For example, we’ve created a Disaster Relief Hub in Atlanta with more than 1 million relief items ready for deployment, our Disaster Relief team has responded to more than 95 natural disasters, and we’ve donated more than 20 million relief products to nonprofits assisting communities on the ground.
Community Giving: We support hundreds of local nonprofits doing meaningful work in cities where our employees and their families live. For example, each year we donate hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations working to build stronger communities, from youth sport leagues, to local community colleges, to shelters for families experiencing homelessness.
We’ll continue working to make a difference in many ways, and our long-term commitment to our communities remains the same—we’re determined to do every day better for our customers, our employees, and the world at large.

Thank you for being an Amazon customer.

[YitzyS]

Just got the following email that amazonsmile will be closing in February 2023.

Just got that email also!

I was thinking that it's really sad, but it's true that it's so little money. I always try to order through Smile (when I'm not coming from a DD link), but my TOTAL impact is only about $40. It feels like it should be a lot more with all that I order.

[lcm]

Having run the accounting of a small organization, it is a nice little something that comes in

[Yo ssi]

Farewell

[mevinyavin]

Having run the accounting of a small organization, it is a nice little something that comes in

I was the first one to use Amazon Smile for Mir (Brooklyn). It seems to have gotten them a bit of change.


However, my father sent me this from his account:

[aygart]

Wait, what impact do you think they were hoping for?

[mevinyavin]

Wait, what impact do you think they were hoping for?

I think they were hoping it would put Walmart out of business. It didn't work.

[aygart]

I think they were hoping it would put Walmart out of business. It didn't work.

Yup when someone who spent thousands of dollars via Amazon gets an email that the charity got twenty bucks because of their purchases, it won't impact their buying decisions.

[mevinyavin]

Yup when someone who spent thousands of dollars via Amazon gets an email that the charity got twenty bucks because of their purchases, it won't impact their buying decisions.

They shouldn't have sent those quarterly emails for the charities that didn't make it big - at least as big as RCCS. Or for no one. That way, our imaginations think we must have been getting them big money.
They could still hide the statistics on some back page somewhere - they just didn't need to rub our noses in it.

[mevinyavin]

Starting to pop on on all the tech news sites.
Example:
https://gizmodo.com/amazon-amazon-prime-amazonsmile-charity-1850005604

Excerpt:

[Young explorer]

[AsherO]

Yup, the impact they hoped for was on their bottom line, not the charities top line.

[mevinyavin]

Mods, rename the thread: "How much did you donate through Amazon Smile? Screenshots only"

[LoLo]

What kind of spend did you do?

[lcm]

Not sure who else was donating to this org

[Dan]

What kind of spend did you do?

$137,740