Amazon to Close AmazonSmile Charity Program Next Month

Amazon will shut down its charity program AmazonSmile next month due to cost-cutting fulfillment. 

The program which had run for a decade allowed Amazon shoppers select a charity that the company would then donate 0.5 percent of the cost to. 

Through AmazonSmile, $500 million has been donated since the program launched in 2013, averaging less than $230 per charity. However, the company noted that this was not enough to keep the charity running.  

In a press release, the company said AmazonSmile “has not grown to create the impact 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,” it wrote. 

AmazonSmile will officially shut down on February 20 and donations can still be made to enrolled charities until then. Amazon will also make one-time donations to the charities equaling to three months of donations that they earned in 2022 through the program.  

Despite the shutdown, Amazon will continue to donate to charities that cater to natural disaster relief and housing, and “pursue and invest in other areas where we’ve seen we can make meaningful change.” 

The AmazonSmile shutdown announcement follows Amazon’s recent efforts to cutdown on costs, with plans to lay off 18,000 employees in the coming months and cancel the building of 42 new facilities.