Amazon’s charity program, AmazonSmile, which was launched in 2013 and has helped raise $500 million for charities, will now be coming to an end, according to Nexstar. In a letter sent to AmazonSmile customers on Wednesday, Amazon announced that they will be closing down the program citing that it “has not grown to create the impact we originally hoped” and they will now be focusing their efforts on “giving to programs with greater impact.”
According to Nexstar, through AmazonSmile, “Amazon would donate 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases to the shopper’s charitable organization of their choice. According to AmazonSmile’s website, over 1 million charities have benefited from the program.”
The program will officially end on February 20, but Amazon is making an effort to ensure the charities are not facing an immediate loss. Amazon is allowing donations to continue until that date when the company will give a one-time donation to impacted charities equivalent to three months of what they received in 2022. Amazon also said that charities will be able to create “wish lists” in which customers can purchase items for the charities they wish to support.
Philanthropic efforts on behalf of Amazon are not going away entirely. The company said that they “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.”
CEO Andy Jassy shared that Amazon is managing a “difficult” economy, as they begin laying offs that will affect 18,000 employees. Jassy explained that making these changes to the company is necessary to help them pursue “long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure.”