Recently, Amazon implemented a program called ‘Smile’ that allows you to select a charity who will get a small portion (0.5%) of your purchases. The beauty of this program is that you select your charity one time. Every visit to Amazon after that, they donate. Even better, if you forget to go to the ‘smile’ sub-domain, Amazon will usually remind you and give you a chance to one-click over.
When you consider that Amazon made $74.45 billion in revenue in 2013, this could potentially add up to serious money being donated to charities around the world. If 0.5% of all of their revenue in 2013 was donated, that would be $372,250,000. Yes, $372 million dollars. That is almost 2% of the estimated cost to end homelessness in the U.S. Not bad, that a single company has that capability and puts that power in the hands of their customers.
So click on smile.amazon.com once, choose your charity, and help contribute to your cause. Finally, spread the word. The more that opt in to this program, the more charities benefit.