“In 2013, we launched AmazonSmile to make it easier for customers to support their favorite charities. In its announcement, Amazon indicates it is the latter: It’s up for debate whether the shutdown is just a cost-saving measure at a time when Amazon has laid off thousands or a more thought-out strategic move to create stronger social impact programming. I’m sure that was the case for many others.Īnd Amazon did so little to promote this program to consumers that they littled benefitted from what could have been the program’s strength: improving the brand’s image as a company that cared. To my mind, the juice was not worth the squeeze for that charity. (I failed to make AmazonSmile my default gateway onto Amazon - shame on me!) And even though this small local nonprofit dedicated staff time to share all sorts of communications about the program over the years, it generated a grand total of $240 in donations as of November 2022. My AmazonSmile account shows that I made 50 purchases over the last 10 years that generated a grand total of $10.63 to my selected charity. But as Adam Clevenger, a longtime British expert on corporate social impact that I admire put it on Twitter: “Can we just be honest? Most programs spent more promoting #AmazonSmile than they actually received from Amazon Smile.”

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