Christian George
AmazonSmile, a charity program by Amazon, is due to end February 20 this year.
This was made known by the company as it sends email to its customers announcing the change that AmazonSmile will remain open until February 20, 2023.
On the reason for the shutdown, Amazon said that after almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that it had originally hoped. With so many eligible organizations — more than one million globally, adding that the ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.
The program which started in 2013 has donated about 400 million dollars.
AmazonSmile is a separate website that lets customers browse and buy items just like on Amazon.com but Amazon would keep track of the purchases and donate money on their behalf. Here, 0.5 per cent of it eligible products are chanelled towards charity.
According to an online report, charities that have participated in the AmazonSmile program will receive a one-time donation from Amazon and that will be equivalent to three months of AmazonSmile donations. It’s a sort of severance package for nonprofits.
The effect of this shutdown entails that the online marketing giant would not longer set aside the 0.5 per cent of its earnings for charity, however a good number of staff who were working on site may be laid off.
