October 31, 2013; USA TODAY
This holiday season, Amazon is in quite the charitable mood when it comes to giving away money to nonprofits. Amazon has released a new project, Amazon Smile, which gives shoppers the opportunity to donate through the site to the charity of their choice. By shopping at smile.amazon.com instead of plain old amazon.com, 0.5 percent of the value of their purchases will be donated. What’s even more amazing is that there seems to be no limit to the amount Amazon will give to charity, although as of now auto-renewed subscription purchases and digital products aren’t included in the AmazonSmile project.
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Ian McAllister, general manager of AmazonSmile, says the company did it simply “because it thought customers would love it.” Donations will be made on behalf of a foundation established by Amazon, so those using AmazonSmile will not be able to claim donations as charitable deductions.
Philanthropic charities looking to register their organizations can visit org.amazon.com, sign up, and begin spreading the AmazonSmile link to start the giving to your nonprofit. And, in a moment of shameless self-promotion, if you’d like to support the Nonprofit Quarterly (listed under the IRS and GuideStar as the Nonprofit Information Network Association) through AmazonSmile, please click here.—Aine Creedon
