Amazon Smile, which offered an alternative storefront experience to users, through which they could select charities for Amazon to donate to on their behalf, came to a close earlier this year in February 2023. With the program coming to an end, a large hole has been left in charity fundraising space. The way the program worked was that a user could sign up for a Smile account, select the charities they cared most about, and as long as they remembered to conduct their shopping on the Smile storefront instead of the main Amazon storefront, Amazon would donate 0.5% on behalf of the user.
Although Amazon cites a lack of impact as their primary stated reason for shuttering the program, over its 10 year lifespan, the program had a massive impact with a total amount donated coming exceedingly close to $500,000,000.00. Nearly half of a billion dollars. While that impact may be less than Amazon was expecting, the value the program provided to many of its beneficiaries is hard to express. St Jude Chidren’s Research Hospital alone recieved over $15,000,000 from the program during its 10 year lifespan. Many organizations came to depend upon this source of recurring donations.
Another benefit which is hard to measure is the more general socially positive outcomes from programs such as these. Studies have suggested that giving by proxy programs such as the one that Smile provided may encourage more charitable behavior for the participants moving forward [1].
Browsing For Change’s goal is to facilitate its own giving by proxy program for everyday end users of the internet. Unlike Amazon, Browsing For Change does not run a multi-100 billion dollar / year e-commerce platform. We do, however, see the value of small but consistent donations over time and the impact that these have on the bottom line for many charity organizations. We also see the value in providing a way for people to feel good about their internet usage, and we see the value in encouraging socially positive behavior over time. We hope that our platform will not only raise significant money for charitable organizations, but also that more people will be encouraged to make direct donations to the charities of their choosing. Learn more.