Amazon Frown
Jeff Bezos is smiling. Not the charity registered with Amazon Smile.
Amazon Smile is possibly the greatest example of a Corporate Social Responsibility sham that exists.
Once or twice a year I get a message asking me to put up a special banner on my website or in my emails about a special Amazon Smile deal. I click delete. Really, I’m going to market Amazon for .5% for my charity?
Let’s think about it, I could write a potential donor and ask them for $100 to provide lifesaving surgery for a child in Kenya. Or I could write the potential donor and ask them to make a $100 Amazon Smile purchase, of which my charity would receive 50 cents. Which seems like the better use of my efforts?
No-brainer. . .the myth that we can actively do good through consumerism is one that needs to be dispelled. No offense to TOMS, but $50 to buy a cheap $9 shoe and give another $9 shoe to a kid in the developing world is not a great deal. I’ve never seen a Kenyan child wearing a pair of TOMS, but if I do, I hope their’s don’t get holes as quickly as mine did in America. (I did buy TOMS regularly when I used to have a real job and regular income, not because of charity but because they are stylish and comfortable. . .why not be honest).
