In a move that stunned charities worldwide, Amazon announced last week that it will scrap its AmazonSmile program as of February 20. Executives cited the program’s limited effectiveness as the primary reason for its decision.
Since its inception in 2013, AmazonSmile has donated a half percent of participating shoppers’ eligible purchases to the charity of their choice. There was no service charge to customers for this service. The cache of recipients includes many animal charities and groups that advocate for homeless and rescue animals. In 2020, Amazon boasted that animal-related causes were the top recipients of AmazonSmile donations.
The online shopping and distribution giant claims to have raised close to $850 million globally as of December, 2022. The average annual donation to a charity in the U.S. was $230. Amazon deemed these numbers to be trifling.
“With so many eligible organizations — more than one million globally — our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin," Amazon wrote in a letter to customers.
Beneficiaries of the program strongly disagree. The couple thousand dollars that the Squirrelwood Equine Sanctuary in New York’s Hudson Valley receives every quarter “made a huge difference to us,” Beth Hyman, executive director of the sanctuary, posted on Twitter.
“That can feed an animal for a year,” Hyman continued. “That's a life that hangs in the balance,” a life that the sanctuary may not be able to support in the program’s absence. Hyman further asserted that Amazon gave little notice that the program would be shelved and that Amazon conspired against the success of its own program by hiding it “behind another URL.” Moreover, AmazonSmile was “never integrated into their mobile apps.”
Among the hundreds of animal charities AmazonSmile supports are Rescue Me and MaeDay rescues, both working to prevent cruelty to stray dogs and saving strays from euthanasia; Rescued Paws, a sanctuary for overlooked and senior animals and Woof Love Animal Rescue which helps find forever homes for unwanted dogs.
In a statement, Amazon said it will help charities transition by “providing them with a one-time donation equivalent to three months of what they earned in 2022 through the program.” Charities can continue receiving donations until the program's official end in February.
After that, shoppers can still support charities “by buying items off their wish lists,” the company said. Amazon vowed to continue supporting other programs such as affordable housing, food banks and disaster relief. However, some are calling this redistribution of giving disingenuous and self-serving.
“It’s a little annoying that Amazon is describing this as a shift in their giving,” Jan Masaoka, the chief executive officer of the California Association of Nonprofits, told MarketWatch. “It is taking the decision about where these dollars go away from the customers and into their corporate offices.”
The death of AmazonSmile marks another in a line of cost-cutting moves. Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, announced 18,000 layoffs in January, the largest in the company’s history and the single biggest staff cut in the industry since the economic downturn began last year.